L'importanza del potere marittimo per la sicurezza energetica delle medie potenze

The academic literature has devoted a lot of attention to energy security and, separately, seapower. Several scholars and practitioners have written extensively in particular on the US naval policy and posture in the Persian Gulf and, more recently, on China’s foreign policy that aims at the protection of the energy sea lines of communication that carry the lifeblood of Beijing’s economy. However few have written on how the energy dependence on foreign supplies by sea affects the behaviour of a particular and very debatable category of states: the middle powers. The aim of the dissertation, through the formalization of a quantitative model and the development of a composite index defined as Navy Importance Index, is to highlight the theoretical link between energy security and seapower by this very questionable group of nations.