Collective research "Russian Energy Security and Foreign Policy"

© Alexander Polyakov, RIA Novosti

Collective research "Russian Energy Security and Foreign Policy" , edited by Adrian Dellecker and the Valdai Club member Thomas Gomart was simultaneously published in the USA and Canada this month.

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 behavior.

The authors analyze 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.

The book begins by examining issues in the post-Soviet energy landscape under the section Energy's link to domestic and foreign policies. This opens with a broad discussion of concepts of energy security as they apply in the post-Soviet space (Frank Umbach), the impact of policy on production (William Tompson), the financial realities of pipeline construction (Jérôme Guillet), and ends with a concrete and timely example of rival policies for bringing Caspian gas to market (Maureen Crandall).

The book's second section, Russian foreign and energy relations with NIS net exporters, takes a closer look at Russia's relations with the NIS producers it depends upon for its westward contractual obligations, namely, Turkmenistan (Vladimir Milov), Kazakhstan (Martha Brill Olcott), Uzbekistan (Andrew Monaghan) and Azerbaijan (Pavel Baev).

The book's third and last section, Russian export policy and relations with transit countries, focuses on Russia’s most recent relations with transit countries as a whole (Leonid Grigoriev) and Georgia (John M. Roberts) and Belarus (Dr Rainer Lindner, Felix Hett, Folkert Garbe) in particular.

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.

Contributors:

Dr Pavel К. Baev is Research Professor at the International Peace Research Institute (PRIO), Oslo, Norway, where he specializes in energy interests in Russia's foreign and security policy.

Martha Brill Olcott is  Senior Associate in the Russian and Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Endowment, where she specializes in the problems of transitions and the security challenges in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Dr Maureen Crandall is Professor of Economics in the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at the National Defense University in Washington, DC. She has written on energy and political issues in the Caspian region.

Adrian Dellecker is  Manager of Research and Policy at WWF International in Switzerland and formerly in charge of the energy portfolio at Ifri's Russia/NIS Center.

Folkert Garbe is  Project Director of the Minsk Forum and a specialist in Russian-Belarusian relations.

Thomas Gomart is  Vice President for Strategic Development at Ifri (French Institute of International Relations, Paris), a Director of Ifri's Russian/NIS Center, and the Editor of the trilingual electronic collection Russie.Nei.Visions. He also teaches at the Military Academy of Saint-Cyr.

Dr Leonid Grigoriev is Professor at the High School of Economics in Moscow. He is a former Deputy Minister of Finance and Economy of the Russian Federation.

Dr Jérôme Guillet is  French investment banker who specializes in the struc¬tured finance activities in the oil and gas, power and renewable energy sectors.

Felix Hett is a Program Manager at the Moscow Office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

Dr Rainer Lindner is  Executive Director of the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations, a Professor at the University of Konstanz and a Chairman of the Minsk Forum.

Vladimir Milov is Russian politician and the President of the Institute of Energy Policy, a Moscow-based think-tank. He is a former Deputy Energy Minister of the Russian Federation.

Dr Andrew Monaghan is a Research Advisor in the Research Division of the NATO Defense College (NDC) in Rome. He is also the NDC's senior researcher on energy security matters.

John M. Roberts is  Energy Security Specialist with Piatt's, the world's leading independent source of energy information.

Dr William Tompson is  Head of the Regional and Rural Development Unit, Regional Development Policy Division, OECD Directorate for Public Governance and Territorial Development.

Dr Frank Umbach is Senior Associate and a Head of the Program "International Energy Security" at the Centre for European Security Strategies (CESS, GmbH), Munich, Berlin, and the Associate Director at the European Centre for Energy and Resource Security (EUCERS) at the King's College, London.