Well-Oiled Diplomacy: Strategic Manipulation and Russia’s Energy Statecraft in Eurasia

Examines Russia’s energy policy with rival Eurasian supplier states from 1992 to 2002.

As a window into understanding the relationship between globalization and the pursuit of national security, Adam N. Stulberg examines Russia’s mixed success at leveraging energy advantages in Eurasia from 1992 to 2002. Stulberg supplements traditional analyses of statecraft by highlighting indirect market and regulatory mechanisms for altering the behavior of foreign and subnational actors, as well as by demonstrating the usability of ＂soft power＂ and global networks. The power of this new theory of ＂strategic manipulation＂ is illustrated in several case studies, including Russia’s successful natural gas diplomacy toward Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, Russia’s troubled oil diplomacy toward Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, and Russia’s mixed success with commercial nuclear diplomacy toward Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

Adam N. Stulberg is Associate Professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology. He is coeditor (with James Clay Moltz and Vladimir A. Orlov) of Preventing Nuclear Meltdown: Managing Decentralization of Russia’s Nuclear Complex.