Wheel of Fortune: The Battle for Oil and Power in Russia

Few Americans realize that Russia is the world’s largest oil producer, providing 12% of global supply. Gustafson, an authority on Russian energy politics and professor of government at Georgetown University, writes of the uneasy relationship between the state and oil industry since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Throughout, he documents “unresolved conflict among Russians over the principles by which society and the economy should be run.” Intramural struggles for control of “inherited oil assets and rent” in post-Soviet Russia and deep resistance to ostensibly superior Western technology have dragged down the industry. One major strand of the book follows the rise and fall of the private oil company Yukos and its CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The Yukos affair, particularly Khodorkovsky’s arrest, signaled that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin intends to keep a firm grip on oil and much more. Gustafson grinds no axe, but concludes that Russians, comfortable with statism and coercion, “are not well prepared to deal with the coming challenge” in the looming worldwide increase in demand For specialists in geopolitics or global energy, this exacting and lucid account should be required reading. The sheer amount of detail, though, may be difficult more casual readers. Much of Gustafson’s account involves shady politicians and complex strategies that only experts will recognize or easily understand. 3 maps, 7 charts, 2 tables. (Nov.)