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SCO Update: The Official Launch of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
Matthew Oresman
On January 15, 2004, the doors to the secretariat of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) officially opened. After over a decade of post-Soviet interaction between China and the former Soviet states on its border, including the founding of the Shanghai Forum and Shanghai Cooperation Organization, there is an institutionalized and permanent home for regional multilateral cooperation. And while a long road remains ahead of the SCO, the member states (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) have begun committing resources to the group and have indicated their firm commitment to see the SCO survive in a region where so many other international organizations have failed.
Central Asia in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
Farkhod Tolipov
Established in 1996 as an organization for strengthening confidence measures in the border area, the SCO gradually began to include in its summits’ agenda the issues of counter-terrorism, religious extremism, and separatism in the context of regional security. However, despite the commonality of interests of the member-states in this sphere, just at the moments of serious security threats this organization remained quite passive and ineffective. Nevertheless, at the time of creation of the SCO all Central Asian countries were in an active search for any possible mechanisms of maintaining regional security, and therefore they have been expecting from this organization more productive participation in the solution of their vital interests.
That Other Central Asian Collective Security Organization – the CSTO
Malia K. Du Mont
While the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was launched with great fanfare this month, the other collective security apparatus in Central Asia – the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) – quietly experienced success of its own, as its joint military headquarters began operations on January 1st. The CSTO is less than two years old, and yet, in contrast to the older SCO, it has already established a rapid deployment force, seen its charter signed, conducted several military exercises and counter-narcotics raids, and registered with the United Nations as a regional international organization. As a consequence, Central Asian affairs experts characterize the CSTO as the main challenge to the SCO’s credentials within the region’s capitals.
