This Council Special Report explores the challenges faced by consumer and supplier alike in Europe and Eurasia. It looks at Russia's rise as an energy power, analyzing its control of supplies and delivery systems and its investments in energy infrastructure across Europe, as well as questions about the potential of its production. The report also examines Europe's difficulties in forging a common policy on energy supply and recommends a two-pronged strategy of integration and diversification. It urges Europe to integrate both internally -- developing a single EU gas market -- and externally -- tying Russia's energy sector to Europe and its more transparent regulations. It also recommends that Europe seek new sources of energy from both non-Russian suppliers and non-fossil fuels.

Why are bilateral relations, especially in the area of energy security, so different in the cases of U.S.-Russia, U.S.-Azerbaijan, and Russia-Germany energy deals? Why do some states find common ground despite differences, while others, with all the seemingly favourable conditions, are sinking into animosity? Energy Security and Cooperation in Eurasia explores varying outcomes of energy cooperation, defined as diplomatic relations, bilateral trade, and investment in oil and natural gas. The book looks at economic potential, geopolitical rivalry, and domestic interest groups in the cases of U.S.-Russia, U.S.-Azerbaijan, and Russia-Germany energy ties. It looks at major projects in each case (Sakhalin and Arctic oil and gas production, Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Nord Stream pipelines) and activities of international oil companies. The book also provides a detailed analysis of the situation in Ukraine since 2014 and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and their effect on European energy security. This book utilizes an innovative approach of exploring the dyads of states (bilateral relations) along the economic, geopolitical, and domestic lobbying dimensions. This book is a valuable resource for graduate and undergraduate students, academics and researchers in the areas of Security, Political Economy, Comparative Politics, post-Soviet studies, as well as for general public.

Many states appear to have strong sentiment on energy security and energy transit vulnerability. Some analysts see the rapidly increasing demand for energy and competition for energy resources leading to nationalistic energy policies. Others argue that global trends with efficient energy markets and growing options on renewables suggest more relaxed energy outlooks. This book focuses on Asia, where global demand for energy is now concentrated in the aspiring and rising powers of the region: China, India, Japan and South Korea, and also recognises the importance of Russia as a growing energy supplier. Contributions by experts in the field provide detailed and parallel case studies. Shedding light on the ongoing debate in the literature regarding energy outlooks of major Asian states, they analyse whether energy policies are expected to evolve along market oriented cooperative lines or more competitive and even destructive mercantile, nationalist lines. The book argues that states are not unitary actors even in the key energy security arena and there are competing and contrasting viewpoints in Asian states on energy security. It suggests that domestic debates structure thinking on energy security, making energy policy more contingent than assumed by purely market or geopolitical logics. Providing a strong contribution to comparative energy security studies, the book fills an important gap in the literature on energy and national security and offers a basis for conducting further inter-state, interactive analysis. It will be of interest to researchers on Asian Studies, energy politics and international relations.

This book closes an important gap in the literature and offers a fresh perspective on EU energy studies, and it will be an important contribution to the debate on the development of European integration and the EU's role in international relations.

This book provides an original and thoroughly academic analysis of the link between Russian energy and foreign policies in Eurasia, as well as offering an interpretation of Russia’s coherence on the international stage, seeking to understand Russia and explain its behaviour. The authors analyse both energy and foreign policies together, in order to better grasp their correlation and gain deeper understanding of broader geopolitical issues in Eurasia at a time when things could go either way—towards producers or towards consumers. Questioning the concept of ‘energy deterrence’ which aims to fuel uncertainty in Russia’s relations with its partners, as well as projecting its overall power on the international scene, this provocative volume seeks to stimulate debate on this very important issue. Assessing the weight that energy has in Russia’s foreign policy and in its pursuit of power on the international stage, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, energy politics, geopolitics and Russian and Central Asian Studies.

The recent Russia-Georgia conflict has ignited debate over the strategic posture of a “re-energized” Russia: Is it prepared to integrate with the world or venture down the path of a self-isolated bully in Eurasia to the detriment of global energy security? Will Moscow exploit its energy dominance for neo-imperialist ends, or will global market pressures trump the pull of realpolitik? Typically, this policy debate is traced to broader controversy between realism and its critics over the utility and practice of energy as a weapon of state power. Upon closer inspection, however, it appears that the conventional debate and its application to Russia is misplaced by presenting a false dichotomy between globalization and international security. The focus on Russia's recent assertiveness distorts its energy prowess and neglects Moscow's mixed success with energy diplomacy in Eurasia, including bouts of inadvertent escalation. Furthermore, the record of Russia's variable success not only poses analytical challenges for extant theories of statecraft, but highlights important differences among offensive and defensive realists concerning the motivation, explanation, and appropriateness of aggressive behavior. This paper seeks to fill this analytical void by advancing an alternative argument for energy statecraft. To explicate the distinction between offensive and defensive realism and the puzzle of Russia's mixed success at wielding natural gas and oil as instruments of strategic leverage, attention is drawn to energy security dilemmas. Specifically, there are market/infrastructure and domestic regulatory conditions that can blur delineation of strategic from commercial energy strategies, and that can advantage pursuit of politically motivated objectives over strictly commercial ventures. As these conditions directly shape the transparency of intentions and modalities of energy security, as well as affect the costs and risks of aggressive action for states and firms alike, they create windows either of opportunity for commercial engagement or of strategic vulnerability. These claims are tested in critical cases of Russia's contemporary pipeline diplomacy towards Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. Viewing the renewed contest over Caspian hydrocarbon supply through the prism of “energy security dilemmas” illuminates nuanced dimensions to interdependent Eurasian energy relations, as well as strategic challenges and opportunities for contending with Russia's global energy resurgence. In so doing, the paper advances the debate within the realist camp, suggesting how risk and domestic institutional factors can be systematically incorporated into “neoclassical” approaches to “soft power.”