Factors of achieving and ensuring energy security in the context of national and EuroAtlantic security

Abstract

Energy security, alongside with industrial, food, societal, environmental and sustainable development, information, cyber, economic, defense and national order security, etc., is part of the concept of national security of a state. The level of security of a state is the ability of that state to aggregate resources internally and gain or maintain access to external economic resources. Energy security means being ensured in terms of raw material sources, control of transportation and distribution routes and alternatives. Sufficient and available raw material resources are an urgent prerequisite for achieving energy security. Any longer interruption of energy supply has a negative effect on the economic growth, the political stability and the welfare of the citizens of a state. The following elements of energy security instability can endanger a state’s energy security: risks (physical, economic, geopolitical, geostrategic, social, environmental protection, etc.); threats (terrorist action, political, industrial, economic and national instability, armed conflicts, piracy, etc.); dangers (lack of energy supply and/or raw materials, the finite nature of energy resources, use of energy as a pressure instrument or energy weapon, use of energy revenues to support undemocratic regimes, high energy costs for developing countries and global climate change) and vulnerabilities (natural and/or anthropogenic hazards). For the purpose to ensure the stability of national and EuroAtlantic security, the following factors are proposed by authors to achieve and ensure energy security: 25 proposed way to achieving energy security; 8 proposed way to ensuring energy security, and 9 proposed scenarios to quantification energy security almost complete. The final conclusion is: the energy security of a state is in fact the national security of that state.