ABSTRACT
Energy security has been a central concern of US foreign policy at least since the oil crisis of 1973. However, despite the fact that Russia is the world’s leading source of natural gas and second only to Saudi Arabia in oil production, the US has viewed Russian energy mainly through the prism of larger strategic considerations, such as competition for influence in the Caspian region, or a Russian threat to the independence of Ukraine. Plans to develop direct energy relations between the US and Russia have been slow to come to fruition, and only a handful of projects involving US companies inside Russia have got off the ground.
