New Threats to Oil and Gas in West Asia: Issues in India’s Energy Security

Unlike other aspects of non-traditional security, energy security has been very closely linked with military security. Very often, it is the powerful state-consumers seeking to preserve an uninterrupted supply of energy at an affordable price, who threaten and use military force. At times, it is individuals and groups within the energy-producing countries seeking to resist energy-driven foreign interventions, who disrupt the supplies. The energy-military security nexus is at its peak in the present circumstances – mainly in Iraq, but also in the energy-rich West Asia. The paper proposes to examine the global security/insecurity of energy and its likely implications for India. Without giving up diversification and self-reliance as options, we need to accept the fact that West Asia would remain the source of an overwhelming proportion of India’s oil and gas imports. India’s energy policy, in the circumstances, will have to proceed from this basic given.