Russia has set the agenda for the global transition to an entirely new model of international energy security designed to address intensifying concerns, especially those of the rising East.

Russia, possessing unequaled energy-based leverage, has taken the leadership among the world’s producers and the rising powerhouse economies of the East to promote a vast worldwide web of alliances and ties prominently featuring rigid bilateral, private long-term supply contracts.

This model runs counter to and increasingly circumvents the established liberal US-backed global oil market denominated in US dollars. The West relies on the current order for its energy security. It cannot function without it, and therefore the order is its single point of weakness. And Russia is acting as the “point man” to locate and exploit, with the help of its partners, this Achilles’ heel of the West.

Read full article, and see Part I here