Energy Security Dilemmas in Eurasia: Russia's Energy Statecraft and the Contours of the 'Great Game' Redux

Abstract:     
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.”

Keywords: Russia, energy, energy security, Eurasia

Working Paper Series