Central Asian ‘Regional Security Complex’ and Shanghai Cooperation Organization

ASIANPERSPECTIVE, Vol. 32, No. 3, 2008, pp. 183-187. Commentary RUSSIA AND THE SHANGHAI COOPERATION ORGANIZATION: MOSCOW'S LONELY ROAD FROM BISHKEK TO DUSHANBE* Mark N. Katz One of Russian leader Vladimir Putin's most important for­ eign-policy initiatives has been the Shanghai Cooperation Orga­ nization (SCO)—a regional international organization he co­ founded in 2001 that groups together Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The stated aims of the SCO are to combat the “three evils" of terrorism, separatism, and extremism, as well as to promote various forms of coopera­ tion among the member governments. In addition to these stat­ ed goals, however, Moscow has attempted to make use of the organization to resist efforts at democratization emanating from inside and outside the member states, to limit American and other Western influence in Central Asia, and to promote Russian foreign-policy goals generally. Up through the August 2007 SCO summit in Bishkek, Putin had good reason to be pleased with the SCO. Although there were some important differences among various members, the SCO appeared to be a useful mechanism for advancing Moscow's * This commentary originally appeared as a publication of the Hokkaido University Slavic Research Center in September 2008 and is reprinted here with permission and slight editorial changes. See http://src-h.slav. hokudai.ac.jp/center/essay/20080901e_Mark_N_Katz.html. 184 Mark N. Katz priorities. In the year leading up to the August 2008 summit in Dushanbe, however, Moscow has experienced a number of set­ backs with regard to the SCO. The most important of these occurred at the Dushanbe summit itself when the SCO members refused to endorse Moscow's military action in Georgia or its recognition of Abkhaz and South Ossetian independence. Although both the SCO and Russian membership in the organi­ zation will undoubtedly continue, these events suggest that the SCO's utility for advancing Russian foreign-policy aims is quite limited. The SCO grew out of the Shanghai Five, which was estab­ lished in 1996 in order to resolve border issues between China on the one hand and the four former Soviet republics neighbor­ ing it (Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan). At the group's July 2000 summit (the first attended by President Putin), the leaders announced the organization's intention to "wield significant influence not just in the region, but globally as well." With the addition of Uzbekistan at the June 2001 summit, the Shanghai Five became the SCO. The first SCO joint military exercise, though only involving about 1,000 servicemen, took place in 2003. Mongolia gained observer status at the June 2004 summit. What happened at the 2005, 2006, and 2007 summits in par­ ticular gave the impression that the SCO was emerging as a powerful organization successfully challenging American "hegemony." Shortly before the July 2005 summit, the United States and other Western governments criticized Uzbekistan for using force to suppress largely peaceful demonstrators in the town of Andijon. Uzbek leader Islam Karimov took offense at this and demanded that the U.S. forces that he had allowed into his country after 9/11 be withdrawn within six months. At the July 2005 SCO summit shortly thereafter, the SCO presidents issued a joint declaration calling upon the United States to set a timetable for pulling out all the military bases it had acquired in Central Asia after 9/11. Washington did indeed withdraw the forces it had stationed in Uzbekistan a few months later, and had to pay considerably more in order to retain its base in Kyrgyzstan. In addition, Iran, Pakistan, and India were granted SCO observer status in 2005. The 2006 SCO summit was noteworthy because it was the Russia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization 185 first one attended by Iran's sharply anti-American president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (he also attended the 2007 and 2008 summits). His presence raised concerns that the SCO might encourage or even support Tehran's confrontational approach toward the West. At the time of the 2007 SCO summit, SCO mili­ tary exercises took place in China and Russia involving 6,000 troops. This raised concerns in the West that the SCO could become a military alliance. Despite all this, it was...

Aim. The presented study aims to develop a conceptual framework for the coordination and development of the competitive advantages of international transit between the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states in an attempt to create a unified transport system within the SCO space.Tasks. The authors assess the prospects of the interconnection and innovative development of the transit transport systems (TTS) of the SCO member states to create a common network of railroads and motorways and a unified transport system within the SCO; analyze the directions and prospects of the digital transformation of the transportation process at interstate junctions; prove that the development of cargo transit by rail, primarily through the improvement of transit transport communication with Afghanistan, is an important prerequisite for ensuring integrated security within the SCO space.Methods. This study uses the methods of systems analysis, evolutionary-institutional theory, econometric modeling, and historical approach.Results. The prospects for TTS interconnection are rooted in the implementation of the Agreement between the SCO member states to create favorable conditions for international road transport. Another promising direction involves creating a common network of railroads to achieve the global goal of establishing a unified transport system within the SCO. Given the fact that the container market has been occupied by Chinese manufacturers, the authors believe that Russian companies can and should take up a significant part of the container platform market (including innovative) within the SCO. The coordination of international transit transport should also be aimed at reducing the empty mileage rates of containers and container platforms. One of the directions for reducing empty mileage includes the formation of a backhaul cargo base and development of logistics schemes. Multimodal (combined) transport requires a single transport document as well as development and implementation of electronic workflows for cargo transit along international transport corridors. To ensure the national security of the SCO member states, first of all, it is necessary to develop rail transport of goods and passengers, which is more subject to control than road transport. It is also necessary to enhance the application of stationary and mobile inspection and examination complexes for the customs and border control of cargo.Conclusions. Realization of the transit transport potential of the SCO member states and creation of a unified transport system within the Organization’s space requires the following conditions to be met: construction of high-end transport communications; expansion of the capacity of overland borders, development of port infrastructure; interconnection of infrastructure integration projects and transit transport systems; interoperability of the transportation process, construction of multimodal transport and logistics centers; digitization of the transportation process, implementation of transport technologies based on artificial intelligence; creation of multimodal digital international corridors; implementation of electronic workfl ws; traceability of cargo transit using electronic seals.

Regional Security Complexes (RSC) are constantly evolving. Following the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh, the South Caucasus has transformed from a sub-complex within the unipolar and Russia-centred post-Soviet RSC into a distinct and bipolar RSC, with Turkey joining it as a regional pole on par with Russia. This development was a function of a combination of objective (Turkey’s engagement in the 2020 war and increased politico-military presence in the region), subjective (Turkey’s self-positioning as a regional pole) and intersubjective (Russia’s and Turkey’s mutual recognition of the pole status) factors, and calls for a reconsideration of the structure of not only the South Caucasus RSC but also the whole post-Soviet area.

It is substantiated that in the current conditions of development of the world economy under the influence of globalization, regional security complexes are increasing their influence on the formation of international security. It is proved that in the process of evolution, security complexes have significantly diversified their scope and cover, in addition to military and defense issues, economic, environmental, social, information and other security elements. It is determined that the European and North American security complexes have reached the transcontinental level of institutional security. Modern regional security complexes (RSCs) differ in the degree of integration of security issues at the level of intergovernmental institutions - from relatively complete integration of approaches to resolving security issues (at the EU level) to weak security cooperation. It is determined that the institutional profile of regional security complexes is predominantly mixed, which is determined by the peculiarities of the activities of both universal and specialized interstate institutions. The author emphasizes the unevenness of institutional support for various components of economic security at the level of specialized interstate institutions.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), established over two decades ago, stands as one of the most prominent international entities within the non-Western geopolitical sphere. Despite garnering significant interest from regional actors, the SCO continues to seek strategic direction, develop innovative frameworks, and formalize new agreements. This analysis delineates the principal vectors underpinning the SCO’s trajectory: security, economic integration, energy cooperation, cultural exchange, and public engagement, particularly through academic programming. Furthermore, the article examines the SCO’s contributions to the conceptualization and advancement of Greater Eurasia. Drawing on an extensive review of the SCO’s adopted documents, the organizational bodies established under its aegis, as well as expert and official discourse, the authors posit that the SCO demonstrates considerable potential across these domains and has attained noteworthy success, particularly in the realm of security. Nonetheless, it is observed that the implementation of policies and decisions has at times been incomplete and inconsistently executed by both the organization and its member states. Despite these challenges, the SCO has emerged as a vital mechanism not only for fostering cooperative relationships among its members but also for ensuring security and stability throughout the Eurasian region. The geopolitical upheaval of 2022 has brought serious changes to the international system, increasing the importance of the SCO and driving its ongoing development and deep transformation to boost its effectiveness. This article explores potential paths for this transformation across the SCO’s main areas of focus: security cooperation, economic and energy collaboration, and cultural cooperation alongside academic and expert dialogue.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)—an organization interpreted in various ways—officially announced that it intended to ensure regional security by countering international terrorism, ethnic separatism and religious extremism. This article discerns the motivations of the SCO members, arguing that they have their respective, albeit occasionally mutual, interests and priorities. There is generally asymmetry of interests—the principal reason why the SCO's strategic situation is largely a suasion game between China and the members—with China demonstrating a greater interest in the SCO; moreover, the power asymmetry between China and the Central Asian members and the power equality between China and Russia further complicates the situation. This sophisticated relationship implies that despite some measurable results, the SCO faces tremendous challenges in becoming a well-established regional organization.

This article analyses the key topics and concepts that have fueled scholarly and policy discussions on the Regional Security Complexes (RSCs) in the Great Lakes Region (GLR). Following the 1993 Burundian civil strife and the 1994 Rwandan genocide that marked the beginning of decades of warfare, numerous regional and international endeavours have supported peacebuilding and stabilisation in the Great Lakes Region. Large-scale refugee flows have been produced by conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) over the years, while the conflict has deepened into the Congolese society and culminated in an intense regional conflict involving several nations (due to buffer zone effects of conflict). This article argues that the GLR conflict intricately affects the countries in the region and cannot be isolated or addressed independently without involving all the countries in the region. This paper uses a desk review to examine the regional security complex in the GLR. The analysis of the R.S.C.s systematically outlines the internally triggered vulnerabilities in the Great Lakes Region, the state-to-state relations that shape the region, the region’s interactions with other regions, and the dynamics between global and regional security structures. The paper contends that the Great Lakes Region must be recognised as a collection of states constantly distressed by one or more external security forces and, as such, ought to find a collective solution to the conflict in the DRC.

Regionalism, along with realism and trans-regionalism, has largely shaped relations between India and Pakistan in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). This paper seek to analyze how the three theoretical perspectives have influenced the interaction between India and Pakistan within the context of the SCO. India and Pakistan joined the SCO as member states from the South Asian region. As a trans-regional organization, the SCO has provided both countries with an opportunity to engage in multilateral diplomacy and discussions. This has enabled both countries to be in a position to deal with common interests and factor areas of interaction apart from the prevalent tension. It has also compelled India and Pakistan to play the regional cards, though they cooperate and compete with each other in the organization to define their regional power in the SCO. Realism, a tradition of inter-state interests and power balance, has played a significant role in the India-Pakistan relationship within the SCO. Both countries have utilized the SCO to further their strategic and security interests, thus showing cooperation along with potential competition.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Inaugural Declaration explicitly initiated negotiations on investment facilitation, a theme consistently reaffirmed in subsequent heads of state declarations. From the perspective of organizational law, the SCO Charter advances investment facilitation, while memoranda and protocols function as soft law instruments supporting its implementation. Despite the absence of a unified definition of investment facilitation at the global level, the SCO conceptualizes it as a set of practices undertaken by member states to attract foreign investment, enhance efficiency across the investment cycle, and ensure transparency, simplified procedures, and predictability, in line with the requirements of the prospective SCO Free Trade Area. The article first analyzes the current status of the SCO, identifying four key reasons for the absence of a formal trade facilitation framework. It then examines both the contemporary context and the inherent institutional advantages for developing such a mechanism, while also exploring its normative foundations from a legal perspective. On this basis, the study proposes a prospective framework for SCO trade facilitation rules and discusses the potential for adopting a Shanghai Cooperation Organization Trade Facilitation Agreement. The article argues that the institutionalization of the facilitation under the SCO would not only stimulate economic development among member states but also contribute to the deepening of regional cooperation within the organization. Keywords: Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), trade and investment facilitation, legal framework, soft law instruments, regional economic cooperation, free trade area.

This article contributes to research on non-Western regionalism by examining the function of security policy coordination in two macro-regional organisations in Eurasia, which include the primary non-Western powers: the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)—with China and Russia—and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO)—with Russia. The SCO has wider formal functions, and the CSTO is more hierarchical in practice, but both claim to be regional security providers with a focus on Central Asia. It is puzzling that Member States stress the importance of these organisations, that there have been regular meetings for over 15 years, yet their functionality is low judging by their ability to implement various ambitious projects. This article offers the explanation for this in the focus of SCO and CSTO Member State leaders on the interaction between domestic political, and regional security priorities. As a result, these bodies express the phenomenon of ‘protective integration’. It is a phenomenon that does not offer substantive regional integration or emphasise collective-action problem solving. It is intended to be sovereignty enhancing and to bolster regime security, stability, and legitimacy. It fosters a culture of interaction, normative bonding, and collective political solidarity. This is confirmed in empirical analysis of SCO and CSTO discourse and agreements over counter-terrorism, information security, and foreign policy coordination. However, the bonds of protective integration have weakened as separatism has become a divisive issue since 2014 over Russian action in Ukraine. Moreover, organisational enlargement of the SCO further threatens its cohesion, while it is being displaced by the belt and road initiative in the wider context of Chinese foreign and economic policy priorities. Neither the SCO nor the CSTO are likely to be dissolved, but their purposes are likely to become more diffuse.

As noted in the introduction, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is often characterised as little more than a Russian—Chinese geopolitical device to counter the increased US presence in Central Asia. From this perspective, the intraregional focus and functions of the SCO are considered to be relatively empty and unimportant as compared with its role in keeping the Central Asian Republics within the Russian—Chinese orbit. In the preceding chapters, this study has sought to challenge this concept, by arguing that the main driving dynamics of the SCO come from addressing the common concerns of its member states about domestic and regional security, complemented by an organisational framework that facilitates common norms but does not question the member states’ control over state sovereignty. However, this book does not exclude the SCO from having a role in the wider regional landscape of Central Asia or the international system, but it does argue that this role is of secondary importance to its own internal dynamics.

This book’s main objective is to determine the role, if any, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) plays in de-escalating tensions among its members. It argues that the SCO is uniquely suited to keep its disparate members, many of whom have border disputes with each other, from escalating tensions among themselves. The book proposes a rivalry de-escalation model that differs from the standard belief that rivalries de-escalate due to a shock or external pressure. This model states that trust can be built between two rival states when confidence-building measures are instilled and utilized repeatedly over a long period of time. The SCO provides these mechanisms in the form of annual summits between state leaders and routine military exercises involving military units from every member. Examining three case studies involving the founding six members of the organization, the book argues that the SCO is effective in keeping rivalries de-escalated among its members. This book will be of much interest to students of Asian politics, regional security, and international relations.

Ongoing research on international relations in the Arctic allows for the assumption that since the Arctic is treated as a separate region in geographical terms, it can also be seen as a particular sub-system of international relations. The region comprises eight states that act to ensure a secure existence by pursuing their own goals and interests in the international arena. This creates a security relationship. The Regional Security Complexes (RSC) theory is a research framework to analyze the region’s security. It clarifies international relations at the regional level, provides a picture of the security environment in the region, and enables one to see the directions of change towards securitized phenomena that change the face of the complex. This article aims to analyze the Arctic from the perspective of the RSC theory and determine whether the region can be treated as a separately functioning system of international relations with its own security dynamics related to the specific challenges caused by climate change.

The international relations literature on regionalism, both in economic and security issues, has grown dramatically over the last 15 years. One of the ongoing issues discussed in most articles and books is the conceptualisation of ‘region’. Instead of thinking about regions using notions of interdependence and interaction we take a social constructivist approach, whereby states themselves define regions via the construction of regional economic institutions (REI). We explore how a conceptualisation of region based on REIs contrasts with various related concepts such as regional system, and regional IGO. Empirically, we show that most all countries belong to at least one important regional economic institution, REI, (for example, EU, Mercosur, ASEAN, etc). In short, the world is dividing itself into regions by the creation of regional economic institutions. We contrast our economic-institutional approach to regions with Buzan and Wæver's ‘regional security complexes’ which is based on security dependence. There are interesting agreements and disagreements between their approach and our economic-institutional approach to defining regions. It is perhaps not surprising that many REIs have taken on security roles, which we briefly show by looking at military alliances embedded in REIs. This suggests that policymakers are creating regions through institutional innovations that link economic and security issues.

The study of international relations has been re-examined in light of a global perspective on politics since the conclusion of World War 2 and the September 11 terrorist attacks. Examining Afghanistan's connection with the SCO is a relatively new subject of study. Between 2001 and 2011,China intervened strategically and economically in Afghanistan in the Bonn talks between Afghanistan, China, and the SCO. Afghanistan was awarded observer status by the SCO in 2012 in order to facilitate the integration of the broader area into the SCO and diminish US-NATO influence in the nation where Russia's key geostrategic interests lay. For China, Afghanistan's natural riches are particularly valuable. Despite the United States' exit from Afghanistan, the Taliban maintains total control of the country, and international governments refuse to recognize them.The country's position is deteriorating due to the government's lack of legitimacy. Both Moscow and Beijing want to put an end to the situation.