The Freewheeling Diplomat
The Freewheeling Diplomat -- Colin Cleary -- served for over three decades in the U.S. Foreign Service. Free now to speak for himself, he offers a practitioner's perspective on key U.S. Foreign Policy challenges. Drawing on his years at U.S. Embassies in Ukraine, Russia and Poland -- as well as other postings -- he has been devoting particular attention to Russia's war on Ukraine. As the podcast moves forward, the Freewheeling Diplomat will be expanding to other topics. Colin Cleary is an Adjunct Professor of U.S. Foreign Policy at George Washington University.
The Freewheeling Diplomat
The Energy Diplomacy We Need to Win the Long Game with Russia
I spoke with my former State Department colleague Ben Schmitt on August 12 about energy sanctions against Russia. We reviewed how Germany had willfully made itself more dependent on Russian energy through a misguided policy of "change through trade." We discussed the outlook for Europe's efforts to rapidly wean itself off Russian oil and gas. While in the near term, Russia is finding alternative markets for its oil in China and India, medium and longer term trends resulting from energy sanctions spell peril for the Russian oil and gas industry.