The New Great Game A Study of International Energy Competition in the Caspian Sea Region

Date of Award

2008

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Hicks, Barbara

Keywords

Energy, Security, Caspian Sea Region

Area of Concentration

Political Science

Abstract

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Caspian Sea Region has been gripped by an intense international struggle over its rich resources and strategic position. At the heart of this "New Great Game" lie the Caspian�s abundant energy reserves, which serve not only as prizes of great power rivalry, but also as key modalities of geopolitical competition. In this race for petroleum and power, the United States, EU, China, and Russia, are each developing major energy export corridors that link their respective economies to the landlocked petroleum deposits of Central Asia and the South Caucasus. This thesis examines recent major pipeline developments in the region and assesses their medium-term impacts on Western energy security and the geopolitical balance in Eurasia. The key finding of the study is that, due to a number of endogenous and exogenous factors, the interests of the United States and Europe in the Caspian Sea Region are being dangerously marginalized by intense Russian and Chinese engagement of local producer states. Landmark progress on Russian and Chinese petroleum transport projects over the past year has severely damaged the feasibility of competing Western initiatives such as Nabucco, the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline, and Kazakh shipments for the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan Pipeline. The collapse of these projects constitutes a major setback for European energy diversification objectives and severely limits the West�s capacity to influence political and military developments in central Eurasia. Serving as a microcosm for energy politics on the global scale, the "New Great Game" offers an interesting case with which to study the globally competing relationships of liberal industrialized democracies and authoritarian capitalist states. In order to meet these international security challenges, Western policymakers must recognize the geopolitical transformations taking place in central Eurasia and reevaluate their policies toward this strategically important region.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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