As the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has recently declared its wish to pursue energy cooperation among its member states, its regional counterpart, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), has also been expanding dynamically, trying to increase its functions beyond anti-terrorism activities.

The CSTO, comprised of Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, has limited possibilities for further enlargement. The organization therefore opts for expanding its activities. As such, the CSTO plans to create its own peacekeeping troops by 2010. The main feature of such a coalition peacekeeping contingent will be a common educational basis for conscripts at Russian military schools. The CSTO's efforts to create its own full-fledged peacekeeping contingent will most likely seek to reflect international standards of organization and indeed mimic, if not duplicate, NATO's peacekeeping activities.

The CSTO's Parliamentary Assembly is another example of building an intra-organizational institution that duplicates those of NATO. By creating sub-structures, the CSTO is able to at least symbolically occupy the position among its member states which NATO has assumed in the 1990s through its Partnership for Peace (PfP) program. At the same time, the CSTO does not openly challenge the presence of NATO or any other international organization in the CIS. All CIS states are part of the PfP program, with Armenia and Kazakhstan openly pursuing active cooperation with NATO along with cooperation with the CSTO and other regional structures.

Furthermore, the CSTO will create a special Coordinating Council on the Prevention of Illegal Migration to regulate migration flows on its territory. Russia and Kazakhstan are especially interested in such a regulatory body. Both states host hundreds of thousands of labor migrants from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Issues of legal and illegal immigration have turned into an important aspect of Russia's relations with the Central Asian states. The CSTO aspires to help Russia and Kazakhstan control immigrants. Importantly, both states view the issue of immigration as a national security challenge.

The CSTO's tempo has been increasing over the past few years, not least because Central Asian states have been seeking stronger relations with Russia. Unlike the SCO, where post-Soviet member states' political and economic backgrounds differ from those of China, the CSTO has a certain dynamism and homogeneity given its members' common Soviet history and knowledge of the Russian language. Especially in 2006-2007, various high-ranking representatives of the CSTO states have been regularly gathering to discuss current and future directions of the organization's functioning. However, while the CSTO has shown some success in conducting meetings among state agencies of a similar rank, it still fails to initiate intra-organizational activity across various agencies. For instance, representatives of military structures rarely meet with their civilian counterparts, thus reducing chances for a civil-military dialogue. In this situation, the main agency promoting frequent interaction among member states has been the CSTO's Secretariat.

Indeed, the CSTO's increase in activities is explained by the growing role of the SCO in the region. Both organizations regularly conduct collective military exercises and hold annual summits. Often, the CSTO has competed in terms of the scope of these exercises. Except for Armenia, Belarus and China, all other member states overlap in the two organizations. Last year, the CSTO proposed to conduct joint military exercises together with the SCO, but the latter declined. Compared with the SCO, the CSTO has been conducting exercises smaller in scale that promoted high mobility among its Collective Rapid Reaction Forces. The SCO, in contrast, has been preoccupied with developing scenarios of defense activities from mass attacks by insurgents.

There is still a plethora of aspects within the CSTO's framework that remain of a mere declaratory character. Its Media Forum set to facilitate exchange of information among member states is one such example. The military element in the CSTO's functioning will continue to occupy a central position in the foreseeable future.  But by expanding its activities, the CSTO is filling the CIS with a new meaning. The CIS, the base organization for the CSTO, was long defined as ineffective with many regional experts mooting its eventually inevitable disappearance.

In the great likelihood that the incumbent Russian president, Vladimir Putin, will retain his political influence after next years’ presidential elections, the CSTO's new initiatives will continue to be supported by Russia. The CSTO will continue increasing Russia's and, possibly, Kazakhstan's political gear within the narrow inner core group of the CIS.