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Latest assessment: 13 Oct 2026
§02

Research programmes

Four standing lines of enquiry
01

Energy security and weaponised interdependence

How the networks that carry energy also carry coercive power, and why diversification reconfigures exposure more often than it removes it.

Covers the EU's post-2022 restructuring, long-term contracting as a form of lock-in, and the gap between changing supplier and changing system.

Active
2024 —
02

Chokepoints and corridors

Maritime straits, overland pipelines and rail corridors treated as one problem rather than as alternatives to each other.

Hormuz, Bab al-Mandab, the Turkish straits and the Middle Corridor. The recurring finding is that separate geography does not mean separate risk.

Active
2025 —
03

The South Caucasus and the Caspian

Regional order after 2020, and the position of small states that supply energy to powers far larger than themselves.

Azerbaijan's transit role, Turkmen gas westward, and the difference between being a supplier and holding leverage.

Active
2024 —
04

Critical infrastructure under hybrid pressure

Subsea cables, pipelines, grids and the legal architecture that was not designed for attacks below the threshold of war.

Includes the jurisdictional gaps that appear when infrastructure crosses borders and the attacker does not.

Active
2025 —
Figure — how the four programmes intersect
ENERGYCORRIDORSREGIONINFRASTRUCTURESUBSTITUTABILITYREACH OF ONE ADVERSARYJURISDICTIONAL GAP
The marked points are where two programmes produce the same finding from different evidence.