Kevin Bi. Originally published in Winter 2018.

Russia has a weapon today that makes Western Europe its dependent, weakens Western sanctions, and could strangle Eastern Europe. It has more influence in the West than Russian election interference does and poses a greater threat to Eastern Europe than military incursion.

That weapon is natural gas. Russia’s vast supplies of natural gas offer immense geopolitical and economic strength that can be wielded against the rest of Europe. Despite the potency of natural gas as a geopolitical tool, however, it is also Russia’s greatest potential weakness—one that the West, particularly the United States, can exploit.

Russia’s natural gas dominance stretches back to the Cold War era. The Baltic states—Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia—inherited most of their gas infrastructure from the Soviet Union and have remained highly dependent on Russian gas even after the Cold War. Many other Eastern European states remain similarly dependent on Russia for their energy needs, giving the country the ability to threaten or influence its neighboring states. With the ability to withhold crucial natural gas supplies at any moment, Russia can coerce Eastern European states into becoming its allies and discourage them from joining the European Union.

While Eastern Europe has historically remained under the Russian sphere of influence, Western Europe has become vulnerable as well. The first “Nord Stream” pipeline currently connects Russia directly to Germany, arguably the center of Western European pow- an allies reduce energy dependence on Russia. Already, the United States has taken steps in this direction. In the summer of 2017, it began shipping natural gas to Europe in an effort to compete with Russia. US natural gas companies face substantial federal regulation on natural gas exports, but there are efforts to remove those restrictions. Republican Senators Bill Cassidy and Marco Rubio recently proposed a bill to fast-track approval of small-scale natural gas exports, increasing US export capacity and natural gas competitiveness.

Even with lifted restrictions, it is unlikely that America’s gas would be as competitive as Russia’s. Russia has an extensive infrastructure for transporting natural gas cheaply to Europe which the United States lacks. As a result, American natural gas is about 30 percent more expensive than Russia’s. However, the mere existence of a potential challenger has already forced Russia to reduce prices. Russia is as dependent on Europe as Europe is on Ryssua; 40 percent of Russia’s budget is comprised of oil and gas revenues, with European markets accounting for 75 percent of Russia’s natural gas exports. Given an alternative source of natural gas, albeit a more costly one, European states will be more willing and able to institute sanctions on the Russian energy. Russia’s ability to threaten Europe will also be greatly diminished. If Russia were to ever threaten a natural gas shutdown over geopolitical disputes, Europe—especially Eastern Europe—could depend on US supplies as a last resort.

While expanding natural gas exports to Europe would bolster US leverage in foreign relations with Russia, it is not without drawbacks. The main shortcoming is the environmental consequences of natural gas. Even though natural gas has lower carbon emissions than coal or fossil fuel, it could be less environmentally friendly in certain circumstances. Unlike traditional fossil fuels, where the greenhouse gas emissions occur during the consumption phase, the hazards of natural gas largely comes from the production phase. Natural gas is composed of methane, which is relatively harmless to the environment when burned. However, methane can be up to 70 times worse for the environment than carbon dioxide if it leaks into the atmosphere unburned during any point in the production process. Still, pollution from natural gas is a relatively milder problem compared to pollution from oil and coal, for emissions from the production process is more amenable than those from consumption.

Yet methane is not the only environmental problem associated with natural gas. Much of natural gas production in the United States occurs through hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking.” Fracking remains a very controversial technique for oil and gas production today. It involves drilling into the ground and injecting a combination of water, sand, and chemicals into shale rock to release gas that can be captured and used for energy production. Both the chemicals used during the injection process and those that are released as a result of drilling have the potential to contaminate nearby water supplies, and the injection process itself has been linked to earthquakes with magnitudes as high as 5.2 on the Richter scale. Thus, in order to mitigate the environmental impacts of fracking while providing a reliable source of natural gas production,  the United States should fund research and development of improved fracking techniques.

The final concern with natural resource exports to Europe is economic. The United States is not only a producer of natural gas but also a major consumer. In 2016, the United States consumed 27.49 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, accounting for 29 percent of its total primary energy consumption. The current restrictions on natural gas exports have kept prices lower in the United States due to a lower market demand than the rest of the world. This means that removing these restrictions carries the risk of raising prices for US households. Natural gas exports could also yield long term economic gains for the United States through higher profits and more jobs for exporters. Nonetheless, advocating for higher domestic energy prices in pursuit of foreign policy objective would be politically difficult.

Natural gas represents a significant threat to Europe, but also a key opportunity for the United States to alleviate Russian geopolitical power rooted in the energy source. If the United States is able to capitalize on its natural gas potential, Russian influence over the surrounding countries would diminish substantially. Yet in order to utilize this opportunity to check Russian aggression, the United States needs to balance its foreign policy objectives with the significant environmental and economic concerns of natural gas exports. The ambiguous Russia policy of the current administration complicates these consideration, though these challenges should not stunt US efforts to rival Russia’s natural gas. Russia has too often caught the West flat-footed, most notably in Ukraine and Syria. With its energy potential, the United States has the chance to turn the tables.