CIAO DATE: 01/2009
Volume: 7, Issue: 4
Fall 2008
Complete Issue (PDF)
The Debate on NATO Expansion (PDF)
Eunika Katarzyna Frydrych
Energy Security and NATO: Any Role for the Alliance? (PDF)
Zurab Khamashuridze
Since its inception, one of the top priorities of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been maintaining the uninterrupted flow of energy resources, as it has always been directly linked to the organization’s operability and the security of its member states. For the Alliance, energy security has always meant first and foremost ensuring the supply of fuel to its forces. Energy scarcity and the inability of energy producing countries to increase exploration and extraction capacities creates additional tensions on the energy market, and even causes friction between states over securing energy resources. The poor reliability of aged energy infrastructures in some producer countries, combined with unstable political situations, policies of “petronationalism,” and terrorist attacks on strategic energy infrastructure elements have prompted NATO to discuss these issues within the Alliance. Already in the organization’s Strategic Concept of 1991, and then later in 1999, Allied nations recognized the disruption of the flow of vital natural resources as a potential threat and challenge to the organization in the coming century. NATO for the first time in its history put energy security on its political agenda, and paved the way for internal debates in order to determine what NATO’s role should be and where it might add value to overall energy security. Patrolling the world’s strategic energy chokepoints, conducting monitoring and threat assessment surveys on shipping lanes and providing training and support to domestic security services assigned to energy infrastructure are the areas where NATO could cooperate with producer and consumer countries in such formats and fora as the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI), the Mediterranean Dialogue (MD), and the NATO–Russia Council.
The Future of Russia: Outlook from the Center and the Regions (PDF)
Denis S. Alexeev
The U.S.-Russian Dispute Over Missile Defense (PDF)
Vladimir Rukavishnikov
The Military Profession, Public Trust, and Public Interest (PDF)
Giuseppe Caforio
The Divide Over European Security (PDF)
C.D. Van Aller