Page 1 of 3 SCO is primed and ready to fire
By M K Bhadrakumar
It may seem improbable that a regional cooperation organization commences its
annual summit against the backdrop of military exercises. The European Union,
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the African Union, the Organization
of Latin American States - none of them has ever done that.
Therefore, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is indeed making a very big
point by way of holding its large-scale military exercises from August 9-17.
The SCO is loudly proclaiming to the international community that there is no
"vacuum" in Central
Asia's strategic space that needs to be filled by security organizations from
outside the region.
The exercises, code-named "Peace Mission 2007", will be held in Chelyabinsk in
Russia's Volga-Ural military district and in Urumqi, capital of China's
Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region. The SCO summit is scheduled to take place in
the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek on August 16. After the summit, in a highly symbolic
gesture, the heads of states and defense ministers of all SCO members - China,
Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan - will watch the
conclusion of the joint military exercise in Urumqi.
The SCO has never held a full-scale military exercise involving all its member
states. An estimated 6,500 troops will take part in the exercise, including
2,000 Russian and 1,600 Chinese personnel. This is the first time that China
will be deputing its airborne units for a military exercise abroad. Russia and
China will deploy 36 and 46 aircraft respectively and will each contribute six
Il-76 military transport aircraft to perform simulated airborne assaults.
A Chinese military expert, Peng Guangqian of China's Academy of Military
Sciences, was quoted by the People's Daily as saying, "The drill mainly aims to
showcase the improved security cooperation among the SCO member states, the
reinforced anti-terror capability of SCO members, the improved Sino-Russian
relationship and the modernization of the member countries' armed forces."
The government-owned China Daily underlined that the exercises show that "SCO
cooperation over security has gone beyond the issues of regional disarmament
and borders, for it includes how to deal with non-traditional threats such as
terrorists, secessionist forces and extremist religious groups".
The Chinese Ministry of Defense in a statement stressed that the exercises "do
not target other countries and do not involve interests of countries outside
the SCO". Briefing the media, the deputy commander of Russia's ground forces,
General Vladimir Moltenskoi, also said the exercises were "not aimed at third
countries".
CSTO embraces China
Despite these understatements, it is all too obvious that Sino-Russian
strategic cooperation is reaching a qualitatively new level. The most important
indicator in this direction is that the summit at Bishkek may witness the
signing of a formal protocol of cooperation between the SCO and the Collective
Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). The document is expected to define clearly
the cooperation trends between the two regional security organizations in the
coming period.
This is undoubtedly a major development in the Eurasian strategic space. The
proposed formal link between the CSTO and the SCO in essence involves the CSTO
plus China, as the SCO member countries other than China are already members of
the CSTO. (The CSTO member countries are Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.)
It cannot be lost on anyone that the CSTO-SCO partnership is being formalized
hardly a month after Moscow's decision on July 14 to suspend its participation
in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE). The CFE was the
first-ever post-World War II conventional arms reduction treaty reached between
the East and the West.
Influential Russian strategic analyst Gleb Pavlovsky warned on July 14,
"Today's decision is not propaganda, it is a transition to a new serious phase
in Russia's construction of a new security architecture against the background
of the world's rearmament near our borders."
Referring to the relentless US encirclement of Russia, he added, "Virtually all
countries along Russia's southern and western borders are being stuffed with
missiles ... A mad arms race in the Caucasus, Caspian and Black Sea regions is
under way, and it is being maintained by European and non-European countries,
none of them restricted by the CFE."
In this context, Pavlovsky said, Moscow will opt preferably for "new
contractual balances" in Europe and Asia. "If the countries of Europe and Asia
are prepared for this, Russia will be the first to agree to such negotiations."
We may be seeing in the CSTO-SCO institutional linkup the first evidence of the
"new contractual balances" that Pavlovsky mentioned. The Russian thinking in
the direction of building up the CSTO's sinews as a counterweight to the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been evident for some months.
Last December, addressing a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Baltic
States media forum, Deputy Prime Minister (concurrently Russia's defense
minister at that time) Sergei Ivanov said, "The next logical thing on the path
of reinforcing international security may be to develop a cooperation mechanism
between NATO and CSTO, followed by a clear division of spheres of responsibility.
This approach offers the prospect of enabling us possess sufficiently reliable
and effective leverage for taking joint action in crisis situations in various
regions of the world." (Emphasis added.)
Not that Ivanov was unaware that NATO was not in the least interested in
dealings with the CSTO. (The CSTO countries cover roughly 70% of the territory
of the former Soviet Union.) For the past three years, Russia has been
proposing the desirability of limited cooperation between the CSTO and NATO in
countering drug trafficking originating from Afghanistan. But NATO, at
Washington's bidding, has been stalling. It has been NATO's (and Washington's)
consistent policy not to recognize the CSTO's standing as a regional security
organization, and to deal instead with the CSTO member countries on a bilateral
basis.
Therefore, what Ivanov was stressing is that Moscow will be every bit
determined to resist NATO's encroachment into the territories of the former
Soviet republics. This emanated out of Moscow's assessment that NATO will not
be averse to expanding even further, by offering membership to some CIS
countries. Russia is opposed to such expansion, but its diplomatic efforts are
not working. The military option has become necessary. In his speech, Ivanov
not only made a resolute statement about the CSTO's place in Europe but also
hinted that Moscow views the Central Asian countries in the SCO, especially
China, as its potential bloc allies.
A few months later, in May, while speaking at a conference in Bishkek on
21st-century security threats and challenges, CSTO secretary general Nikolai
Bordyuzha frontally attacked NATO, saying it pursues "a policy of projecting
and consolidating its military-political presence in the Caucasus and in
Central Asia". He added that these activities pose "challenges and risks" and
undermine stability in the post-Soviet space.
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