Nord Stream 2, a Russian pipeline project, is going to increase natural gas market share for the Kremlin, but is it going to become the next Cold War?

Being born in the early 1980’s, I missed out on the majority of the Cold War. Recently, I have been reading a lot about this period of time and how it began, what played out, and the way it ended. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Cold War has largely been considered over. The way I see it, though, their battle for control over natural gas could be my generation’s Cold War.

Historically, major exporters of oil and natural gas have been bullies. Russia has held the world hostage for decades by leveraging their oil and natural gas as bargaining chips; “do what we want or we cut off your supplies.”

Those supplies heat people’s homes, power their grids and fuel their industries. People around the world depend on oil and gas, so when there is a threat to be cut off, countries have long just fallen in line. This is not an empty assessment as Russia has done just this numerous times, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. Gazprom, Russia’s state-run natural gas company, has increased market share from a quarter to one-third of the EU’s gas market since the 1990’s. This significantly increases their sway within the EU.

Read more:

http://naturalgasnow.org/new-russian-nord-stream-pipeline-start-another-cold-war/