The transformation of the global energy market has been so swift that strategic thinkers have had difficulty internalizing the consequences of a massive expansion of supply. In the United States, the long-aspired epitome of energy independence arrived so unexpectedly that policy planners now appear lost in defining exactly what the country’s national interests are in the Persian Gulf. In Russia, the path from ambition to become an “energy superpower” to suspicion of having been reduced to a “raw material appendage” has been so swift that the two perceptions have blended into an unhealthy obsession with the energy business. There is no intention here to add to this obsession, but it appears useful to examine Russia’s residual capacity for instrumentalizing energy exports to achieve its political goals and to investigate the intrigue around control of this uncertain capacity. […]
How Russia’s Energy "Weapon" Turned into an Oil Pillow and Gas Rattle
PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 294
By Pavel Baev
