Much has been written during this century's energy security debate about the external threats the West faces to oil and natural gas supplies. This literature is often prescriptive, offering solutions to address these assumed threats. This research takes a much-needed look inward at the pressures placed on the multi-dimensional relationships within the transatlantic security community. An original contribution to knowledge is made through the exploration of these energy security tensions within the community and how they impact the two energy security prerequisites, availability and affordability. An examination of key oil and natural gas issues in the United States, Europe and the main transatlantic institutions demonstrates that the transatlantic community is very secure and often acts inadvertently to undermine its own energy security condition. Thus, the conventional wisdom that the supply of fossil fuel energy is a leading and high-priority security issue is challenged. Contrary to most literature, the conclusion is reached that energy security is actually not a high-level concern to the transatlantic security community, and that on occasions leading members of the community, who are high energy consumers, choose to put fossil fuel energy supply at risk to pursue political and strategic policies assigned a higher priority. In practice, producer states are found to be much more dependent on uninterrupted energy trade than consumer states, positively contributing to the reliability of oil and natural gas supply. In fact, through highly competitive political engagement with Russia and the Middle East North Africa region, the transatlantic states risk undermining the energy security of the community. Nevertheless, transatlantic energy security tensions have not risen to an actionable level. When placed in the overall context of transatlantic security issues, these energy security tensions do not threaten to divide the transatlantic community in any meaningful way.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:737931 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Hengel, Gabriel Josiah |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=235817 |
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