NATO’s Complimentary Role in Energy Security and Turkey’s Potential Contributions at the New Energy Geopolitics

Energy-related issues gained a prominent place within the NATO’s new strategic concept declaredduring the Lisbon Summit (November 20, 2010). This final strategic concept is to address twonew sources of threat within the new energy geopolitics - ‘resource nationalism’ and ‘energy terrorism’ -which deeply concern those NATO members that require imported energy resources to meet their soaringdomestic demand. Lisbon Summit to remove, if not alleviate, these security challenges tasked NATOwith a set of specific roles. As a melting pot of the said two energy related risks, Turkey with its pledgeto become the fourth energy artery of Europe will likely serve as a litmus test for NATO’s new energyrole. To what extent NATO will contribute to Turkey’s energy security will depend on the degree to whichAnkara will find conformity/coherence in between Turkey’s own energy security reliance on Russia andNATO’s possible demands sourcing from the Alliance’s new role conception (based around energy). Theprospect of such conformity/coherence matters for both the future terms of relations between the Allianceand Turkey and the relevance of NATO as a security providing organization within the upcomingdecades. Especially, in a period of time when the Georgian War of 2008 still haunts the Wider BlackSea Region meanwhile the Arab ‘Spring’ further eclipses already weak stability within the Middle East.