ABSTRACT
Media reporting and Western security discourse tend to portray Russia as the aggressor in its energy relations, increasingly able to convert its hydrocarbon supply to Europe into economic and political capital. Likewise, many Western scholarly works and analytical reports suggest that Europe is dangerously dependent on Russia.1 Some NATO members have even urged the creation of an “energy NATO” or suggested that the alliance define a shutoff of energy by Russia as an attack justifying the invocation of Article V on collective defense.2
Part of this perception has to do with the way Russia is pursuing business interests in Europe, a policy once described by Russian President Vladimir Putin as “energy supremacy.”3 Russia’s tactics regarding the pricing of gas to its Commonwealth of Independent State (CIS) customers and related shutoffs of gas and oil transiting Belarus and Ukraine to Europe, as well as its subsequent championing of transit options that bolster its near monopoly of gas supplies to Europe, concern many end-users. Moreover, Russia’s continued recalcitrance toward ratifying the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) and its recent effort to limit foreign investment in upstream ventures, such as Kovykta and Sakhalin, are viewed by some as unwarranted, given its demands for access to markets in Europe.4
However, as alarming as these recent developments have been for Europe and the US, the warnings emphasizing an encroaching Russian energy giant do not consider the strong interdependency between Russia and Europe that benefit both parties. This interdependency will remain well into the future, creating conditions that favor cooperation over confrontation.
