CASPIAN ENERGY RESOURCES AND THE "PIPELINE WAR" IN EUROPE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: ENERGY GEOPOLITICS IN NORTHERN EURASIA

Abstract

In the post-9/11 world, energy resources have become the most coveted trophy, and force has become the main instrument, while national interests are prevailing over the hopes and illusions of the "democratic transit" of the 1990s. Russia and the United States are locked in rapidly accelerating rivalry over the Caspian's gas and gas pipelines (South Stream of Russia vs. Nabucco of the West). While at the turn of the 21st century, Russia did not have a trump card it could successfully use to oppose the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, later it armed itself with the South Stream to fight the "gas war." The two projects competed in the "dilemma of simultaneity" regime, which describes the dynamics of the struggle over several alternatives for the limited resources. The resultant "diversification race" started the European "pipeline war" of the 21st century. What triggered the race? Never before, even at the height of the Cold War, has the West been so vehemently determined to lower Europe's dependence on Soviet fuel; never before has the Caspian basin attracted the clashing political and economic interests of so many countries.