BAKU, Azerbaijan — In this large Caspian city on the edge of Europe and Asia the problems of the Western world — shaky banks, financial upheavals, struggles with terrorism — seem far away.

But in fact Baku is emerging as a new nerve center, a key location in the global pattern of security and economic stability. Of course, Baku has played this role before. Back in the middle of the 19th century it emerged as the center of the dawning world oil industry, well before the American oil industry grew up. A century and a half of ruthless oil exploitation shows up in an oil-smeared landscape and derelict rigs.

Now oil and gas, as well as vital supply lines to Western Europe and the wider world, are once again the issue, although in a different and more crucial way.

Azerbaijan itself is still a significant oil producer, delivering well over a million barrels of crude a day to Western customers — mainly since 2006 — through the giant pipeline that runs from Baku through Georgia and Turkey to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

The flow through the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline is the only one from the whole Central Asian region that does not pass across either Russian or Iranian soil. This explains why America backed the whole project enthusiastically from the start.

But that's less than half the story. The westward flow of oil, and even more of gas, for which Europe is increasingly thirsty, is poised to increase substantially, and the key point through which it is likely to flow is the Baku hub. Oil will come down the Caspian Sea from Kazakhstan and from the enormous Kashagan field, among other sources, now being opened up. It is equal to the largest fields in Saudi Arabia.

Gas will come in immense volumes by underwater pipeline from the other side of the Caspian — from Turkmenistan.

Together with Azerbaijan's own expanding output, this will constitute the feed for new pipelines planned to the West, including the so-called Nabucco pipeline much favored by the European Union, and yet to be started. It will take gas right up into Austria and its neighbors. All this against a background in which Western Europe is currently heavily dependent for its daily gas intake on Russian-controlled supplies.

For the EU as a whole, the Russian portion is roughly 30 percent. For countries closer to Russia, in east and central Europe, the Russian gas import share can be as high as 90 percent.

In the Soviet past, the Russians were always reliable suppliers, although on a much smaller scale than today. Now the Europeans have grown extremely uneasy at their heavy dependence for gas and oil supplies on the Russian bear — and for three reasons in particular.

• First, the Russians have shown themselves increasingly ready to use their supply role as a political and diplomatic weapon. Mysterious "technical" problems have suddenly reduced gas pressures or cut oil flows to nearby customers who have offended Russian sensibilities.

For example, the Czechs, who have agreed to provide a site for American antimissile defenses (allegedly against Iran), have suddenly found their pipeline oil supplies from Russia reduced.

• Second, recent military operations in Georgia and South Ossetia confirm that the Russians are prepared to use massive force to gain political objectives whenever they choose. This has led some nervous European countries to try to cut their own deals with Russian supplier Gazprom, and some to talk about adopting a common bargaining front with the Russian giant. The net effect is division and argument among EU members on what to do and how to handle the new Russian assertiveness.

But all are at least agreed that it would feel more comfortable if strategic energy supply lines could be developed that rely less on Russia, less on the unstable Middle East and more on uninterruptible flows from the enormous reserves of Central Asia. Hence the need to encourage transit through Baku and Turkey, and ideally direct to Mediterranean outlets, bypassing the Black Sea and the Bosporus Strait, where a substantial Russian naval presence still hovers and could easily make trouble.

Unsurprisingly, the Russians are playing a skilled chess game to make this alternative route as hard as possible to develop. They are challenging every move to put pipelines under the Caspian — on environmental grounds — although these concerns do not seem to affect their own plans to put a new pipeline direct from Russia to Germany under the Baltic. They are determined to keep a tight watch on Georgia and, although not actually interfering with the Baku-Ceyhan line as it runs through Georgia, they were no doubt pleased recently when a explosion closed it for a while. This was probably caused by Kurdish rebels inside Turkey, although the full story is not yet clear.

• The third reason for European unease is that Russia has under-invested in its oil and gas facilities and may not be able physically to deliver the volumes Western Europe needs. Or the Russians may decide to turn eastward and concentrate on supplying China and Japan. Either way, Europeans must look elsewhere.

A decade from now alternative energy sources may check Europe's oil and gas thirst — such as revived nuclear power, solar power (if economic), clean coal, biofuels and of course far greater energy efficiency and conservation. In the meantime, all of Europe, including Britain, must have massive gas and oil volumes to survive, to grow, to keep warm, to move around. The route through Baku becomes a lifeline. We will be hearing a great deal more from that direction.

David Howell is a former British Cabinet minister and former chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. He is now a member of the House of Lords (www.lordhowell.com).