Especially not by using gas as a political tool. IIRC Russia and before that the Soviet Union has never ever broken a gas export contract with the West. I hardly see that happening now. If it did happen the French, Germans etc would freak out and go hard down the nuclear/coal route. No one would ever trust the Russians as reliable suppliers again. And while Stratfor might be right in that Germany need Russian gas more than Russia need German euros this winter, in the longer term the opposite is true. Russia is far more reliant on Europe as a market than Europe needs Russia as a supplier.

Indeed, if the EU could ever get its act together we would here see the real energy weapon: us threatening the Russians with lowering our consumption if they make trouble over eg. Kosovo.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.