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PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
    • Ukraine Experts
    • About Membership
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
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Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • Illiberalism and Public Opinion Junctures in Russia’s War on Ukraine

    View
  • Policy Exchange Discussion & Memos: Guaranteeing Ukraine’s Long-Run Security (June 9)

    View
  • Ukraine’s Best Chance for Peace

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  • We want the war to end. But should calls for negotiating with Putin be taken seriously?

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  • Policy Briefs | BEAR Network-PONARS Eurasia Conference

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RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Policy Memo: Russia and the Geopolitics of Natural Gas: Leveraging or Succumbing to Revolution?

  • November 18, 2013
  • Adam Stulberg

The changing natural gas landscape—driven by the rise of liquid natural gas (LNG) projects, unconventional boom in North America, protracted global economic slowdown, post-Fukushima recalibration in the nuclear sector, and shifting geography of demand and supply—has renewed debate over the geopolitics of Russia’s energy security. A common refrain is that the increasing interconnectedness and flexibility of global gas markets will introduce a welcome corrective to Russia’s energy policies at home and abroad, encouraging pragmatic commercial dealings and political accommodation with European and Asian partners. Recent steps toward supply diversification and price renegotiation across Europe—especially among heavily import-dependent Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Ukraine— are seen as harbingers of this power shift in Eurasian energy diplomacy. 

Others, including the leadership in Moscow, dismiss the enthusiasm for shale as a “soap bubble” destined to burst. They boast that Russia will continue to enjoy incremental supply advantages to promote political ambitions in relations with rival Eurasian producers and vulnerable transit states and European customers. They see new favorable long-term supply deals with Serbia and Armenia, the defeat of the Nabucco bypass pipeline, and the wooing of Gazprom in the sell-off of the insolvent Greek national gas company as suggestive of Moscow’s lingering prowess and as evidence that its pooh-poohing of a global gas revolution may be more than wishful thinking.

This debate is traced to an underlying controversy between realism and its critics over the significance of energy resource nationalism. Yet this formulation presents a false dichotomy between globalization and geopolitics and neglects Moscow’s mixed record with gas diplomacy. As well, talk of the demise of a petro-gas state counts Russia down prematurely by overlooking Gazprom’s lasting competitive advantages in established markets across Eurasia. It also treats the revolutionary effects of the LNG-shale nexus as a given, without fully appreciating either the uncertainties of the latest trends or how Moscow’s current choices can affect future opportunities. Jettisoning such blinders reveals the promise of elevating joint profit-seeking interests over atavistic power plays for Russian, European, and American energy security. […]

Russia and the Geopolitics of Natural Gas: Leveraging or Succumbing to Revolution?

PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 296

By Adam Stulberg

View the Policy Memo (PDF)

Adam Stulberg
Website | + posts
Sam Nunn Professor and Chair in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs; Strategic Energy Institute

Affiliation

Georgia Institute of Technology

Links

Georgia Institute of Technology (Bio)

Expertise

Defense Transformation, Emerging Technology & International Security, Geopolitics of Energy, Illicit Nuclear Trafficking, International Security Policy, Nuclear & Nonproliferation
  • Adam Stulberg
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/adam-stulberg/
    Sanctions & War: Contending Western-Russian Approaches and Prospects for Strategic Stability
  • Adam Stulberg
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/adam-stulberg/
    Statecraft in U.S.-Russia Relations: Meaning, Dilemmas, and Significance
  • Adam Stulberg
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/adam-stulberg/
    Turning Rivals into Frenemies: Shifting U.S.-Russian Trajectories at the Nexus of Global Nuclear Commerce and Nonproliferation
  • Adam Stulberg
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/adam-stulberg/
    Russia’s Response to Sanctions: Reciprocal, Asymmetrical, or Orthogonal?
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