Center Reveals Emerging Threat To Eastern Europe’s Independence: Soviet Energy Leverage

The Center for Security Policy today published evidence of the acute vulnerability of Eastern European nations seeking independence from the Soviet Union to Moscow’s coercive use of energy leverage.

In a major new paper entitled Energy Leverage: Moscow’s Ace in the Hole, the Center reveals that virtually every one of the East European states is heavily dependent upon Soviet exports of oil and natural gas. As a result, even as the Kremlin is obliged to remove its occupation forces from some or all of these countries, it may be able to slow the pace and even to alter the direction of democratic and free-market reforms in its erstwhile satellites.

Energy Leverage was adapted from remarks by a member of the Center’s Board of Advisor’s, Roger W. Robinson, Jr., on 24 February 1990 at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today. Robinson, a former Senior Director for International Economic Affairs at the National Security Council, observed, "One of the most strategically significant — yet least understood — risks to East European economic recovery emanates from the inordinate reliance of these countries on Soviet energy supplies."

The Center believes that, given the strategic importance of the energy sector and the Soviet Union’s capacity — and willingness — to apply its leverage in this area on the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe, it is clearly not in the interest of the West or the governments of Eastern Europe to enhance that capability. Accordingly, it calls on the Bush Administration to demonstrate that it is both prepared to reduce the present exposure of reforming East European nations to Soviet energy coercion and to discourage Western initiatives aimed at assisting the Soviet Union in further exploiting its energy resources. Specific measures for accomplishing these purposes are identified in Energy Leverage.

Copies of this paper, Robinson’s testimony and related materials may be obtained by contacting the Center.