BACKGROUND: Since assuming office, the Putin government has conducted a sustained campaign to revitalize the CIS by enhancing cooperation among a core group of pro-Russian governments. In the summer of 2000, Putin successfully proposed that these countries create a CIS Counter-Terrorism Center in Bishkek. The following May, the CIS members authorized the formation of a Collective Rapid Deployment Force (CRDF). In May 2002, the presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan agreed to transform the Tashkent Collective Security Treaty into a Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Since its formal inauguration the following September, the CSTO has taken charge of the CRDF and transformed it into a standing force with a small multinational staff and a mobile command center. CRDF units have engaged in several major exercises on the territory of its Central Asian members, including the rapid deployment anti-terrorist exercise “Rubezh-2004” (“Frontier 2004”) in August 2004, and “Rubezh-2005” in April 2005, which involved some 3,000 troops. Russian officials have used the CSTO to legitimize their military presence in Central Asia. For example, Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov justified Russia’s establishment of the airbase in Kant, Kyrgyzstan, in October 2003 on the grounds that it provided air support for the CSTO area of operations. Russian officials also have described their military base in Tajikistan as a CSTO facility. If Russia were to assume control of the former U.S. military base at Karshi-Khanabad, Moscow might seek to lessen American concerns by also characterizing it as a multinational CSTO facility. Russian and CSTO leaders have stressed that the organization represents more than just a military bloc and can contribute to meeting a range of security problems. For example, countering narcotics trafficking and terrorism within Central Asia have become CSTO priorities. Since 2003, the CSTO governments have conducted annual “Kanal” (“Channel”) operations to intercept drug shipments from Afghanistan. Azerbaijan, Iran, Uzbekistan, and other non-CSTO members have participated in these exercises. The CSTO has established a working group on Afghanistan to strengthen its government’s law enforcement and counter-narcotics agencies. For several years, the CIS Counter-Terrorism Center has been compiling a common list of terrorist and extremist organizations that operate in the member states—though these efforts have encountered the same problems of changing nomenclature, diverging definitions, and disagreements over threat assessments that have impeded reconciling databases in Europe and the United States. The Russian government recently has taken additional steps to promote the CSTO’s role in security affairs. For example, while reducing its troop deployments outside the CIS (e.g., from Balkan peacekeeping operations), Russia has increased spending on military facilities and forces related to CSTO missions. Moscow allows CSTO members to purchase Russian-made defense equipment and supplies for their CRDF components at the same prices charged the Russian military. The Russian Ministry of Defense also subsidizes the costs of training officers from CSTO militaries. As a result of Moscow’s support, the CSTO has become much more active in recent months. In June 2005, CSTO members signed agreements to enhance joint military training, including by compiling a list of testing sites and target ranges for use during joint exercises. They also decided to create a commission to promote closer ties between their defense industries. It will help promote more joint ventures and establish common standards for equipment. In December 2005, Russian Defense Minister Ivanov announced that he and his CSTO colleagues had agreed to coordinate their anti-terrorist programs relating to nuclear, biological, or chemical security. At present, CSTO governments are addressing the technical, financial, and organizational issues raised by their June 2004 decision to create a collective peacekeeping force, which also would be available to respond to “emergency situations.”

IMPLICATIONS: The member governments historically have found it difficult to implement many CIS agreements. The problems of achieving consensus among twelve governments with increasingly divergent agendas, combined with the organization’s weak, opaque, and inefficient institutions for making and implementing decisions, have led to its stagnation and steady decline relative to the other major multinational institutions active in Central Asia. President Putin himself complained the CIS employs “obsolete forms and methods of work.” Frictions between Russia and other members have arisen over the appropriate prices for Russian energy and Russia’s restrictions on labor mobility. Perennial plans to reform its ineffective decision-making structures have failed to achieve much progress. Thanks to its limited membership and shared support for Russia’s defense and security polices, the CSTO constitutes a more coherent and active institution than the CIS. It already entails some collaboration among the members’ general staffs. Proposals exist to establish common training, military research and development, and logistic support systems. Nevertheless, the CSTO does not enjoy the degree of military coordination found in NATO today, let alone that of the Soviet-era Warsaw Pact. In May 2002, its members explicitly rejected a Russian-backed proposal to create a joint military coordination body within the Russian General Staff. The much-touted CRDF has never been used, not even during the revolution in Kyrgyzstan. The absence from the CSTO membership roster of Uzbekistan, which has the strongest military of the Central Asian countries, has hindered the organization’s role in the region. It is debatable whether governments join the CSTO to enhance their security or to secure Russian energy and defense subventions. Notwithstanding these subsidies, the Central Asian governments appear to prefer working through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which is not dominated by a single country like the CIS or CSTO. China also favors the SCO’s assuming a more prominent security role in Central Asia.

CONCLUSIONS: Russia benefits from the current situation in which Moscow can veto SCO actions whereas Beijing lacks the equivalent power to affect CSTO decisions. The developing CSTO “peacekeeping” force could provide that organization with the military power required to suppress a future revolutionary situation in a member country, especially when Islamic extremists might emerge dominant. When Russia intervened in the Tajik civil war in the 1990s, it did so under the auspices of the original CIS Tashkent Treaty. Even if Moscow endorsed SCO military intervention to bolster an incumbent member government, the organization currently has no such capacity, lacking an integrated command structure or a combined planning staff. For this reason, at some point Beijing may seek to integrate the CSTO into the SCO framework, perhaps as its military component. Securing Russian agreement for such an arrangement could be difficult. The April 2004 Memorandum of Understanding between the SCO Secretariat and the CIS Executive Committee limits cooperation to non-military issues such as commerce, anti-terrorism, and humanitarian exchanges. In practice, the two institutions have yet to undertake any joint initiatives. Despite its weaknesses, the CSTO likely will remain Central Asia’s preeminent multinational military organization for some time.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Dr. Richard Weitz is a Senior Fellow and Associate Director of the Center for Future Security Strategies at the Hudson Institute.