Nato leaders will study at a summit starting on Tuesday whether the alliance should take more action to avert potential threats to energy supplies, for example by mounting patrols of key shipping lanes.
The talks in the Latvian capital Riga, the first Nato summit on former Soviet soil, come amid Western concerns that Russia is exploiting its vast energy wealth to gain political influence over import-dependent countries in Europe. "Energy security is a Nato-relevant subject," Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told Reuters in an interview ahead of the Riga summit.
"I hope heads of state and government will ask us in the North Atlantic Council to define the added value that Nato could bring in the discussion on energy security," he said of the alliance's main policy-forming council.
While energy security has always in theory been a concern of the 57-year-old alliance, the issue has gained prominence since Moscow last winter briefly cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in a pricing row. Recent unrest in Nigeria and sabotage in Iraq have highlighted the vulnerability of energy supplies, and security analysts warn that terrorist groups could inflict damage on Western economies with attacks on oil or other facilities.
Nato's top commander of operations, US General James Jones, has said he sees a potential role for the alliance in protecting key shipping lanes such as those around the Black Sea and oil supply routes from Africa to Europe. While Washington is open to discussion, a number of European nations are wary about entrusting the alliance with security tasks which they consider are national responsibilities, such as the protection of pipelines.
A policy document to be discussed in Riga setting out key threats to Nato allies over the next 10-15 years lists "the disruption of the flow of vital resources" among them, according to a copy obtained by Reuters, but goes no further for now.
US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Dick Lugar will open a conference on the sidelines of the Riga summit on Monday with a strong call on Nato to vow to come to the aid of any ally facing a threat to its energy supplies.
"Nato must determine what steps it is willing to take if Poland, Germany, Hungary, Latvia or another member state is threatened as Ukraine was," Lugar will tell a conference organised by the German Marshall Fund think-tank.
"This does not mean that attempts to manipulate energy for international political gain would require a Nato military response ... Nato leaders should develop a strategy that includes the re-supply of a victim of an aggressive energy suspension."
Lugar called on Nato nations to examine how they would be able to shift fuel supplies to a nation under threat at short notice, for example by identifying alternatives to existing pipelines or developing alternative energy sources. The two-day Nato summit is due to focus on the Nato-led security operation in Afghanistan on Tuesday, with discussion of energy security and other proposals to revamp the alliance on Wednesday.
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