Europe's Natural Gas Challenge and Help from the United States

Abstract

In the wake of Russia's seizure of the Crimea in 2014, then US President Barack Obama pledged to help Europe wean itself off its deep dependence on Russian natural gas—a strategic weapon Russia could use to compel most of Europe to politically and socially stand down when it was helpful to Russia's objectives to do so. President Obama pledged that if a few issues were resolved, the United States could provide significant amounts of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe to displace dependence on Russian supplies. One weakness in President Obama's pledge was that the US did not yet have any operational LNG export capability.