SCO: New Architecture of International Security

The arrival of the Pakistan and Mongol premiers, Iran's First Vice-President and India's Foreign Minister at the meeting of the Council of the Heads of Government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) became a landmark event. Before our very eyes a new influential international organization is being born which is already exerting a marked influence on global political and economic processes. This is what Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the meeting in the Kremlin, and numerous experts agree with this assessment.

Analysts do not rule out that India, Pakistan, Iran and Mongolia may shortly join the SCO. This new strategic club is evolving at a brisk pace, having turned during a few years into a powerful organization of regional security, and attracting new members by the grandeur of the tasks facing it.

Yet another reason for such a rapid buildup of the new, Asian architecture of international security is the shortsighted actions by the USA in "exporting democracy" to the Trans-Caucasus and the Central Asian Region (CAR). A "Strana.Ru" news analyst writes in this connection that "Washington, by touting democracy in several countries of the region, has only ruined its influence, having demonstrated that such actions lead only to chaos".

So it was not accidental that the Russian President compared the recent events in Nalchik with the mass riots in the Uzbek city of Andizhan, considering them to be links of the same chain. A popular TV commentator Mikhail Leontiev goes still further in his assessments calling the terrorist sally in Kabardino-Balkaria a kind of a precursor of an "orange revolution" in Russia. Be that as it may, the US missionary policies make regional leaders take resolute steps to maintain stability in the Trans-Caucasus and the CAR.

The SCO has already shown the world all the facets of its new format. The large-scale military maneuvers in China and India, the regular command-staff exercises in Tajikistan and Kirghizia under the auspices of the Collective Security Treaty Organizations (CSTO) are the first powerful manifestations of the military component of the nascent Asian military-political alliance.

Cooperation among the CAR countries in the economic and humanitarian fields is developing dynamically as well. Pakistan, India and Russia have become especially close after the natural disasters in the region, when Moscow provided large-scale aid to its friends.

Yet another important problem that simply has to be solved by the new bloc is to provide a discussion ground for the search of a compromise between India and Pakistan and their subsequent historical reconciliation. Today these nuclear powers are already making their first steps to meet each other halfway, and their joint activities within the framework of the SCO may put this process in a new setting and give it a new impetus. Arbiters in this case may be the two influential regional power centers – Russia and China.

Evaluating the part the SCO is playing in the present-day unipolar world, Russian premier Mikhail Fradkov says: "The SCO is open and will use every opportunity to become a synthesizing factor in international relations". Today the SCO member countries start financing specific projects, and not only in the field of the commercial and economic cooperation, though the economic projects are of course impressive as well.

Thus, China is going to allocate, in the framework of the SCO, $900 mln as export credits under a 2 percent interest and maturity of 20 years. Besides, Peking is setting up a program for training SCO specialists in various fields of cooperation. In the near future 1,500 specialists would be trained, the cost of the program coming up to around $9 mln.

At the same time, believes M. Fradkov, the SCO has to react to the new challenges of the present day – terrorism, extremism and drug trafficking. According to the Russian premier, the SCO is actually becoming "a serious stabilizing factor of the international life, an important element of the international architecture ". For all that, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is not aimed at any third country. "Our organization is an open one. We are not aimed at any third countries", says in this connection Premier of the State Council of the PRC Vang Tsiabao.

Similar opinions of the SCO's role were voiced in the speeches of the representatives of India, Iran, Kazakhstan. To all appearances, the USA and NATO would very soon have to reckon with the new center of power in the Far Eastern and Central Asian regions and to watch closely the SCO's initiatives in the field of global and regional security.

For the time being, though, Washington is faking a certain lack of interest for the developments around the SCO, being obliged to take time-out to evaluate the situation. However, the formation of such a powerful Asian nuclear club with a tremendous energy, human and military potential cannot leave Washington indifferent and will add up the prestige of the leading SCO member countries on the international scene.