It’s Time to Be Honest About Fossil Fuels’ Role in Energy Transition
Brenda Shaffer argues the Biden administration needs a more honest energy policy, and fast. Fuel inflation has become a political liability. Natural gas shortages are threatening heating and electricity costs at home. Shaffer says calls on OPEC and Russia for more supply are a reactive scramble, not a strategy. The real problem is closer to […]
Is Europe’s Energy Crisis a Preview of America’s?
Brenda Shaffer says Europe’s energy crisis is mostly self-inflicted, and Washington is copying the same mistakes. Europe is facing record-high prices, tight supplies, and blackouts. It’s not simply a renewables-versus-fossil-fuels story. Part of it comes down to market design. The EU moved from long-term fixed gas contracts to daily spot pricing. That handed Russia more […]
The Hidden Dangers of a Carbon-Neutral Military
Brenda Shaffer and Alan Howard warn that an all-electric US military could be good for the planet and bad for national security. Right now the military draws on a mix of oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, hydropower, biofuels, wind, and solar. That mix is a strength. Narrowing it down to electricity alone would cut into […]
Iran is More Than Persia
In this monograph, published by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (April 28, 2021), Brenda Shaffer challenges the common assumption that Iran is a Persian nation-state. She shows that Persians make up less than half of Iran’s population, and that roughly 40 percent of Iranians lack fluency in Persian, with substantial minority communities including Azerbaijanis, […]
Iran’s Longstanding Cooperation with Armenia
Since the Soviet collapse, Iran has quietly backed Armenia in its conflict with Azerbaijan, serving as Yerevan’s main supply route during the first Karabakh war and continuing close energy and trade ties ever since. Brenda Shaffer argues this tilt was driven by Tehran’s fear of its own large ethnic-Azerbaijani population identifying with the newly independent […]
In the Era of U.S. Energy Abundance: The Role of the Caspian Region in U.S. Energy Policy
For decades, U.S. energy policy has treated allies’ energy security as a national security matter, and the Caspian region has drawn outsized bipartisan attention within that approach for over thirty years. Brenda Shaffer traces how Washington’s engagement with Caspian energy, from the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline onward, has endured even as America’s own energy abundance has grown, […]
Is Psagot Drinking Alone? Application of the CJEU Psagot Judgement to Other Territories the EU Considers Under Occupation
Brenda Shaffer and Yael Shaffer examine a 2019 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union in the Psagot case. The court held that goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights cannot be labeled Products of Israel when sold in the EU, since the EU does […]
Occupied Elsewhere: Selective Policies on Occupations
Svante E. Cornell and Brenda Shaffer examine how governments, companies, and NGOs set policy toward territories caught in protracted conflicts. Their examples range from Crimea and the West Bank to Nagorno-Karabakh and Western Sahara. They find that these policies are highly inconsistent. Goods from Jewish settlements in the West Bank must be specially labeled entering […]
New Stage in the Global Oil Price Cycle?
Brenda Shaffer argues that 2018 marked a new phase in the oil price cycle. Prices topped $70 a barrel before settling around $65. She says the move reflects simple supply and demand, not hidden forces. Demand is rising as global growth accelerates. Supply is strained by falling output in Venezuela and geopolitical risk in the […]
The Potential of Energy Data: A Guide to the Application of Energy Data for Intelligence Analysis
Brenda Shaffer offers intelligence and government analysts a practical guide to using energy data. She shows how figures on production, trade flows, and prices can inform political, economic, and risk assessments, especially for major oil and gas exporting states in the Middle East and beyond. The guide draws on her work with government research units […]