"but we also dare to submit that there is no hope for the US to sustain its role as the world’s sole superpower without the Europeans as allies."

Oh and what if the Europeans don´t want to sustain America´s role? I mean, do a survey in an arbitrary country of Western Europe and find out how much support there is for preparing the EU to counter America´s influence.

"The manifesto begins by arguing that many current and future threats – such as terrorism, international crime, demographic shifts, energy security, climate change, etc. – cannot effectively be addressed by any single country on its own."

Good point. Leaving neo-religious ideologies like the climate change aside (I don´t doubt its existence, I strongly doubt we small humans can do anything about it), who really thinks that America and Europe will be able to coordinate their energy interests in our lifetime?

I am very convinced that all of the above mentioned issues need to be coordinated in Europe. This itself is difficult enough. But with a totally different continent? Come on. Cooperation with Russia is more likely than this.

"NATO provides the best opportunity for western countries to address new threats because it "links together a group of countries that share the most important values and convictions and that took a decision to defend those values and convictions collectively."

*lol* yeah Europe and America share a whole lot of values. Pop music, Fast Food and Hollywood movies, for example.
We better not start to discuss what all those different countries like to defend (and what they don´t). Otherwise we might discover that each nation´s most-prized values might not be entirely identical..

"The manifesto ultimately proposes creating a “US-EU-NATO steering directorate," which would eventually address issues, “far wider and longer-term… than are normally on the table at international discussions,"

This sounds good. By the way, one could argue it has been tried with the UN, at the farest and widest term. This worked so well, we are sure in need of a comparable entity.

"democracies should unite in order to protect shared western values, such as human rights protection and the rule of law, against the imminent rise of non-democratic powers such as China and Russia, an argument very similiar to this new report on NATO."

Now how do you change a society you don´t like into one you like: By
A) Confronting the others in a systematical challenge like proposed here or by
B) Trading with each other and transporting the ways of life between each other as well ?

"the Bush Administration quietly launched last April along with Angela Merkel and Jose Manuel Barroso to create a Transatlantic Common Market between the EU and US by 2015."

Finally we see one both reasonable and imaginable agreement.

My point was not about ecological policies. I am no expert on that one, I lack the ideological gullibility ;)

I was talking about common energy security - which is impossible between two continents as long as transcontinental pipelines are the cheapest way of transporting energy ressources. America will never ever become so dependent on russian supplies like Europe has become simply for geographical regions.

Since Russia is our most important supplier, a common supply policy might as well be coordinated with them. It makes a lot more sense to cooperate with our main source than with our main competition.

"But... The international oil market is pretty fungible as a whole. When China doubles or triples it's useage the impact is global, so Europe and the US may eventually find rasons to make common cause."

Ok I can agree here. The combined influence of America and Europe on the international market sure opens the gateway for possible coordination in certain situations. But don´t you think this will be a lot more of a "acting as both may see fit"-approach than you would expect from allied partners?

To be honest, to me it looks like the traditional behavior of states that have a neutral (or no) alignment. When their interests coincide, they work together, when they don´t, well then they don´t. Very different from an alliance when you are supposed to support a partner simply because you are allied.