Pursuing Global Influence: Oil, Gas and Russia's New Foreign Policy Of Confrontation
White Paper: January 2009
SUMMARY: There has been an abrupt shift in Russian foreign policy since the August 2008 war in South Ossetia that is visible in recent actions by Russia in the energy sector. Russia has been quite visible on the gas front over the past several weeks, both backing the launch of a formal organization for gas exporters and engaging in a gas dispute with Ukraine that was unprecedented in scale. As relations between Russia and the West grow more confrontational, competition is intensifying for access to hydrocarbon resources in the Caspian and control of their transport to foreign markets.