Keywords: SCO, Central Asia, regional security

S. G. LUZYANIN

Doctor of Historical Sciences

Yu. V. MOROZOV

Candidate of Military Sciences

Today, in the Central Asian region (CAR), the geopolitical game is played not only by the countries of this region and its neighbors, but also by the United States, the states of the European Union, NATO, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The stakes in this game are quite high: whoever is able to influence the situation in the region will also ensure access to its rich natural resources.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has become a prominent political factor in this region and an important link in the formation of a new multipolar world order.

The SCO, due to its geostrategic position and Eurasian development vector, could in the future become one of the main poles of the modern world, a major production, raw materials and transport hub with access to South Asia and the Persian Gulf zone.

HUGE POTENTIAL, BUT...

The geographical focus of the SCO's activities can be defined primarily as Central Asian. De Jure, this dimension is fixed in the SCO legal documents and will remain a determining factor for a long time to come.

The Shanghai Five emerged and took shape in 1996 as a group of post-Soviet Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan) and Russia adjacent to China. In 2001, the transformation of the "five" (consisting of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan) into the SCO took place in connection with the accession of Uzbekistan to the Organization.

The total area of territories in the member states of the Organization is 30.2 million square kilometers (20% of the land, and with observer countries-25%), the population is 1.5 billion. people (i.e. 25% of the world's population, and with observers-and all 48%)¹

The total volume of foreign trade of the SCO member states is estimated at trillions of dollars. Intraregional trade within the Organization is growing rapidly, although its share in the total foreign trade volume of the member countries is still small. The total GDP reached almost $6.4 trln2 ⁱⁿ 2008.

The long-term goal of the Organization is to improve the situation in Central Asia (CA), establish cooperation and strengthen trust between the countries of the region. The SCO's key security, economic and humanitarian cooperation programs are mainly related to this region.

The specifics of the Central Asian dimension of the SCO also lie in the fact that the 4 Central Asian states in their relations with Russia and China simultaneously act as subjects of economic and security policy, as well as objects of Russian-Chinese initiatives. This type of relations is due, on the one hand, to the independent status of the Central Asian states that have the right to an independent foreign policy, and, on the other hand, to the significant gap in economic and political potential between these countries and Russia and China.

For the Central Asian states, the SCO's attractiveness also lies in the fact that it involves two nuclear powers, permanent members of the UN Security Council. The participation of the Russian Federation and the PRC in the SCO makes it possible to attract the military and political resources of these countries to repel the threats of the "three evils" (in Chinese terminology)-separatism, religious extremism and terrorism.

At the same time, a new dimension of the SCO is being formed, focused on a broader geopolitical (Eurasian) context. It is based on the existing institution of the Organization - the system of observer countries (India, Pakistan, Iran, Mongolia).

...IT'S FAR FROM BEING REVEALED YET

As a relatively young organization, the SCO is largely following an untrodden path, and problems are often solved by "trial and error".

The work of the Organization has accumulated a lot of general problems that require a significant adjustment of its activities. There is dangerous inertia, and the implementation of agreed decisions is delayed or delayed. The lack of noticeable results in the economic sphere of the SCO is striking.

Among the most urgent tasks of the SCO is to correct a significant imbalance in the sphere of economic development, and to take effective measures to improve the standard of living in a number of Central Asian countries - Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. For comparison, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita at purchasing power parity in 2008 amounted to $16,160 in Russia, $11,563 in Kazakhstan, $6,000 in China, $2,606 in Uzbekistan, $2,173 in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan -$1984 ³.

Some countries in the region continue to smoulder in the Middle East.-

torial-ethnic conflicts. The potential of the SCO observer states, which have long sought closer cooperation with the Organization, is poorly used.

There are also many unresolved issues in solving other complex problems of the region - environmental protection (for example, related to one of the largest environmental disasters of our time - the drying up of the Aral Sea), disaster management, health care, information policy, water use and a number of other regional challenges.

The security issue of the SCO countries stands apart. The organization does not pursue the goals of creating a military alliance, however, the Declaration on its creation emphasizes that it " attaches priority importance to regional security and makes all necessary efforts to ensure it."

Of fundamental importance is the provision contained in the Declaration on the Fifth Anniversary of the SCO (Shanghai, June 15, 2006) that "defining specific forms and mechanisms of regional security is the prerogative and responsibility of the States located in this region"⁴. It should be added that the Members of the Organization have signed a fundamentally important Agreement on conducting joint military exercises, and a legal framework has been established for their preparation and conduct on a regular basis.⁵ In their defense cooperation, States are guided by generally recognized principles and norms of international law, do not provide for the creation of a military-political alliance, and do not act against third countries.⁶

what to do?

It seems that the listed problems in the SCO's activities and regional challenges to stability and security can be solved both in the short term, relying on the Organization's own forces, and in a longer period in cooperation with the international community.

In terms of mobilizing SCO resources, in particular, in order to overcome the consequences of the financial and economic crisis, a number of priority areas can be identified.

It seems that the main thing in them is the development of cooperation between the SCO countries in the field of energy as the main engine for the development of the member countries and overcoming existing economic problems. We are talking about accelerating the implementation of the idea of creating the SCO Energy Club, establishing cooperation on the introduction and use of renewable energy sources, as well as on the development and implementation of innovative technologies.

An important area is the development of transport communications, the construction and modernization of trans-Asian highways and railways, the creation of the necessary associated infrastructure, and the provision of conditions for international road transport, including within the E-40 transcontinental transport corridor passing through the territories of Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It is necessary to study the possibilities of cross-border movement of container trains, the use of seaports of Russia and China by other SCO members, and the organization of new air corridors that are more attractive for transit flights.

It is also important to increase cooperation in the agricultural sector, develop consolidated approaches to strengthening regional food security and stimulating national agricultural production.

In the field of water use, land reclamation, and joint development of transboundary rivers, there is a need to create a managed system for the use of water resources in Central Asia. One of the proposed solutions is the construction of "intercept" reservoirs in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, where water accumulates in the winter months, and in spring and summer it is used for irrigation.

There are great prospects for creating stable conditions for mutual trade and investment within the Organization, strengthening market mechanisms, streamlining customs procedures and harmonizing technical regulations/standards.

At a time when the process of overcoming the global financial and economic crisis has begun, cooperation between the SCO's most powerful economies-Russia and China - is of particular importance, and they should provide appropriate assistance to the Central Asian countries. However, under-financing of multilateral projects within the SCO framework retains the existing priority of bilateral economic cooperation within the Organization.

It also seems important to speed up the work on the formation of the SCO Development Fund, involve the Business Council and the Organization's Interbank Association more widely in the implementation of planned projects of multilateral trade and economic cooperation, establish cooperation between the SCO and international organizations operating in the region in the financial and economic sphere, improve and preserve the environment in Central Asia, etc.

The SCO expert community has repeatedly raised the issue of using national currencies in bilateral and multilateral regional exchanges, with the prospect of creating a regional currency based on the ruble and yuan within the Organization.

The implementation of the Russian initiative to create the Shanghai Health Organization (SCO), a kind of analogue of the UN World Health Organization (WHO) for its members, can solve some of the existing problems in the field of health.

In the field of prevention and/or elimination of the consequences of natural disasters, it is necessary to develop legal and organizational provisions for the implementation of joint rescue operations, including:

preparation and training of personnel according to uniform methods, their rapid transfer and compatibility of technical means. This would be facilitated by the creation of a single SCO center for preventing and eliminating the consequences of natural and man-made emergencies. Given the extensive experience of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, Russia could initiate the creation of such a center.

A DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY IS NEEDED

The global crisis puts new emphasis on the balance of power on the world stage.

However, there is currently no system of sound views on the medium-term strategy and the longer-term development of the SCO, as well as ensuring regional security as an integral part of this strategy, and therefore the relevant documents have not been developed in the SCO.

It seems to us that the following steps could contribute to solving this problem::

- clarification of the concept of "SCO space", which is associated with an increase in the mutual influence of national interests not only of the Organization's participants and observer states, but also of other states and international organizations operating in the region;

- development of a unified Strategy for the development of the Organization with the participation of both SCO member states and observers.

Such a draft document could include sections on cooperation between the Organization's member States in the political, economic, humanitarian, and security spheres. Among them: the space of its activity and priority goals in the main areas of cooperation; medium-term tasks (conditions for the formation of interregional integration education in cooperation with international organizations and states of the world); long-term interests (building the Organization's potential, its transformation into a" pole " of the world order with coordinated political and economic development of its own and global resources used in development of a common economic space and security system focused on strengthening integration in the Euro-Asian space.

- Preparation of the SCO Regional Security Concept as part of the Organization's Development Strategy. It could include provisions on the composition of the SCO, its common and special interests, highlighting those that conflict with non-regional players in the SCO space; types of external and internal threats to the Organization's participants; problems and directions for ensuring security, as well as the procedure for allocating the necessary resources for this and using them in the event of a threat The organization as a whole or its individual participants ⁷.

- understanding of international legal aspects of interaction of 3 SCO institutions within the framework of the scheme "6+4+2" - member countries, observer countries and the institute of dialogue partner countries (Belarus and Sri Lanka) that is being created.

The new expansion configuration could create opportunities for diversification of forms and methods of cooperation, the emergence of new state combinations in the Organization's activities not only in the traditional Central Asian direction, but also in the Eurasian space, including Eastern Europe (Belarus), South Asia (Iran, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka), and East Asia (the Siberian-Far Eastern part of the Russian Federation, Mongolia, China) regional spaces.

- consideration at the level of the top leadership of the SCO member states of issues related to enhancing the role of the Organization's secretariat, as well as expert reassessment of the existing regulatory consensus in decision-making in the SCO. In modern conditions, the principle of consensus-based decision-making should obviously be used only on fundamental issues. In less important cases, Member States of the Organization may use the principle of "I do not object, but I do not participate".

FROM THE "ARC OF INSTABILITY" TO THE "ARC OF STABILITY"

The need to form a system of regional security and protect the interests of the Organization at the moment is primarily caused by the complication of the military-political situation in the region, in particular in Afghanistan and Pakistan. At the same time, it is favored by the "reset" of US-Russian relations and the US-China "strategic dialogue".

An expanded security system in the region could not become a collision ground between the interests of the Organization's states and other countries, but a kind of testing ground for establishing cooperation in neutralizing threats. From this perspective, it would be possible to work out the formulation and solution of the problem of creating a "stability arc" by joint efforts in contrast to the existing "instability arc"at the expert level. The member States of the SCO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) could become an element of this new "arc" and a link between the security systems of Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

In the medium term, a dichotomous (dual) system of regional security would probably serve the interests of the SCO members.

Its main pillars could be: on the one hand, the CSTO, in which all the SCO countries participate (with the exception of China), designed for the joint defense of the participating countries (the first security radius); on the other, a strategic partnership within the SCO aimed at neutralizing a wider range of threats in a larger area in cooperation with India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran (second security radius) and based on the development of dialogue with the United States and NATO on issues of mutual interest.

However, building the SCO's capacity to deal with these threats faces discussions about the possible "tilt" of the Organization towards a military-political union. Some experts believe that given the worsening situation in the region and the fact that Central Asia is becoming one of the arenas of economic, political and military rivalry between world powers, it is necessary to pay due attention to enhancing the role of the SCO in ensuring the defense and security of its founders. Others insist on developing exclusively the economic, humanitarian and diplomatic potential of the Organization as the main means of peaceful settlement of problems.

In our opinion, the truth lies in the middle-in the development of the peacekeeping potential of the SCO member states. This form of cooperation organically combines both diplomatic methods of influencing disputes and disagreements at the regional level, and military methods that can eliminate emerging threats to regional stability at an early stage, as well as humanitarian and economic mechanisms for neutralizing them.

An example is the joint participation of Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in collective efforts during the civil war in the 1990s in Tajikistan, where they maintained peace, assisted in the delivery of food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies, and helped refugees and victims. But their main task remained to disarm illegal formations and terrorist groups. The efforts of these countries, and especially the Russian contingent, have played a significant role in helping restore stability in Tajikistan.

Consideration could be given to establishing a joint peacekeeping base on the territory of one of the Central Asian countries under the auspices of the Organization, allowing for peacekeeping operations involving both police forces and special forces, as well as regular armed forces, if necessary. At the same time, the development of the SCO's peacekeeping potential in the specific conditions of Central Asia does not seem to contradict the non-military status of the Organization, but could significantly support political and diplomatic efforts in the interests of maintaining stability.

If we talk about the need to ensure regional security with the participation of the SCO, including by military means, then, according to Article 1 of its Charter, the SCO is a universal Organization. Its mission is to "develop multidisciplinary cooperation in order to maintain and strengthen peace, security and stability in the region", as well as "promote effective regional cooperation in the political, trade, economic, defense... and other areas." This provides a legal basis, and the aggravation of the military-political situation in the region is the basis for creating a mechanism for cooperation within the SCO on the entire range of military security issues. In this regard, it seems appropriate to consider the following approaches.

In our opinion, the non-military status of the SCO would not be contradicted by such steps as further deepening and developing the legal framework of the Organization for collective counteraction to terrorism, separatism, extremism and other challenges and threats; working out new approaches to the SCO security concept; institutional development of its security structures; holding regular meetings of representatives (leaders national Security Councils (Committees)of the SCO member states, and in the future - the inclusion of the Security Councils of observer countries in this institution; development of plans for military-political and peacekeeping activities in the SCO in the event of crises in the region.

The implementation of these proposals will help resolve the existing contradictions within the SCO, which consists in the fact that when there are tasks to ensure peace, security and stability in the region, the Organization does not have the forces and means of defense and their management bodies.

INTERACTION WITH OTHER ORGANIZATIONS

Since in addition to the SCO, the CIS and CSTO structures also operate in the region, it is important to establish

effective cooperation between them and clearly delineate the security functions of each of them. In order to avoid parallelism and competition between the SCO, CSTO and CIS, we should work out the issue of intensifying cooperation between the SCO, CSTO and CIS anti-terrorist structures in order to expand the exchange of operational and analytical information, as well as establish the practice of mutual invitations to participate in our own events.⁸

We should also not underestimate the benefits of cooperation with the anti-terrorist structures of other international organizations, primarily with the UN, as well as with the national anti-terrorist bodies of individual countries.

In the region, there is a tendency for closer cooperation between NATO, on the one hand, and the SCO and CSTO, on the other. The West is being pushed to do this by the activation of the Taliban in Afghanistan, major armed clashes with radical Islamists in Pakistan, and the increasing difficulty in supplying the growing group of US and NATO troops and forces in the region. Washington and the North Atlantic Alliance are interested in facilitating the transit of military cargo to Afghanistan through Russia and post-Soviet Central Asia.

There are other areas that contribute to the expansion of cooperation between the SCO and NATO in the field of ensuring security in the region, such as the use of political and other methods of influencing sources of threats. At the same time, the main task of both organizations at this stage is to develop a dialogue and strengthen confidence-building measures between them. Cooperation between the SCO - Afghanistan contact group and NATO in identifying areas where the two organizations ' interests coincide in the security sphere could be useful. In the same format, it is possible to move from discussions at the SCO and NATO forums within the North Atlantic Partnership Council to meetings and consultations of the heads of the secretariats of these organizations.

Closing the channels of distribution of terrorism, extremism and drugs from Afghanistan to neighboring countries requires reliable border closures, including with the help of the latest technical means. Not only the SCO countries are interested in helping to solve this problem, but also the NATO states, which are able to provide appropriate assistance to the countries bordering Afghanistan.

It is also possible to study the possibility and expediency of practical interaction between the border troops and special forces of the SCO states and the International Assistance Force for Afghanistan to quickly stop the flow of drugs from Afghanistan, initially in the framework of joint exercises, and later in practice. It is also necessary to intensify the exchange of intelligence on terrorist activity in the region, develop an international database on drug trafficking - the main financial source of terrorism, and exchange experience between the SCO and the alliance on problems and achievements in the fight against these threats. Training of specialists from Afghanistan and Central Asian countries in combating the drug threat should be further developed within the framework of the SCO and NATO structures under the auspices of the UN.

The implementation of these and other areas of practical cooperation between the SCO and NATO in the field of security in Central Asia is possible, provided that the West recognizes the SCO and the CSTO and begins a constructive dialogue with them.

These are, according to the authors, some of the possible ways to increase the SCO's potential and enhance its role and significance, and thus its authority in the world community.

¹ Speech by M. L. Titarenko, Director of the Institute of Internal Affairs of the Russian Academy of Sciences, at a scientific and practical conference in the Security Council of the Russian Federation on 15.04.2009, Moscow.

² Of these, China accounted for approximately $4.3 trillion, and the Central Asian countries - members of the SCO-for about $ 180 billion.

³ Speech by M. L. Titarenko, Director of the Institute of Internal Medicine of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 15.04.2009.

⁴ An important practical step was the adoption of the Program of Cooperation in the fight against terrorism, separatism and extremism for 2007-2009, and the holding of a conference on Afghanistan in Moscow on 27.03.2009.

⁵ In 2005 - 2007, joint military exercises "Peace Mission - 2005" and "Peace Mission - 2007" were held within the framework of the SCO, which demonstrated the ability of the armed forces of the Organization's member countries to counter threats and challenges of the 21st century, primarily terrorism.

⁶ This decision was adopted in 2008 at a meeting of defense ministers of the SCO member States.

⁷ A. F. Klimenko's speech at the round table in the Institute of Internal Medicine of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 8.04.2009.

⁸ The existence of a" Memorandum of Understanding between the CSTO Secretariat and the SCO Secretariat " ensures the maintenance of consultation and information exchange regimes between these organizations and the development of joint cooperation programs that cover the main areas of their activities.

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