On October 16, Moscow took a step closer to achieving collective security cooperation in its former Soviet domain when Russia and four former Soviet republics coordinated a military exercise at the Matybulak firing range in southern Kazakhstan. The drill, called “Interaction 2009″, was the first of its kind for the new rapid reaction force of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-led security group that evolved from the framework of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Founded in 2002, the CSTO consists of seven nations: Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Under Article 3 of the organization’s charter, each member is committed to defending the other if attacked. Since its inception, Moscow has aimed to use the CSTO as a counterweight to what it views as NATO encroachment upon its “near abroad.” In the eyes of the Kremlin, such encroachment includes the NATO absorption of the Baltic states and the former Warsaw Pact countries of Central Europe.
More alarming to Russia, however, has been U.S. efforts to bring Georgia and Ukraine into the NATO fold. To Moscow, these actions amount to a slow, semi-encirclement of Russia’s western frontier. Stoking Kremlin fears has been the shift in orientation of Tblisi and Kiev from East to West, threatening Russia with the loss of an invaluable buffer between itself and the areas under NATO dominion. Moscow experienced added discomfort when the U.S. established military bases in Central Asia following the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
As a result, of primary importance to the Kremlin has been cementing influence over its former Soviet domain. Russia has sought attainment of this goal through the CSTO, a group more malleable to its dictates than the GUAM (Georgia - now removed from the confederation, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Moldova) countries of the CIS have proven to be since the Soviet Union’s dissolution.
Though CSTO members have not blindly followed Moscow, their own internal weaknesses have forced some members to seek refuge behind the Russian security shield. One such example of this is Tajikistan, which has allowed the stationing of the Russian 201st Motorized Rifle Division on its soil since its period of civil war, from 1992-97.
Many of the CSTO countries are beset with security concerns involving Islamic militant groups, political instability, and, in the case of Armenia’s dispute with Azerbaijan over the ethnic Armenian exclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, unresolved frozen conflicts. The ebb and flow of relations between Russia and several Central Asian nations such as Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan has often proven spasmodic since the founding of the trade-driven CIS in 1991. Yet during periods of duress these countries invariably turn to Russia for support.
Of particular worry for the Central Asian CSTO members is whether the violence and militancy that have emerged from (and been sustained by) the chaos in Afghanistan will reach across their borders and spread northwards.
Aware of the converging attitudes among its Central Asian partners regarding the ongoing tumult in Afghanistan, Moscow steadily pushed its plan for a rapid response force under the CSTO umbrella. From the Kremlin’s perspective, establishing such a force has the added benefit of providing it with the political cover to deploy more of its troops not only in Central Asia, but also along the borders of the Baltic countries.
Moscow made significant progress when an agreement to create the Collective Rapid Reaction Force (KSOR) was reached by five of the seven CSTO members on February 4, 2009, with plans finalized on June 14. Both Belarus and Uzbekistan, each with their individual irritations vis-à-vis Moscow, at first refrained from signing onto the new initiative. Belarus, involved in a trade dispute with Russia at the time of the CSTO summit in June, finally inked the agreement to join KSOR on October 15, while Uzbekistan, concerned with the direction of the CSTO under Moscow’s control and the possibility that Russian forces would be stationed on its soil, so far has not.
Despite the ongoing Uzbek holdout, the first military drill conducted by the rapid reaction force can be viewed as a triumph of sorts for Moscow in its quest to secure its post-Soviet space.
While the CSTO leadership talks of the use of KSOR for anti-terrorism activity, border security and stemming the flow of drug traffic, one unspoken possibility may be to use the force to suppress domestic riots. After being alarmed by the populist ‘Rose’, ‘Orange’ and ‘Tulip’ revolutions taking place during the decade, it is not without plausibility that similar public gatherings might be blended with dissent in the minds of certain CSTO leaders and ultimately interpreted as riots.
Perhaps more importantly, however, is the question of whether the CSTO might develop into something akin to the Warsaw Pact, which served the former Soviet Union by acting as military ballast to NATO during the Cold War era, or whether suffocation by Moscow and a lack of unity will render it largely ineffectual.
All told, the members of the CSTO are spending roughly $47 billion on defense in 2009, with Russia accounting for over 93 percent of that total. The military manpower pool of the seven member nations, excluding interior security forces, totals 1.38 million personnel (Russia again representing the overwhelming majority). While Russia offers to sell its military hardware at Russian domestic prices to CSTO members, with the exception of Kazakhstan, each is unable to afford outfitting its armed forces with the firepower to match a conventional enemy or avail themselves of technologies - unmanned aerial vehicles, ISTAR (intelligence, surveillance, target-acquisition and reconnaissance) systems - helpful in defeating irregular foes in a counterinsurgency.
The tremendous disparity between what each member brings to the table spells out the reality that the CSTO, while perhaps capable of fulfilling the border and internal security roles advocated by its leadership, will continue to be furtively guided by the hand of Moscow.
Yet whereas the former Warsaw Pact was a Soviet-driven mechanism directly opposed to NATO, the CSTO presents opportunities for cooperation between the two organizations in areas such as joint counter-terror exercises, disaster relief and military transshipment. Also of note is that each CSTO member is already a participant in NATO’s Partnership for Peace program.
Russia and its CSTO partners recognize that if NATO’s preoccupation with Afghanistan recedes prematurely and a power vacuum is left in its wake, then they will become the new front-line against any incipient jihadist aspirations in Central Asia. Because of the shared threat perception over a future Afghanistan, the CSTO should not necessarily be viewed as a rival to NATO, but perhaps seen as a natural partner.
