Regional Strategic Programs
The Regional Strategic Program, directed by Geoffrey Kemp, is currently focussed on two projects of great importance to U.S. interests: the future of U.S.-Iranian relations and Persian Gulf and Caspian Basin energy security.
The Project on U.S.-Iran relations is premised upon the assumption that Iran remains a key geopolitical player in the greater Middle East region and that continuing adverse relations between the Islamic Republic and the United States serves neither country's long-term interests. The purpose of the project is to explore ways to improve these relations without compromising the interests of the United States and its regional allies, including Israel and the Arab Gulf countries. The project includes a Washington-based study group in addition to conferences in the Middle East, Europe and Russia. As part of the study, the program published America and Iran: Road Maps and Realism, in October 1998.
The project on Persian Gulf and Caspian Basin energy security provides a forum for a comprehensive examination of the Caspian and the Gulf in the context of growing world demand for Middle East energy. The program examines the potential for cooperation and conflict between key energy consumers in North America, Europe, Russia and Asia, and how these interactions will affect regional policy. The project assumes that for the foreseeable future access to the region's oil and natural gas will be of vital importance to the international community. If the Asian countries recover from their current economic dilemma, their demand for Middle East energy will steadily eclipse that of the United States and Europe. This raises important geopolitical considerations for the United States which, until recently, has been the sole, dominant power in the Persian Gulf. Efforts by the United States to control access to the Caspian Basin also raise important geopolitical questions, including relations with Russia, Turkey, Iran and the three resource-rich countries Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
In late 1997, The Nixon Center published Energy Superbowl: Strategic Politics and the Persian Gulf and Caspian Basin, a monograph highlighting the key issues and background for the contentious policy choices facing the major energy consumers. Future work will include an ongoing series of meetings at the Nixon Center and a second monograph on the political agenda that the United States must face in the coming decade as it deals with the complexities of the energy question.
