THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S APPROACH TO ENERGY SECURITY IN POLAND AND THE BALTIC STATES

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1/2020) ◽  
pp. 33-67
Author(s):  
Olga Stevanovic

The subject of this paper encompasses US policy towards Poland and the Baltic States regarding energy security during Donald Trump’s presidency. It is discernible that vast domestic energy resources have created an opportunity for the US to project more power to these countries, and the surrounding region. We argue that Trump and his administration’s perceptions have served as an intervening variable in that opportunity assessment, in accordance with the neoclassical realist theory. The main research question addressed in this paper is whether US has used that opportunity to contribute to energy security in countries it has traditionally deemed as allies. Two aspects of US approach to energy security of the designated countries are taken into consideration: liquified natural gas exports and support for the Three Seas Initiative. The way Trump presented his policy and its results in his public statements has also been considered in this paper. The article will proceed as follows. The first subsection of the paper represents a summary of energy security challenges in Poland and the Baltic States. The second subsection is dedicated to the opportunity for the US to project energy power and to Trump’s perceptions relevant for the opportunity assessment. The third subsection deals with American LNG exports to these countries as a possible way for contributing to energy security in Poland and the Baltic States. The last part of the paper addresses the Three Seas Initiative and US approach to this platform.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nana Pirtskhelani

This paper focuses on studying the prioritization process of national interests of energy import-dependent states. In particular, considering the energy strategy formation processes of Georgia and Lithuania, it explores the interrelation among the objectives of supply security and national security challenges. The reason behind the choice of the given countries was that energy security policies of both countries were formed based on identical characteristics after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Analysis of the mentioned cases offers a good opportunity to explain how foreign policy threats affect national energy security decisions. The study also examines the major factors affecting prioritization of national security interests, providing a possibility to answer the main research question of the paper - what prompts states to pursue less rational policies in terms of energy security, justified by maintaining state sovereignty? Using the securitization concept, the paper also explains what leads to taking steps aimed at solving national security challenges, which may, in turn, lead to the emergence of new types of security challenges. Analysis of the mentioned cases offers a good opportunity to explain how foreign policy threats affect national energy security decisions, whether such threats cause new energy challenges to be subject to political interests and whether it is appropriate for states to pursue such energy policy with the motive of maintaining state sovereignty. The paper indicates that energy policies purely formed based on political interests, may not face the main energy security challenges of the country.


2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-219
Author(s):  
Wojciech Łysek

This article is dedicated to the attitudes of the Baltic States towards the protests in Belarus in August 2020. The analysis uses the category of a small state. It seems to best characterise the role of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in international relations. The first part of this article describes the relations of these three countries with Belarus before 2020. Then, the emphasis is put on the instruments and strategies which have been used by the Baltic States towards Belarus since the presidential elections in August 2020. The article discusses the role of a regional, expert, hidden subjectivity using multilateral formats, good services, entrepreneurial and silent diplomacy. In his considerations, the author presents the reactions of the authorities and societies. The article is based on state documents, analyses, politicians’ speeches, press materials and literature on the subject.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Miguel Sousa ◽  
Maria J. Sousa ◽  
Rui Cruz ◽  
◽  
◽  
...  

This article aims to study international trade specificity and the main activities of Chinese companies in US markets. It addresses the strategic tools of companies and their application in a global and very competitive market, framed by public policies and governments' strategies. It explores the principles of the internal and external environment of the countries. The main research question is: what are the dimensions of a model to potentiate the US–China Companies? The principal methodology used in this research was a literature review, and the analysis was based on the papers that research the theme US and China trade relations. The findings reflect that international trade is conditioned by the government politics, and there are several other obstacles that a US or Chinese company need to overcome: (a) economic forces; (b) technological forces; (c) political–legal forces; (d) sociocultural forces; and (e) physical forces.


Author(s):  
Irina Pilvere ◽  
Aija Pilvere-Javorska ◽  
Baiba Rivza

Stock market is alternative place to bank lending for company’s finance and contributor to economic development. Baltic States is market, which traditionally is perceived as one, however it is comprised of 3 separate stock markets. Research aim was to conduct comparative analysis of stock market development performance post-recession in the Baltic States.. In order to perform analysis, number of listed companies, their market capitalization and structure in Baltic States were analyzed and also compared to main economic indicators structure in 2008-2018 6 months. The main research methods are: analysis, synthesis, the logical construction method, the induction and deduction methods, as well as time series analysis. Authors have determined main stock market performance indicators and compared stock market indicators structure with Baltic region’s economic structure. Research results indicates that number of listed companies had increased only in Estonia, also market capitalization there had experienced their value to more than double in analyzed period. In Lithuania number of companies had declined, while market capitalization the growth was slower when compared to in Estonia, while more linear. In turn, stock market capitalization and number of listed companies in Latvia were declining in 2008-2018 6 months. Overall number of listed companies in Baltic States was decreasing, while their market capitalization is increasing, but still is only 60% of value it was in pre-recession year 2007. In Estonia and in Lithuania average listed companies are larger in size, when compared to in Latvia. Size of average listed companies on stock market in Estonia and in Lithuania more than doubled in size, while in Latvia it showed insignificant growth. Stock market indicators’ structure had insignificant deviations from the main economic indicator structure in 2008, while in 6 months 2018 dynamics in Latvia stock market parameters had dropped in the structure among all 3 Baltic States. Overall, in Latvia stock market is lagging behind, when compared to one in Estonia and in Lithuania in analyzed period, thus all 3 Baltic States has had asymmetrical recovery and development speed post-recession.


Author(s):  
Morgandi Tibisay ◽  
Viñuales Jorge E

This chapter investigates the concept of ‘energy security’, understood as the ‘uninterrupted availability of energy resources at an affordable price’. Importantly, according to this definition, the ‘availability’ of energy resources is measured against existing energy demand, and threats to energy security are therefore threats to the supply of enough energy to meet existing energy demand. Energy supply depends upon both domestic and international factors which are so interconnected that it is difficult to distinguish where one starts and the other ends. What is clear, however, is that international law plays a fundamental role in addressing many threats to energy security. The chapter looks at existing threats to energy security and the international legal frameworks that have been established in response. The challenges to energy security include an exponential increase in world energy demand, shortages of national oil and gas deposits, the need to reduce dependence on fossil fuel production in order to counteract climate change, as well as risks of geopolitical instability. The chapter then focuses on the mechanisms aimed to ensure that the flow of energy remains uninterrupted and at an affordable price, as well as on those mechanisms aimed at increasing access to energy resources.


Significance BALTOPS 16 will be the largest NATO maritime exercise in the Baltic Sea in recent years. The exercise is also held mere weeks before NATO's July 8-9 summit in Warsaw, and therefore serves as a tangible prelude to the alliance's intent to address renewed Russian security challenges in the region. Impacts Improvements in Western missile defence systems will make it more difficult politically to undergo arms control cooperation with Moscow. Poland's military modernisation programme will boost its ability to be a security partner of the Baltic states. Washington is unlikely to approve a permanent US military presence in the Baltic states in the near-to-medium term.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 55-67
Author(s):  
Christopher Kulander ◽  

At the heart of the European Union (“EU”) energy policy is energy security. Energy security is maintained, in part, by a diversification of supply. Despite the fact that the EU has prioritized diversification, its dependency on Russian natural gas has increased in recent years. Contemporaneously, the politicalrelationship between the EU and Russia has worsened. Construction of NordStream 2(“NS2”) will further establish Russia as the dominant supplier of natural gas to the EU while lessening the diversification of its energy supply. To further the EU’s stated goals of energy diversification and security, another steady source of natural gas imports for the countries along the Baltic Sea is needed. LNG importation assets in Poland and the Baltic states exist for this purpose. Unlike other EU members, these countries have demonstrated the economic and political will to curb the coercive influence of Russian natural gas imports. America is awash in natural gas, with plenty for export and can sendincreasing volumes of LNG worldwide. In contrast to other sources, America is well located to supply Europe with secure LNG, and its importation should be a shared goal of the EU and America. Despite the desire of some American statesmen to use the “shale gas revolution” to further U.S. geopolitical goals; however, the U.S. hydrocarbon industry (unlike in Russia) is overwhelmingly controlled by private landowners and industry. The goal oft he American, Polish, and the Balticstates should therefore be narrowly focusedon establishing free trade agreements and the encouragement of longer-term contractual relationships between America and Poland and the Baltic states.


2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 365-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehdi Parvizi Amineh ◽  
Henk Houweling

AbstractThis article discusses the global geopolitics of energy security in the post-Cold War environment. Energy companies headquartered in western countries have long history of accessing energy resources beyond borders through invasion of the host by their home state, followed by domination and the creation of property rights to explore and sell oil. Conquest and domination, respectively voluntary exchange are the survival strategies of human groups in the global system. The article differentiates between demand-induced scarcity, supply-induced scarcity, structural scarcity, and the creation and transfer of property rights. Together, the behaviors referred to by these concepts create a field of social forces that cross state borders and involve state and non-state actors. Monopolizing control over energy resources by the Anglo-Saxon maritime powers was one of the causes of both world wars. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has been creating a land-based extension of its post-World War II defense perimeter. It runs from Romania, via Central Eurasia, to Israel, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Overland transport increasingly connects economies and energy supplies on the Central European and Pacific sides of the Eurasian continent. The US, therefore, has decided to bring under its military umbrella the energy-carrying region between industrializing China and India, recovering Russia and unifying Europe. China's policy to secure its energy supply by direct contracting with the home state and legal owner of the stock, brings it into confrontation with the US. The latter consumes one-quarter of the energy assumed to be present in the Greater Middle East. In recent decades, the Chinese economy has been growing at a rate substantially above the worldwide growth rate, which implies that China's share in the world economy is increasing over time. Accordingly, China is becoming more dependent on imports, especially energy. The US domestic oil production peaked in 1970-71. Thus, the US has no spare capacity to provide its allies in Europe and East Asia in case of an interruption of supply. The conquest of Iraq by the US and its allies, and the transfer of the management of the oil sector from the state to a US tax-paying private company opens a new era of violent interstate competition for access to and control of fossil energy sources.


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 80-87
Author(s):  
Volodymur Yushkevych

The article covers one of the problematic aspects of US-Soviet relations in the first post-war years - the issue of «the controversial refugees», appeared due to non-recognition by the United States of Soviet annexation of the Baltic States and the conduct of forced repatriation by the USSR. American diplomacy during the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt adhered to the «non-recognition policy», concluded in the Stimson Doctrine (January 7, 1932) and the Welles Declaration (July 23, 1940). However, declared foreign policy acts did not lead to a decrease of the level of official relations with the aggressor state. At the same time, the official Washington did not consider the Balts as citizens of the USSR and retained the diplomatic missions of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in the United States. Under the administration of President Harry Truman, the course of non-recognition of the «voluntary entry of the three Baltic republics into the USSR» continued.It was researched that after the end of the Second World War, refugees and displaced persons from the Baltic-occupied Soviet Union were located in Austria, Italy, France and Switzerland. The large contingent was within the limits of the American occupation zone in Germany, the vast majority were immigrants from Lithuania. The attention was paid to the factors that led to the mass exodus of Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians from 1943 to 1944. It is outlined the special place of American diaspora civic organizations in collecting of financial assistance and coordination of their activities with the US State Department. It is also defined the role of representatives of the Catholic and Protestant national churches.The researched paper contains an analysis of correspondence between the leaders of the American diplomatic missions of Lithuania (Povilas Žadeikis), Latvia (Alfrēds Bīlmanis) and Estonia (Johannes Kaiv) with the US Department of State. Baltic diplomats constantly emphasized the need to confront the Soviet propaganda machine with regard to the denial of the «voluntary Sovietization of the Baltic» and the practice of sweeping accusation of refugees in «betrayal» and «cooperation with the Germans». In turn, they pointed to the need to extend the jurisdiction and mandate of international organizations on Baltic refugees, to determine their legal status and to prevent their recognition as the Soviet citizens in some European countries.The article deals with the documental potential of the diplomatic correspondence of the US foreign policy department. Attention is drawn to the analysis of this issue in the research works of foreign historians.During the first post-war years in matter of refugees’ problem and displaced persons, it was found that American diplomacy was in search of consensus between humanitarian reasons for ensuring human rights to asylum and the fulfillment of allied obligations in course of the activities of Soviet repatriation missions. However, «Baltic refugees» were a separate category, which Americans tried not to extradite from their occupied territory to the USSR cause of their non-recognition policy of Soviet annexation of Baltic states.


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