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Paper short abstract

Russia's invasion of the neighboring Ukraine skyrocketed energy security to the world's agenda. By then, Europe had a few alternative sources/supply routes in the making for a few decades or in operation for a few years. Expertly negotiated, their geopolitical calculus involved cultural competence.

Paper long abstract

Few subjects have drawn more popular and academic interest over the past thirty years than the subject of energy security. Since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, 70s oil shocks, and recently, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States and the European Union (EU) have sought energy security by developing competing strategies and projects to secure new sources of energy. Their energy journey went from coal and oil to nuclear, culminating in fossil gas, the most intricate due to technical, economic, and geopolitical challenges in its supply chain. Europe’s post-war industrialization led to a surge in energy demand. The European gas market saw a boom, dominated by a few companies wielding significant monopsony power. Forty-six fossil gas pipeline and LNG projects were proposed for Europe between 1991 and 2025, sourcing gas from afar, while a third of which were built. Geopolitical infrastructures par excellence (Firat 2025), each pipeline was a tool for gas market design in the hands of EU technocrats and company experts. Designed to mitigate (not eliminate) Europe’s growing demand for fossil gas (energy security) along with the purchasing power and access to affordable energy of the citizens of EU member states (economic security), in this paper, I argue that, regarding which pipeline project should be built and which others should be shelved, the geopolitical calculus played an important factor in their design and negotiation. Significantly, that geopolitical calculus involved more than the alignment of technical superiority, economic feasibility, and state prowess. It involved cultural competence by expert negotiators.