Stability, security, transition, and

Department of Defense Directive 3000.05 (2005) Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition and Reconstmction (SSTR) Operations. Issued on 28 November. 

A growing inter-dependence will be developed between main exporters and importers. This will improve the security level and the economic stability of the producing and transit countries ... 

As pipelines per se are fairly vulnerable to sabotage and terrorist actions, the social and political stability in the involved countries are of greatest importance for the security of natural gas supply. This especially applies to transit countries that - per definition - are not part of the gas supply contracts. It is therefore mandatory that transit countries are enabled to make use of their compensation in a prosperous manner for the sake of improving the social stability. It is assumed that this in the next run will increase the safety of energy supply that is crucial to all parties. 

Exploitation of remote gas fields requires infrastructure and access to land that may affect third parties. In those cases where land-lease is compensated in kind some percentage of the gas is handed over to the transit country (herein referred to as option gas). Concerning security, two immediate issues appear a) how the option gas fits to local energy plans and b) the economic and social stability of the transit country. To some extent b) relates to a) provided the implementation proves successful. 

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