US Energy Diplomasi İn Caspian Sea Region Second Phase: under The Bush and Barack Obama Administrations

Historically, the US was concerned to ensure access to an adequate supply of foreign oil to make up for shortfalls in domestic production. For the most part, this involved efforts to ensure access to the Persian Gulf region, where US oil firms enjoyed an advantage, notably in Saudi Arabia. When access to the Gulf was endangered, whether by the Soviets, the Iranians, or the Iraqis, the US was prepared to employ force to ensure the safety of oil deliveries from the Gulf. But while the Gulf has always been the main focal point of US foreign energy policy, the US has also sought to diversify its foreign sources of crude so as to reduce the risks of over-reliance on one major source. Under this policy of "diversification," President Clinton made a major effort to increase US reliance on oil imports from the Caspian Sea area. Nowadays, US reliance on imported oil has diminished as a result of growing production from domestic shale reserves. In the process of industrialization and simultaneously the increasing needs of the US to energy sources abroad, it called the oil and gas regions as geopolitically strategic and committed itself to maintaining security of those regions which lead to energy security of supply. Indeed, the protection of the free market itself was maintained as a component of US security in and of itself. These policy drives manifested themselves in different ways in different places and eras. How they manifested in the Caspian was particularly unique in some respects. For one, due to historic reasons, the US only first developed a policy towards the region at all when it opened up subsequent to the dissolution of the U.S.S.R.