Terror in Iran: The Regime Is Pointing Fingers at ISIS to Distract from Domestic Unrest
EU Energy Policy: The Role of the South Caucasus
In this chapter from Geopolitics and Security: A New Strategy for the South Caucasus (Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Georgian Institute of Politics, and DGAP, 2018), Brenda Shaffer examines how energy has become a defining thread in EU-South Caucasus relations. She looks at the Southern Gas Corridor as the first new gas supply route to reach Europe in decades, […]
Moving Pieces: European energy security amid rapidly changing geopolitical developments
Brenda Shaffer and Neil Brown examine the geopolitical shifts threatening Europe’s natural gas security, from the removal of Iran sanctions to Russia-Turkey tensions, the Syrian civil war, and instability in the South Caucasus. The authors argue that Europe needs a clearer, more consistent natural gas policy rather than relying on market liberalization alone, and they […]
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Policy toward the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
This chapter, from The International Politics of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Conflict: The Original “Frozen Conflict” and European Security (ed. Svante E. Cornell, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), examines how Tehran approaches the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. Shaffer argues that Iran’s policy is driven by pragmatic security concerns rather than the religious solidarity often assumed to guide it. The chapter shows […]
Israel’s Energy Resource Management Policy: Lessons For Small Markets
Brenda Shaffer examines how Israel developed a management strategy for the major natural gas resources it discovered in 2009-2010, arguing that its initial approach of forming several inter-ministerial committees to weigh policy options before production and export began was unusual and useful, since most states start producing and exporting newly discovered energy resources without first […]
Ending the Petroleum Mystique: The Future of the Global Price of Oil
Brenda Shaffer argues that the global oil price, often assumed to be driven by hidden government or cartel machinations, is actually set by ordinary supply and demand, traded globally at a single price and prone to volatility because production cannot be quickly adjusted. She contends that OPEC has lost much of its historical power to […]
Europe’s Natural Gas Security of Supply: Policy Tools for Single Supplied States
Several European states depend on Russia as their sole supplier of natural gas, yet Brenda Shaffer’s case studies of Poland, Bulgaria, Lithuania, and Hungary show that single-supplier states can still secure adequate gas security without necessarily adding new supply sources or cutting their share of Russian gas. She finds that the most effective strategies are […]