In this chapter, “Energy and Security in the South Caucasus” (in Security and Cross-Border Cooperation in the EU, the Black Sea Region and Southern Caucasus, ed. Ayça Ergun and Hamlet Isaxanli, NATO Science for Peace and Security Series, IOS Press, 2013, pp. 167-175),
Brenda Shaffer looks at how much energy actually shapes security outcomes in the South Caucasus and Caspian region. Her central claim is that energy is a real factor but not the main driver of the region’s security dynamics: it played little part in the outbreak of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict or Georgia’s secessionist conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and being a major energy exporter or transit state has done little to help Azerbaijan or Georgia recover their occupied territories.
She also finds that energy flows have not functioned as an inducement to peace and are unlikely to do so going forward. Where energy does matter, Shaffer argues, is in keeping the Caspian producers on the West’s security radar, in giving regional and global powers a reason to compete for influence over pipeline routes and energy infrastructure, and in giving transit states leverage over their landlocked, energy-producing neighbors.
She also notes that Azerbaijan’s oil and gas wealth has funded a serious military buildup that will shape the region’s security balance for years to come.
