Geopolitics and vulnerabilities in Azerbaijan’s energy sector

Geopolitical uncertainty has combined with oil and gas resources and the imperatives of geography to shape Azerbaijan's foreign policy.  The country's current boom represents the coming together of instability in the Middle East and the isolation of Iran, Western efforts to limit Russian control of energy supplies to Europe, and infrastructure developments like the BTC and BTE pipelines.  But even as Azerbaijan benefits from that, Baku has acknowledged the dangers of both the so-called Dutch disease and future declines in production at its major fields and adopted domestic policies designed to limit the impact of these developments ...