ABSTRACT
Many of the debates that have been described in this work occurred in a geopolitical and economic context that was quite different from today’s, notwithstanding frequent references to a new Cold War between Russia and the US, especially in relation to the ongoing Syrian civil war. There are nevertheless marked similarities with the current global hydrocarbon scene, as many of the arguments advanced at the time continue to be employed: Europe’s energy vulnerability and need for a diversification of energy sources; its dependence on foreign hydrocarbon sources, with the Cold War dependency on Soviet oil being replaced by current dependency on Russian gas; but also the subordination of national governments’ foreign affairs policies to energy company strategies, cloaked in the language of national security. 1 Understanding these recurring long-term themes in global oil dynamics therefore helps us to eschew presentist narratives of exceptionalism, and to interpret present-day oil policies in strong continuity with those of the recent past.
