Review Petrostate - Book Report/Review Example

As pointed out, the work deals with the evolution of the production of oil/gas in Russian context. The work begins with the author’s visit to the most influential oil/gas business venture in Russia. In the work, the author portrays the origin of oil/gas business under USSR, as a state owned venture. Besides, the author examines the destiny of oil/gas business during privatization. Again, the author describes the present condition of oil/gas business under the state government. In short, the author concludes by pointing out the importance of state control or nationalization of oil/gas business to sustain monopoly within global arena.

The focal point or the main theme is the relationship between oil/gas production in Russia and national politics. Besides, the author provides ample importance to the evolution of oil/gas production in Russia, from different angles of view. To be specific, the author considers that energy wealth boosts the Russian effort to regain its status as a superpower. One can see that Russian influence among the prior satellite states (say, under USSR) and other nations in Europe is indebted to oil/gas production.

Besides, the Russian authorities consider that their monopoly over oil/gas production can be utilized to pressurize most nations that depend upon Russian oil/gas. Marshall I. Goldman states that, “With a flick of a switch, those dispatchers sitting in this Moscow room could freeze-and indeed have frozen-entire countries” (2). On the other side, the dependant nations are aware of this fact and are trying to reduce their dependency on Russian oil/gas. The Russian government was able to influence the independent nation states because infrastructure (say, including pipelines) developed by oil/gas industry was still there in those nation states.

Besides, these satellite nations enjoyed this benefit to an extent. But the economic crisis during the opening years of