[Peace-discuss] Why we kill children in the Mideast

Sat Jun 13 20:14:37 CDT 2009

"Unmistakably, closer Chinese-Russian military cooperation within the SCO 
framework has been prompted by their perception that the US is pressing ahead 
with its strategic plans to bring the energy-rich Eurasian region under its 
influence ... despite the Obama administration's call to 'reset' ties with 
Russia, the 'old thinking' prevails in Washington -- that Russia is a defeated 
power, it's not a legitimate great power with equal rights to the US, that 
Russia should make concessions ... that the US can go back on its promises 
because Russia is imperialistic and evil ... Russia hands in the Obama 
administration -- Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, 
National Security Advisor General James Jones, National Security Council member 
Michael McFaul -- are all in one way or another associated with the 'old 
thinking' toward Russia ... Today, despite their hypocritical talk of 
'cooperation' ([i.e.] the shipment of NATO military freight across Russia), the 
[US-led] coalition is keeping Russia away from Afghanistan as much as possible, 
even though their own policies in Afghanistan are the worst possible example of 
a murderous neo-colonial regime."

	Jun 13, 2009
	Sino-Russian baby comes of age
	By M K Bhadrakumar

By the yardstick of Jacques, the melancholy philosopher-clown in William 
Shakespeare's play As You Like It, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) 
has indisputably passed the stage of "Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms".

Nor is SCO anymore the "whining schoolboy, with his satchel/And shining morning 
face, creeping like snail/Unwillingly to school". The SCO more and more 
resembles Jacques' lover, "Sighing like a furnace, with a woeful ballad/Made to 
his mistress' eyebrow." Indeed, if all the world's a stage and the regional 
organizations are players who make their exits and entrances, the SCO is doing 
remarkably well playing many parts. That it has finally reached adulthood is 
beyond dispute.

But growing up is never easy, especially adolescence, and the past year since 
the SCO summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, has been particularly transformational. 
What stands out when the SCO's ninth summit meeting begins in the Urals city of 
Yekaterinburg in Russia on Monday is that the setting in which the regional 
organization - comprising China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and 
Uzbekistan - is called on to perform has itself unrecognizably shifted since 
last August's gathering of leaders in Dushanbe. First, the big picture.

The locus shifts east

The world economic crisis has descended on the SCO space like a Siberian blast 
that brings frost and ice and leaves behind a white winter, sparking mild 
hysteria. The landscape seems uniformly attired, but that can be a highly 
deceptive appearance. Russia and China, which make up the sum total of the SCO 
experience, are responding to the economic crisis in vastly different terms.

For Russia, as former prime minister and well-known scholar academician Yevgeniy 
Primakov observed ruefully in a recent Izvestia interview, "Russia will not come 
out of the crisis anytime soon ... Russia will most likely come out of the 
recession in the second echelon - after the developed countries ... The trap of 
the present crisis is that it is not localized but is worldwide. Russia is 
dependent on other countries. That lessens the opportunity to get out of the 
recession in a short period of time." [1]

Primakov should know. It was he as president Boris Yeltsin's prime minister who 
steered Russia out of its near-terminal financial crisis 10 years ago that 
brought the whole post-Soviet edifice in Moscow all but tumbling down.

Russia's economic structure is such that 40% of its gross domestic product (GDP) 
is created through raw material exports, which engenders a highly vulnerable 
threshold when the world economy as a whole gets caught up in the grip of 
recession. But what about China?

This was how Primakov compared the Chinese and Russian economic scenario:

     In China too, as in Russia, exports make up a significant part of the GDP. 
The crisis smacked them and us. The difference is that China exports ready-made 
products, while on our country [Russia] a strong raw material flow was 
traditional. What are the Chinese doing?

     They are moving a large part of the ready-made goods to the domestic 
market. At the same time, they are trying to raise the population's solvent 
demand. On this basis, the plants and factories will continue to operate and the 
economy will work.

     We [Russia] cannot do that. If raw materials are moved to the domestic 
market, consumers of such vast volumes will not be found. Raise the population's 
solvent demand? That merely steps up imports.

This is only one part of a complex story, but the short point concerns the 
vastly different prospects of economic stabilization in the current crisis that 
China and Russia face. To be sure, its impact on the geopolitics of the SCO 
space cannot be overlooked. Simply put, China's profile as the "donor" country 
in the SCO space is shining brighter than ever before. China has given US$25 
billion as a loan to Russia and $15 billion as a loan to Kazakhstan, the two 
big-time players in the SCO, during the April-May period.

Last week, in yet another breathtaking move, China offered a loan of $3 billion 
to Turkmenistan. The loan for Russia is a vital lifeline for its number one oil 
major Rosneft and its monopoly pipeline builder Transneft. The loan for 
Kazakhstan, which goes partly towards acquiring a 50% stake in 
MangistauMunaiGaz, increases China's share of oil production in Kazakhstan to 
22%. Again, the loan for Turkmenistan ensures that China has the inside track on 
the fabulous Yolotan-Osman, which is reputed to be one of the biggest gas fields 
in the world.

No heartburn in Moscow

In short, if the law of nature is such that gravitation in life is inevitably 
towards where the money comes from, the locus of the SCO has shifted to Beijing 
more than ever before. In any other context, this would have straightaway 
introduced a high state of disequilibrium within the SCO. It took decades for 
France and Germany to figure out cohabitation within the European Economic 
Community. The China-Russia equilibrium within the SCO has always been delicate, 
but it may have prima facie become more so than ever before. But in actuality, 
it isn't so.

It goes to the credit of the leaderships in Moscow and Beijing that they have 
steered their relationship in a positive direction by rationally analyzing the 
imperatives of their strategic partnership in the overall international 
situation rather than in a limited sphere of who gains access to which gas 
fields first in the Caspian or who is a lender and who is a borrower in these 
extraordinary times.

Thus, the frequent tempo of Russia-China high-level exchanges has been kept up. 
Both sides are sensitive to each other's core concerns and vital interests. 
Russia's conflict in the Caucasus last August was a litmus test and Beijing 
passed the test. The Russia-China mutual understanding survived intact without 
bruises.

Despite China's highly principled position on the issue of political separatism 
and secessionism, and despite all efforts by Western propaganda, China kept a 
watchful position on Georgia's breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia 
and silently took note of Moscow's recognition of their unilateral declaration 
of independence, but on balance remained broadly sympathetic to Russia's 
concerns and predicaments, which Moscow duly appreciated.

Again, belying all Western expectations that Russian and Chinese priorities in 
energy security diverge, the two countries have finally begun taking big strides 
on the ground in energy cooperation. A variety of factors went into it - the 
fall in demand for energy in the recession-struck European markets; strains in 
Russia-European Union energy relations; Russia's own search for diversification 
of its Asian market; Russia's energy rivalries with the European Union and the 
United States in the Caspian and so on - but the fact remains that Moscow is 
increasingly overcoming its hesitancy that it might get hooked to the massive 
Chinese energy market as an "appendage", as a mere provider of raw materials for 
China's economy.

The 25-year $25 billion China-Russia "loan-for-oil" deal signed in April alone 
amounts to Russian oil supplies equivalent of 4% of China's current daily needs. 
Not bad at all. But it is in the sphere of natural gas that we may expect big 
news in the coming period. This is virgin soil. Russia at present does not 
figure as a gas exporter to the Chinese market. And natural gas is where the 
world's - and especially China's - focus is turning in the coming decades.

Powerful Kremlin politician Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin is on record that 
the Russian leadership will be making some major proposals to Chinese President 
Hu Jintao during his visit to Russia to attend the SCO summit. ("Whatever amount 
they [China] ask for, we [Russia] have the gas," Sechin reportedly said.) It 
cannot be lost on observers that the Kremlin has earmarked the SCO summit event 
for taking such a strategic step in energy cooperation with China.

Thus, it has become a moot point whether Moscow has or has not yet realized the 
then president Vladimir Putin's four-year-old idea of forming an "energy club" 
within the SCO framework. Effectively, a matrix is developing among the SCO 
countries (involving member countries as well as "observers") in the field of 
energy cooperation. It has several templates - China on the one hand and 
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan on the other; Russia-China; China-Iran; 
Russia-Iran; Iran-Pakistan; and, of course Russia's traditional ties with the 
Central Asian states. (If the current Iranian plan for an oil pipeline linking 
the Caspian Sea and the Gulf of Oman materializes soon, yet another template may 
be formed involving Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.)

Arguably, so far these vectors have not collided with each other, despite the 
prognosis of Western experts that Russian and Chinese interests in the Central 
Asian and the Caspian region will inevitably collide [2]. Moscow seems to be 
quite comfortable with the idea that the Chinese are accessing the region's 
surplus energy reserves rather than the US or EU countries. As a commentator put 
it, "Russia is also doing its damnedest to keep Europe out of Central Asia ... 
In Central Asia, it's starting to look as if Moscow and, to a lesser extent, 
Beijing ... may have already outmaneuvered Europe." [3]

SCO gatecrashes the Hindu Kush

Less than three years ago, a leading American expert on the Central Asian 
region, Dr Martha Brill Olcott of the Carnegie Endowment for International 
Peace, described the SCO as "little more than a discussion forum". Olcott said, 
"Today, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization does not pose any direct threat to 
US interests in Central Asia or in the region more generally." [4]

That was a debatable point even three years ago, more so now. What seems to have 
happened is that the US simply has had no choice but to learn to live with a 
unique regional organization that insists on keeping it excluded. Any regional 
body that includes Russia and China cannot but be of interest to Washington. No 
doubt, SCO has been an object of intense curiosity for US regional policies 
through the past decade. American diplomats did all they could to debunk it in 
its formative years. Finally, Washington reconciled. This was evident from the 
fact that eventually the US began making efforts of its own, vainly though, to 
gain observer status in the SCO.

The list of participants at the SCO summit in Yekaterinburg testifies to the 
SCO's steady evolution as an influential regional and international body. 
Curiously, the list of participants includes Mahinda Rajapaksa, president of Sri 
Lanka, as a "dialogue partner". In terms of realpolitik, SCO has broadened its 
reach to the Indian Ocean region. Clearly, it is a matter of time before Nepal, 
Myanmar Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are associated with the SCO processes one way 
or another. The SCO already has institutionalized links with the 10-member 
Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

A stage has come when the SCO's common stances on regional and international 
issues are widely noted by the international community and discussed threadbare 
by regional experts. Quite likely, this year's statement will reflect a common 
SCO position strongly endorsing the Sri Lankan government's policy of rebuffing 
the Western intrusive approach in terms of humanitarian intervention in the 
island's current problem affecting displaced Tamils.

For Colombo, the SCO support will come as a much-needed shot in the arm in 
warding off Western pressure in the period ahead. Already in the United Nations 
Security Council, Colombo depends on the robust support of Russia and China, 
both veto-holding powers from the SCO.

Again, the SCO's formulations this year on the North Korean and Iran nuclear 
problems will be read with interest. Last year's statement on the conflict in 
the Caucasus was widely discussed by regional experts.

During the past year, the SCO has virtually gatecrashed into the Afghanistan 
problem, so much so that it is going to be counter-productive for Washington to 
shut out the regional body altogether from the Hindu Kush. The SCO has rapidly 
built on its nascent idea of a "contact group" with Kabul. It has maintained a 
smooth working relationship with the government led by President Hamid Karzai. 
If anything, Karzai's recent difficulties with North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization (NATO) capitals have prompted him to reach out to Moscow.

United States pressure on Karzai to keep him away from the SCO is unlikely to 
work again. Karzai will be present at the Yekaterinburg summit meeting. His vice 
presidential running mate, Karim Khalili, recently visited Moscow. Karzai's 
other running mate, Mohammed Fahim, has old links with Russia's security agencies.

The SCO conference on Afghanistan held in Moscow on March 27 was primarily 
intended to challenge the US's monopoly over conflict resolution in Afghanistan, 
though its focus was on the problem of drug trafficking. It followed three years 
of futile efforts by the SCO to forge a partnership with NATO for the 
stabilization of the Afghan situation, which Washington kept frustrating.

Finally, the US was compelled to attend the Moscow conference lest Russia and 
China dissociate from similar American-sponsored forums on Afghanistan. The 
conference has opened a window of opportunity for regional powers to get 
involved with Afghanistan's stabilization, independent of US strategy. Countries 
like India, which are being left out of the loop, will find the SCO as a useful 
framework to work with. (India will be represented at the SCO summit for the 
first time ever at the level of the prime minister.)

The SCO conference also assumes significance in the context of the Barack Obama 
administration's AfPak strategy, which envisages "grand bargains" with regional 
powers. The SCO sized up that Washington's game plan would be to strike "grand 
bargains" individually and separately with each of the countries in the region, 
which would effectively ensure that the US retained the monopoly of conflict 
resolution and enabled the US to give new underpinnings to its regional policies 
aimed at broadening and deepening its influence in Central Asian and Southwest 
Asian geopolitics.

Bush's policies continue

NATO has officially invited Kazakhstan, a major SCO member country, to take part 
in its Afghan operations. [5] This is despite Kazakhstan being an active 
promoter and a prominent member of the Collective Treaty Organization (CSTO) and 
the SCO, both of which have repeatedly offered partnerships to the Western 
alliance for its Afghan mission. [6]

Robert Simmons, the NATO secretary general's special representative for the 
Caucasus and Central Asia, is on record as saying that the Kazakh army has 
already achieved "interoperability" with NATO forces and could make a good 
showing in the Afghan mission. Clearly, NATO is sidestepping the CSTO and the 
SCO and would prefer to deal with Central Asian capitals individually. The US is 
striking similar "grand bargains" with other Central Asian capitals in terms of 
gaining access to new military base facilities.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stated in April that Russia and China would 
strengthen their military cooperation through the SCO and engage in several 
joint military maneuvers. He implied that these plans were aimed at limiting the 
US's presence in Central Asia. From the Russian and Chinese point of view, it is 
obvious that the erosion of the US's economic foundations is not preventing 
Washington from pursuing with renewed vigor its project aimed at regaining lost 
influence in Central Asia.

The Obama administration's proposed budget for the State Department allocates 
aid of $41.5 million for Kyrgyzstan and $46.5 million for Tajikistan, whereas 
the corresponding figures for the current fiscal year are $24.4 million and 
$25.2 million, respectively. US military aid to the two countries will also 
similarly be increased under the new budget.

The justification given is that Central Asia's strategic importance has risen of 
late for US regional policies. According to budget justification documents 
released by the State Department in Washington on May 7:

     Central Asia remains alarmingly fragile: a lack of economic opportunity and 
weak democratic institutions foster conditions where corruption is endemic and 
Islamic extremism and drug trafficking can thrive. For this region, where good 
relations play an important role in supporting our [US] military and civilian 
efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, the [budget] request prioritizes assistance 
for the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan.

The political rationale of the aid request makes no bones about the fact that 
geopolitics is a factor in Washington's decision to step up aid to Central Asia 
at a time when the Russian capacity to bankroll Central Asian economies is in 
serious doubt. "The United States rejects the notion that any country has 
special privileges or a 'sphere of influence' in this region; instead the United 
States is open to cooperating with all countries in the region and where 
appropriate providing assistance that helps develop democratic and market 
institutions and practices."

Curiously, Washington has lately made it clear that it has no intentions of 
vacating the Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan in August without a last-ditch effort 
to get Bishkek to reconsider its decision. Apart from sustained US diplomatic 
efforts to persuade a rethink in Bishkek, Washington has also sought the good 
offices of Karzai to raise the issue with his Kyrgyz counterpart President 
Kurmanbek Bakiyev - interestingly enough, on the sidelines of the SCO summit in 
Yekaterinburg.

Therefore, it is against the backdrop of the deteriorating security situation in 
Afghanistan, which causes concern among the SCO member countries, as well as the 
robust US diplomacy in the Central Asian region to expand American influence, 
that the Chinese and Russian decision to step up SCO military cooperation will 
be viewed. The SCO defense ministers' meeting held on April 29 in Moscow 
confirmed reports that China and Russia would hold 25 joint maneuvers this year. 
(In the entire period since 2002, China has held only 21 military exercises with 
foreign countries.)

Interestingly, all these proposed maneuvers will be focused on the "war on 
terror". The SCO war games for 2009 began with a joint "anti-terror" exercise in 
Tajikistan near the Afghan border. The main exercise, codenamed Peace Mission 
2009, is planned for July-August. This year's exercises assume the nature of a 
conventional drill operation insofar as they will involve more than 2,000 
Russian and Chinese troops with heavy weapons such as tanks, transport planes, 
self-propelled artillery and possibly including strategic bombers.

The exercises will be held in three stages inside Russia and in northeastern 
China. Unmistakably, closer Chinese-Russian military cooperation within the SCO 
framework has been prompted by their perception that the US is pressing ahead 
with its strategic plans to bring the energy-rich Eurasian region under its 
influence.

Can Obama become a heretic?

In a remarkably candid interview recently, well-known Russia scholar Professor 
Stephen Cohen at New York University said he didn't believe "anything 
substantially or enduringly good" is about to happen in US-Russia relations in 
the foreseeable future. Nor is a "real partnership" possible between the two 
countries.

More ominously, he warned that the US-Russia relationship was fast getting 
"militarized", as it used to be during the Cold War. He said, "NATO expansion 
has militarized the relationship between the US and Russia, between the United 
States and the former Soviet republics, and between Russia and the former Soviet 
republics. Remove NATO expansion, remove the military aspect, and let them 
compete otherwise." [7]

More startlingly, Cohen assesses that despite the Obama administration's call to 
"reset" ties with Russia, the "old thinking" prevails in Washington - "that 
Russia is a defeated power, it's not a legitimate great power with equal rights 
to the US, that Russia should make concessions ... that the US can go back on 
its promises because Russia is imperialistic and evil."

Cohen said Russia hands in the Obama administration - Vice President Joe Biden, 
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, National Security Advisor General James 
Jones, National Security Council member Michael McFaul - are all in one way or 
another associated with the "old thinking" toward Russia. "So there are no new 
thinkers in Obama's foreign policy okruzhenie [circles]. There is enormous 
support in the US for the old thinking. It's the majority view. The American 
media, the political class, the American bureaucracy - they all support it. 
Therefore, all hope rides with Obama himself, who is not tied to these old 
policies. He has to become a heretic and break with orthodoxy."

Cohen added:

     Now you and I might say that's impossible, but there is a precedent. Just 
over twenty years ago, out of the Soviet orthodoxy, the much more rigid 
Communist Party nomenklatura, came a heretic, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. 
It's not a question of whether we like Gorbachev's leadership or we don't. The 
point is that he came forward with something he called "new thinking", breaking 
with the old Soviet thinking, and the result was that he and [president Ronald] 
Reagan ended the Cold War, or came very close to doing so. So the question is 
whether Obama can break with the old thinking.

Thus, the extraordinarily high degree of mutual understanding that the Russian 
and Chinese leaderships have been able to work out in the recent period within 
the SCO has a much broader framework than appears at first sight. US policies 
towards Russia have significantly contributed to these regional compulsions felt 
by Moscow and Beijing. Chinese commentaries are consistently sympathetic towards 
Russia apropos the range of issues affecting US-Russia relations in Eurasia.

In an extremely meaningful political gesture on April 28, Chinese Defense 
Minister Liang Guangalle, heading a military delegation and visiting Moscow in 
connection with the SCO defense ministers' meeting, traveled to Russia's North 
Caucasus Military District to discuss regional security with Medvedev. This 
happened just two days ahead of the formalization of the Russian decision to 
deploy troops for the defense of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

What emerges is that both Russia and China remain skeptical [about] Afghanistan. 
Izvestia wrote recently, "Today, despite their hypocritical talk of 
'cooperation' (by which they mean the shipment of NATO military freight across 
Russia), the [US-led] coalition is keeping Russia away from Afghanistan as much 
as possible, even though their own policies in Afghanistan are the worst 
possible example of a murderous neo-colonial regime." [8]

Izvestia continued the tirade:

     Mass killings of the civilian population by the American army such as 
bombing wedding and funeral processions, extending the fighting to Pakistan and 
dragging it into Afghanistan's internal ethnic and political feud - all these 
and similar actions, which have been without any social or commercial investment 
in Afghanistan, threaten the whole world, Russia included.

     The Afghans, sick and tired of the pointless presence of foreign military 
forces, have asked Russia to restore its clear-cut peaceful Afghan policy. A 
delegation of influential Afghan politicians will arrive in Moscow to attend the 
May 14 Russian-Afghan forum. The group mainly includes Pashtun leaders, who have 
shaped the country's political and state backbone for centuries. They are 
convinced that the way to peace and settlement in Afghanistan will depend on 
Russia's policy.

CSTO to counter NATO

Does all this add up to the SCO becoming a military alliance?  This is a 
question that has come up frequently during the past decade. It still refuses to 
go away. There has been even some degree of characterization of the SCO at times 
as an "Asian NATO". But the answer is a firm "no'. The plain truth is that 
neither China nor Russia would be comfortable for the foreseeable future with 
the idea of a military alliance between them, although both have shared concerns 
over the US agenda for NATO's eastward expansion.

Besides, we should not overlook that Central Asian countries also have their own 
so-called "multi-vector" foreign policy, which places primacy on national 
autonomy and independence that precludes the possibility of their becoming part 
of a military bloc as such.

At any rate, Uzbekistan, the maverick of them all but a key country all the same 
in regional security, will forever keep everyone guessing whether its mind is on 
the same thing that it speaks about at any given time, or whether its actions 
are going to be in conformity with its own words. Tashkent stayed out of the SCO 
exercises in April in Tajikistan. It is right now having a slinging match with 
Kyrgyz border guards about recent incidents of violence in the Ferghana Valley.

However, Moscow has been steadily working on another option. The CSTO - Armenia, 
Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia Uzbekistan and Tajikistan - is 
transforming into a full-blooded military alliance. "The National Security 
Strategy of the Russian Federation Until 2020", which was recently approved by 
Medvedev, says that Moscow views the CSTO as the key instrument to counter 
regional challenges, and political and military threats. The document says 
pointedly that the struggle for energy resources in the Caspian and Central Asia 
may conceivably lead to armed conflicts.

The special summit meeting of the CSTO held in February in Moscow decided to set 
up a collective rapid-response force to help bloc members to repulse aggression 
or to meet any emergency. Moscow has been focusing for some time on the 
strengthening of the CSTO and recent strides in this direction are a major 
foreign-policy success for the Kremlin. No doubt, the impetus is to keep "third 
countries" out of Central Asia. Medvedev has said that the rapid-reaction force 
"will be just as good or comparable to NATO forces". The CSTO's joint 
rapid-reaction force will hold military exercises in August-September in 
Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus.

The force will comprise an airborne division and an air assault brigade from 
Russia, and an air assault brigade from Kazakhstan. The other CSTO members 
(except Uzbekistan) will contribute a battalion-size force each. To quote a 
Russian expert, "A collective rapid-reaction force will give CSTO a quick tool, 
leaving no time for third parties to intervene." [9]

"The rapid-response force is a major but so far only one of the first steps 
toward creating a powerful military political organization," he added. Indeed, 
Kommersant newspaper broke the news on May 29 that Russia was planning to build 
a strong military contingent in Central Asia within the framework of the CSTO, 
which will be comparable to NATO forces in Europe. "Work is being conducted in 
all areas, and a number of documents have been adopted," the report said, 
quoting Russian Foreign Ministry sources.

The unnamed Russian official said, "It will be a purely military structure, 
built to ensure security in Central Asia in case of an act of aggression." It 
will include armored and artillery units and a naval flotilla in the Caspian 
Sea, according to the CSTO spokesman. The Russian news agency Novosti reported 
that the new force would comprise large military units from five countries - 
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. It commented, "The 
creation of a powerful military contingent in Central Asia reflects Moscow's 
drive to make the CSTO a pro-Russian military bloc, rivaling NATO forces in Europe."

Interestingly, a summit meeting of the CSTO is scheduled for Moscow on Sunday on 
the eve of the SCO summit in Yekaterinburg. The million-dollar question is the 
co-relation, if any, between the CSTO and the SCO summits in the scheme of 
things in Moscow and Beijing. The political and diplomatic symbolism in the 
timing of the two summits on successive days cannot be lost on observers. There 
has been some talk that the CSTO and the SCO would eventually have an 
institutionalized back-to-back relationship of sorts. (All the SCO member 
countries except China are also CSTO members.)

Conceivably, Moscow and Beijing have been exchanging views on the CSTO's 
emergence as a coherent military bloc in Central Asia, with which China shares 
thousands of kilometers of border. What seems to be happening is that China 
tacitly welcomes the Russian initiative to build up the CSTO's capabilities as a 
military setup. At the very least, Beijing isn't doing anything to dampen 
Russia's enthusiasm, let alone counter the Russian move through countervailing 
steps. There could be several factors at work here.

One, any strengthening of security in Central Asia also benefits China. Two, to 
the extent that the CSTO becomes a bulwark against any NATO expansion into 
Central Asia, it also works to China's advantage. Three, Moscow's determination 
to stand up to the US's containment strategy serves Beijing's purpose. Four, the 
CSTO's build-up means the consolidation of Central Asian countries, which 
precludes opportunities for the US to expand its influence in the region, let 
alone roll back Russian and Chinese influence.

Five, the emergence of the CSTO in Central Asia virtually forecloses any future 
US attempts to place elements of its missile defense system in the border 
regions of China close to the Xinjiang autonomous region, where China has 
located important missile sites. Finally, the CSTO harbors no animus against 
China insofar as all the CSTO members except Armenia and Belarus are in any case 
SCO members. China's rapidly expanding influence in Central Asia ensures that 
the bulk of the CSTO countries will have high stakes in friendly relations with 
Beijing.

Thus, an intriguing security paradigm is developing in Central Asia. 
Quintessentially, the SCO will keep shying away from becoming a military bloc. 
This is not feigned posturing. It is real. At the same time, in political terms, 
the SCO is the facilitator of a regional security understanding that is leading 
to the full-blooded evolution of the CSTO as an anti-NATO military bloc.

Arguably, in the absence of the SCO, Moscow and Beijing would have to invent 
such a body. For, without the SCO, any such formation under Moscow's leadership 
of a NATO-like military bloc shaping up right on China's sensitive border 
regions would have been simply unthinkable.

Notes
1. Marina Zavada and Yuriy Kulikov, "Yevgeniy Primakov", Autopilot Does Not Work 
in a Crisis, Izvestia, May, 8, 2009.
2. According to the data from the US Energy Information Administration, the 
three “Stans” of Central Asia - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan - have 
more than 7 trillion cbm of proven gas reserves, or around 4% of the global 
share, and much of the has hasn’t yet been harvested. The "Stans" have committed 
much of their harvestable gas to Russia and China through the next decade.
3. S Adam Cardais, "Central Asian Gas Not a Panacea for Europe", Business Week, 
February 3, 2009.
4. Dr Martha Brill Olcott, "The Shanghai Cooperation Organization: Changing the 
Playing Field in Central Asia", testimony before the Helsinki Commission, 
September 26, 2006.
5. "NATO invites Kazakhstan to join Afghan peacekeeping operation", Nezavisimaya 
Gazeta, May, 14, 2009.
6. Significantly, the next round of the SCO joint military exercises will be 
held in 2010 in southern Kazakhstan.
7. "Interview with Stephen F Cohen on US-Russia Relations", Washington Profile, 
April 2009.
8. "Afghanistan: Russia’s chance to influence global politics again", Izvestia, 
May 13, 2009. 9. Ilya Kramnik, "CSTO: joining forces in a crisis", RIA Novosti, 
February 5, 2009.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. 
His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, 
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/KF13Ag01.html