Gas Wars

For Russian President Vladimir Putin, the year 2006 was to mark Russia's return as a major power in international politics. Remember, for most of the twentieth century, the Soviet Union enjoyed superpower status because of its army, its nuclear weapons, and its communist ideology. For those living in the free world or under Soviet subjugation, these were all coercive assets. The Soviet Union held the world's attention out of fear, not respect. After a tumultuous decade of transition in the 1990s, which marginalized Russia as an international actor, Putin aspires to return Russia to its great-power status, not because of its army, ideology, or even nuclear weapons but because of its oil and gas.