U.S. Constructs Of Securitization Of Russian-European Energy Cooperation

In recent years,the energy sector has become an important battleground in the game between the West and Russia,and the two sides have engaged in a series of exchanges around energy,resulting in many conflicts and crises.Among them,the energy relations between the EU and Russia are particularly interesting and sensitive due to their geographical proximity and mutual economic and energy dependence.Russia’s energy relations with Europe began in the 1960s,during the Cold War,when some Western European countries,in addition to commercial purposes and in line with the Western camp’s policy of detente with the Soviet Union,traded natural gas with the Soviet Union,which was the beginning of energy transactions between the EU and Russia.After the end of the Cold War,European countries,led by Germany,continued their relatively close energy relations with Russia and continued to develop them cautiously.However,in recent years,the Russian side has adjusted its energy policy,and the EU side has become increasingly wary of the energy relationship between the two sides and started to link it to security issues.The United States has played an important role in this growing tension between the two sides.The U.S.itself is the leader of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,a military defense organization that Europe relies on,and its influence on the EU is enormous.For reasons of its strategic layout and economic interests,the US does not want to see the Russian-European energy relations continue their momentum and deepen their economic and energy cooperation and interdependence.Therefore,in addition to taking advantage of the disputes and contradictions between the two sides in the energy sector,the U.S.is also making great efforts on security issues.As the other party,the U.S.continues to build security on the Russian-European energy relations,trying to closely link the Russian-European energy relations with security issues and portraying the energy relations between the two sides as closely related to European security or even as an "existential threat" to European security."This is a good way to deepen the relationship between Russia and Europe.This is all the more reason to deepen the suspicion and vigilance of both Russia and Europe and to weaken their energy cooperation and interdependence.Securitization is precisely the actor’s rendering of an issue as threatening,constructing it as an important security issue that threatens its own security,in order to gain material and political resources to justify and rationalize urgent measures beyond conventional political procedures.In this paper,we try to explain and theorize the continued securitization of the U.S.energy relations with Russia and Europe from the perspective of "securitization theory".The study shows that the U.S.has successfully constructed the Russian-European energy relations as an important and urgent security issue by using "words-acts" to refer to its own and the European public,the EU and the international community,and has raised the urgency and priority of this security issue to make it an urgent security issue that can go beyond the conventional political procedures.Under these conditions EU countries-especially Poland,Lithuania and other countries in the leadconstantly called for reducing energy cooperation with Russia and closing the energy trade routes between them.Eventually,after the crisis in Ukraine and the Russo-Ukrainian conflict,the Russian-European energy relations dropped to a freezing point.