Energy Politics and Geopolitical Competition in the Caspian Basin

Abstract

This article explores geopolitical rivalry in the Caspian Basin, driven in large measure by the desire to control and exploit energy resources. It focuses in particular on actions by Russia, China, and the United States. While outside actors play an important role in the region, local states have demonstrated that they are not merely passive players. They have managed, in many cases, to use the ‘geopolitical pluralism’ of great power competition to gain room to maneuver. The result is a complicated picture of geopolitical balance. Looking ahead, however, China may be in the best position to assume the pre-eminent role in the region.

International Risk Factors Occurring in the Caspian Sea Region

“…Th e fall of the Nabucco-West pipeline project shows that cooperation between the states in the region will require from them a lot of work and eff ort. Th is eff ort is also necessary for solving and fi nishing the inveterate ethnic, religious, and territorial confl icts (Kubicek, 2013).…”

Great Powers and Geopolitics

“…Russia already makes heavy use of the Turkish Straits, through which the bulk of oil exports to Western markets pass. In order to reduce tanker traffic, Russia proposed the Burgas-Alexandroupoli pipeline, 9 which would carry Russian and possibly Caspian oil bypassing the Turkish straits and taking overland routes through Bulgaria and Greece (Kubicek 2013). Turkey, in turn, proposed an overland Samsun-Ceyhan pipeline as an alternative Bosphorus bypass.…”

Resource dependence and measurement technology: international and domestic influences on energy sector development in Armenia and Georgia

“…The related body of literature produced in recent decades has typically been concentrated in three general areas: (1) the political economy of resource-rich states, or the association between hydrocarbon wealth, authoritarianism and economic development in the countries of the Caspian Basin (Sabonis-Helf 2004;Franke, Gawrich, and Alakberov 2009;Jones Luong and Weinthal 2010); (2) energy security, or the alleged primacy of access to or control over oil, natural gas and electricity supplies and transshipment routes in regional international relations (Karagiannis 2002;Starr and Cornell 2005;German 2008); and (3) various and sundry iterations of the New Great Game theme, or the representation of local energy reserves as the focus of continual geostrategic competition among the major global powers (Edwards 2003;Nuriyev 2007;Kubicek 2013). …”