The energy problematic

The Caspian region and Central Asia are the new energy tanks for developed and developing countries. The importance of the energy issue is not negligible. This is the main subject of every important meeting held by international organizations, institutions and even by the European Union. This topic has become so important that it can even prevent other issues from being discussed. As it is the case with terrorism, energy has become a key word on the international scene and every international problem and disagreement is somehow connected to it.

The region’s states’ main motivation is to become more prosperous and thus they try to find ways to transfer their oil and natural gas resources to the world markets as quickly as possible. On the other hand, those who want to use these resources fight to acquire these with the least cost. Every supplier country wants to become the “main supplier,” which would help it to dictate the prices because no one wants to sell its product cheap. This state of affairs increases the rivalry between supplier countries and the fight between the consumer ones. However, the energy market is not only influenced by the consumer’s needs. Exploration, storage and transfer are important aspects of this market and variables of the rivalry between different actors. We should also add some other players of the energy sector into this equation: the public and private energy companies. When big companies negotiate with the political leaders of the supplier countries, an asymmetric relation is promptly established. There are two kinds of relations between the supplier state’s governments and the gigantic global energy firms: the political leaders can reach to an agreement with the firm, undermining financial transparency and the legal processes; or the firm itself can become the sponsor of the political crises that help to overthrow the government of the supplier country. But today, the center of the debate is Russia and these two ways are simply not suitable for a country of its size and power, which makes the situation complicated.

 The controversy concerning the transfer of energy expands the dimensions of the conflict because some countries that are neither big suppliers nor big consumers are part of this debate thanks to their geographical positions or political ties. Moreover, a destructive rivalry exists between those who can and who want to assure the energy transfer. In brief, the problem is to designate which resource will be bought from which country and which company will transfer it from which itinerary. The main parameters of this debate are established by the great powers. That’s why the transfer countries’ choices are dictated by political decisions and not only by economic rationalities. The political blocs become obvious under these circumstances.

Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran, Uzbekistan and Ukraine have still not made their political choices, and that’s why they will face important political and economic costs. It would be a mistake to believe one can be on good terms with every great power at the same time.