Natural Gas as an Instrument of Russian State Power

Natural Gas as an Instrument of State Power is a book written by Ion A. Iftimie. The author defended the proposed concept before the leadership of the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School on June 2nd, 2011. by the Strategic Studies Institute. The publication supported the Energy Security Initiative of Senator Richard Lugar, head of the U.S. Senate's Foreign Relations Committee. In 2015, the second edition of the book was published by Westphalia Press, an imprint of the Policy Studies Organization. The book is a recommended reading by NATO on energy security and was quoted in early reports prepared for the European Parliament to provide an overview of the energy sectors of the countries of the .
History of primary energy sources as economic weapons
In 1935 the League of Nations imposed an oil embargo on Italy in order to make it discontinue the aggression towards Ethiopia; effectively coining the concept of the "oil weapon". In 1941, the United States imposed an oil embargo on Japan following its incursion into northern Indochina. The most known example of oil as a "weapon" is, however, the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) imposed an oil embargo meant to lessen the American support for Israel. In1995, Senator Alfonse D'Amato introduced the “Iran Foreign Oil Sanctions Act” to sanction foreign firms' exports to Iran of energy technology. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JPCOA) has lessened some of the oil sanctions against Iran. However, in 2018, the United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, reenforcing the oil sanctions. In 2019, the U.S. also formally adopted sanctions on Venezuelan national oil company PDVSA, as well as on CITGO, its US-based distribution arm. Despite precedent, the use of oil as an economic weapon has arguably failed throughout history to reach its intended scope.On the eve of the Riga Summit, Senator Richard Lugar, head of the U.S. Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, declared that "the most likely source of armed conflict in the European theatre and the surrounding regions will be energy scarcity and manipulation." In support of this assertion, the author argues that Russia developed "the capacity to use unilateral economic sanctions in the form of gas pricing and gas disruptions against many European North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member states".:
* 100%
* 100%
* 100%
* 100%
* 100%
* 97%
* 83%
* 72%
* 66%
* 63%
* 62%
* 57%
* 46%
* 34%
* 18%
* 5%
* 1.1%
Combined, these nations represent 66.1% of Russia’s overall natural gas exports. Simple arithmetic dictates that a complete shutoff of Russian natural gas to Europe would hurt the Russian economy more than the EU’s economy. The author argues, however, that it would also bankrupt the industry of the Baltic States, Finland, and most ECE countries. Because the price they would pay is significantly higher, these nations are less likely to stand up united with the West against Russia in more than just words; in which case Russia needs only to find a reason to renegotiate the price of natural gas with these nations to silence them. The author argues, however, that EU’s failure to successfully advance a common energy policy can be exemplified by the building of the Nord Stream pipeline, which embodies the divisions between the center and the periphery of the EU—between Old and New Europe.<ref name=":0" />

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