Frost, Alexander. "The Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and Russia’s Strategic Goals in Central Asia". China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Vol.7, No.3 (2009): 83-102.

Frost, Alexander. "The Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and Russia’s Strategic Goals in Central Asia". China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Vol.7, No.3 (2009): 83-102.

• For most of the 1990s, Russian attempts to manage security concerns in Central Asia focused on bilateral efforts, however, since 2001, the Russian government has adopted a more multilateral approach through the CSTO and SCO (83-84).
• At the level of security interests, both organizations are effective at allowing Russia to coordinate and assist the Central Asian republics as they meet security threats from extremism and drug trafficking (84).
• The CSTO educates Central Asian officers at Russian institutions, and carries out large-scale training exercises for both Central Asian armed forces and law enforcement bodies. Institutions created under the CSTO, such as the anti-terror center in Toshkent, the Kant Airbase in the Kyrgyz Republic, and the deployment of the 201st motorized rifle division in Kulyab, Tajikistan, also give Russia military infrastructure in the region (84).
• The SCO provides similar services to maintain security infrastructure in Central Asia, providing training opportunities for security forces and law enforcement in member countries. It also facilitates intelligence sharing through the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure in Toshkent, and supplies some national guard forces with additional equipment for law enforcement activities (84).
• The author defines Russian objectives in Central Asia as: "1.  To position Moscow as a pole of power and influence in the region. 2. To maintain the pro-Moscow regimes of the region 3. To exclude or limit American and Chinese influence from the region" (85).
• The CSTO is the most active tool used by Moscow to promote Russian influence in the region. Rather than acting a purely military alliance, the CSTO is designed to build cooperation between member states on matters of economic, political, and military security. It seeks to establish the same blend of military and political cooperation as existed in the USSR (85).
• The CSTO structure not only boosts Russian military presence in the region, but fosters a dependence in Central Asian states. Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic in particular are reliant on Russia for supplying the vast majority of their military hardware. The significant troop deployment in these countries further entrenches Russian influence (86).
• The joint staff and command structure pioneered under the CSTO also allows Russia to control military staff in the Central Asian republics. Where centralized staff structure do exist in the CSTO, like the collective rapid reaction force, they are dominated by Russian officers (86-87).
• At a summit in June 2009, Russia proposed that the collective rapid reaction force be deployed based on bilateral consent between member states rather than regular voting procedure. With two bases already existing in the region, Uzbekistan was reticent to accept this proposition (87).
• Since 2004, Russia has lobbied to replace the dysfunctional and crumbling system of air defense in the former USSR under direct control of the CSTO under an integrated command structure. If this is adopted, Russia will have control over air defense systems in all CSTO member states (87).
• The CSTO has promoted increased cultural and political cooperation between the member states, including a Russian suggestion that a youth sports competition be created in Issyk Kul (89). More importantly, it has organized the international reactions of member states around the Russian position, as occurred when the organization supported the Russian intervention in Georgia in 2008 (89-90).
• The contrast between the policies of the CSTO, largely driven by Russia, and those of the Central Asian republic is demonstrated by the contrast in reaction of the CSTO and SCO to the same situations. Although in the CSTO, all members were willing to support Russian action in Georgia, the same members were unwilling to do so in the SCO, which remained notably silent on the issue (90-91).
• The split between the Russian and SCO positions on the Russo-Georgian War certainly weakened the Russian position in the body and in Central Asia, as China was able to demonstrate its dedication to the SCO Charter while Russia lost some of its credibility for stability (91).
• "A CSTO information security service would ensure all members speak with one voice, presumably to support Russia in any future crisis. However, this too could well be undermined by the SCO where the Central Asian states could again feel free to speak out against Russian actions of which they disapprove" (91).
• The coexistence of the CSTO and SCO has a negative effect on Russian aims of hegemony in Central Asia by providing an alternative format for another all services currently rendered by the CSTO without allowing Russia as much control of core institutions as it maintains in the CSTO (92).
• Despite a declared intent in 2005 to intervene in 'anti-constitution' actions, the CSTO did not intervene to rescue the Akayev government in the Kyrgyz Republic during the Tulip Revolution. This demonstrates that Russia clearly only intends to use force if foreign agents become involved in a conflict (92-93).
• Defining and identifying the level at which foreign agents are participating in a conflict, however, is difficult in the former USSR, and may not be based on fact. Russia accepted the Uzbekistani narrative that foreign agents were responsible for the Andijon Incident, and expressed a willingness to intervene (93).
• Uzbekistan rejoined the CSTO in 2006 only a few months following the Andijon Incident, indicating that the Russian support may have made Uzbekistan feel more secure in a collective security arrangement (93).
• The idea of CSTO peacekeeping forces for this purpose has been discussed for years and was adopted in 2007. Although they have not yet been created, these forces would be deployable upon request in any member state (94).
• The SCO is an inherent conservative organization, and one of the few international organizations whose charter does not contain any mention of democracy. Instead, its values of stability, non-interference, and sovereignty make it opposed to change. It has previously been compared to the 'Holy Alliance' of Russia, Prussia, and Austria in 1815 (95).
• The restriction of non-interference imposed by the organization limits its power in any of the member states, but it does serve as a forum to provide significant moral support to authoritarian regimes in the region (96).
• The support provided by the SCO for the current regimes of the Central Asian republics ultimately works in Russian interests the same way as CSTO support for the governments of its member states is in their favour. Both organizations buttress regimes that generally support Moscow (96).
• Moscow has been able to successfully use the CSTO to replace the American military presence in Central Asia following any breakdowns in American relations for those states. After the Andijon Incident and the collapse of American-Uzbekistani relations, Russia was able to receive permission to use the Navoiy airbase in emergency scenarios, and the Kyrgyz government was considering evicting the US from Manas airbase and expanding CSTO presence there (96).
• Russia has tried to start cooperation between the CSTO and NATO, with the eventual strategic goal of using the structure of NATO-CSTO cooperation to facilitate all interactions that would have previously been bilateral between Central Asian states and NATO (96-97).
• Both CSTO and SCO have been effective forums for Russia to push an anti-American agenda during the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Although many individual member states have an interest, often financial, in maintaining a US presence for longer, Russia has able to pressure both bodies into issuing statements demanding a clear end-date for operations (97).
• China has cooperated with Russia in orchestrating a number of anti-American statements at the SCO and organizing operations which general challenge American interests in Asia, but these reflect a relations of convenience between China and Russia; their long-term goals in the region differ greatly (98).
• Following the SCO Peace Mission exercises in 2007, Russia realized the danger that large Chinese-led military exercises with the Central Asian republics posed to its interests. Following this, Russia has attempted to limit the number of troops involved in other SCO operations, reserving large-scale military exercises as a CSTO activity (99).
• Russia has come up with a number of excuses to cover this new fear of greater Chinese military cooperation. It has argued during the 2009 exercises that deployment of too many troops would ruin the counter-terrorist focus of the exercises, also prohibiting heavy vehicles on the grounds that the site at Cherbakul was too small for them (99).
• Russia has also attempted to hijack SCO military exercises, suggesting that the exercises be made into joint drills between the SCO and CSTO, thereby allowing the CSTO to retain its monopoly on military cooperation between Central Asian states. This offer was refused by the Chinese General Staff (99-100).
• In addition to concerns over being entirely pushed out of a military role in Central Asia, the People's Liberation Army [PLA] is also concerned about being embarrassed by vastly superior Russian forces. The PLA has performed poorly at previous exercises, and being directly compared to Russian forces would diminish its regional standing (100).
• In October 2007, Russia succeeded in convincing the Chinese to agree to a memorandum of cooperation between the SCO and CSTO, which, despite being vague, opens up the way for the CSTO to dominate military cooperation in the former USSR and means that any military dialogues now also feature Belarus and Armenia, two Russian allies (101).
• "Though Russia must surely want the CSTO to remain the key Central Asian security apparatus Moscow cannot, in a time of post-Soviet weakness, oppose China’s new role in the region and so it might as well be a senior SCO member" (101).
• The author recommends that the West recognize that security in Central Asia has been effectively dominated by Russia via the CSTO and that any inroads of the militarily weak SCO are now even more retarded following the memorandum with the CSTO. The West should therefore seek to cooperate with the CSTO on common issues of counter-terrorism and organized crime (102).
• Western recognition of the CSTO as the primary organization for security and defense cooperation in Central Asia would also further tip the scales in favor of Russia, allaying its fears of growing weakness and making conflict over hegemony between Russia and China less likely (102).