Natural Gas as an Instrument of Russian State Power

Since the Cold War, Russia has been perceived as a broken nation that no longer represents a threat to the North Atlantic Alliance. This book emphasizes that Russia overcame this major vulnerability by developing the capacity to use unilateral economic sanctions in the form of gas pricing and gas disruptions against many European North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member states. It agrees with many scholars and politics alike who fear that Russia will leverage its monopoly of natural gas to gain political concessions. The author suggests it is only a matter of time until Russia will use natural gas as an instrument of coercion to disrupt NATO’s decision making process. -Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr. Director, Strategic Studies Institute A former Intelligence Officer, Ion A. Iftimie is an energy security expert with over one decade of successfully advising senior military, business, and government leaders on Eurasian natural gas industry and related national security issues. This is the second, revised edition.