Gas Geoeconomics In Europe: Make Russia A "Normal" Gas Supplier Again
2018-04-26 09:58:25 source：Forbes
April 25, 2018
The U.S. should ramp up its energy diplomacy in Europe and help better insulate our European partners from Russian gas coercion. Gas supplies are a powerful tool of geoeconomics--using “economic instruments to produce beneficial geopolitical results.” To date, Moscow has dominated this game. The shale revolution offers Washington and its partners an opportunity to right the balance and further harness the benefits of globally abundant natural gas. European consumers’ economic security would benefit—and with it, the Continent’s overall security in the face of increasingly aggressive Russian behavior.
Our new working paper, “Gas Geoeconomics in Europe: Using Strategic Investments to Promote Market Liberalization, Counterbalance Russian Revanchism, and Enhance European Energy Security,” offers U.S. and European stakeholders new and scalable policy options to help achieve at least three key objectives. These are: (1) diversify gas supply sources, (2) make Russia a “normal” commodity supplier that is less able to selectively employ gas supplies as a coercive instrument, and (3) accelerate the liberalization of gas markets in Europe.
Russia is not a standard commodity supplier. Commodity producers and their customers often disagree about fundamental national interests—witness the 1973 Arab oil embargo against the U.S. and other countries that materially supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Yet it is virtually unprecedented for a large commodity supplier to purposely and systematically attempt to undermine national political and governmental institutions in customer countries. Russia has done just that for years in Central and Eastern Europe. More recently, the Kremlin has intensified its influence operations in Western European countries, including Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands—nearly all of whom are increasing their use of Russian gas.
Read more: