On October 27, 2017, Brenda Shaffer spoke at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Energy Academic Group on why successive U.S. administrations have kept pushing Caspian energy development and westward pipeline routes, even as America’s own oil and gas production has boomed.
Her answer was that Washington’s real interest isn’t the energy itself but international security: giving Caspian states independent revenue streams and infrastructure links to the West helps them resist pressure from more powerful neighbors.
Shaffer framed the Caspian as a strategic crossroads between Russia and China, bordered by Iran, Turkey, and Europe, and argued that its stability feeds directly into U.S. priorities in Iran, Afghanistan, and the wider Middle East. She also addressed Europe’s energy security, explaining how pipeline gas from the Caspian can reach landlocked markets that U.S. LNG serves only at a higher cost.