The upcoming withdrawal of U.S. and NATO combat troops from Afghanistan and the handing over of security responsibilities to the Kabul government pose serious challenges to the CSTO. How can the security of Central Asia be guaranteed under the new conditions? What tools are available for this? Can the CSTO resolve domestic conflicts in the member countries (similar to the one in Kyrgyzstan in 2010)?
Accepting another country’s military equipment and property for long-term storage is always accompanied by a host of problems, as is lending out one’s territory or airspace for foreign military transit. The main issue, strictly speaking, is not how this or that member country of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) cooperates with the United States. The issue is how they do or do not cooperate with each other.
It is often said that the CSTO is a young organization. But it all depends on how you calculate it. The CIS countries signed their Tashkent Collective Security Treaty 20 years ago. The CSTO was established exactly 10 years later. Ten years is a venerable age for any military-political alliance. It cannot be called an entirely virtual organization. Its members assemble for regular summits, while the military of the allied countries hold joint exercises. And yet the CSTO has failed to evolve into a modern security system.
In fact, both Moscow and the allied capitals view the CSTO as more or less symbolic. The former sees it as a semblance of Russia’s sphere of military-political influence; for the latter it is an external sign of loyalty, which guarantees Moscow’s favor even if there is a sharp clash of interests, as is periodically the case with Belarus and chronically so with Uzbekistan. The situation is reminiscent of an old Soviet joke, where both parties involved are only too glad to play along with it.
But it is high time they stopped pretending. The upcoming withdrawal of U.S. and NATO combat troops from Afghanistan and the handing over of security responsibilities to the Kabul government pose serious challenges to the CSTO. How can the security of Central Asia be guaranteed under the new conditions? What tools are available for this? Can the CSTO resolve domestic conflicts in the member countries (similar to the one in Kyrgyzstan in 2010)? Can CSTO membership help to ease tensions between official allies, such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, who are in actual fact in a state of cold war?
These are all issues of vital importance. Solving them is much more important than NATO’s recognition of (or refusal to recognize) the CSTO. The issue of an American presence of military storage in Central Asia is of secondary importance. The allies have long been used to acting behind Moscow’s back, while Moscow, in turn, refuses to recognize them as equals. This is a vicious circle that can only be broken if the approach to the CSTO is fundamentally revised and followed by reforms that will turn it into a modern security system in Central Asia. If Moscow fails to work out an effective formula of leadership, then new and, most likely, worse surprises lie in store for it.
This article was originally published in Russian in the Kommersant newspaper
