the European countries will have to rely more on energy resources from the US or the energy providers it controls, although at a higher price, binding their economies closer to it.

I don't believe that to be true (need to see some numbers). The massive expansion of LPG in recent years, not only from the US, has created a perfectly fungible and much more competitive market, as far as I can see (somebody please correct me if that is not the case). Putin will have no difficulties selling his gas eastward, Europe can get tankers from the middle east and the US, zero sum game. Energy prices are high because of rising demand (and producers clutching the throttle), but that can be fixed... Probably by massive demand destruction.


_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}