“He, who controls Eastern Europe, controls the Heartland. He, who controls the Heartland, controls the World Island. He, who controls the World Island, controls the world”. This phrase of a famous British geographer Sir Halford John Mackinder has long ago become a classical geopolitical maxim. Heartland is the name, once given to the territories in the middle of Eurasia that located between the Central Asia and the Arctic Ocean. World history is the history of Heartland’s conquests, by the powers that were considered great at the moment. Today it’s the territory, occupied by the SCO members.
Being created in 2001 on the basis of “Shanghai Five”, Shanghai Treaty Organization was met with a restrained skepticism around the world at first. Numerous analysts and commentators predicted a short lifespan of this project, pointing out to the contradictive interests of its two main founders — Russia and China. However, gloomy forecasts happened to be premature.
U.S. National Intelligence Council publishes its report from time to time, attempting to forecast the possible course of foreign-policy affairs. In 2010 they published a “World in 2025” report, where American intelligence analysts tried to predict the destiny of our planet for the next fifteen years. They’ve touched upon the issues of technological progress and demographic changes there, although it was the role of the “new superpowers” that they’ve paid special attention to. In this context, a considerable part of the report is dedicated to the Shanghai Treaty Organization.
SCO history started in 1996–1997, when Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, China, Russia and Tajikistan signed a treaty about the consolidation of trust in the military sphere and the mutual reduction of military contingents in the border areas. This was dubbed a “Shanghai Five”. In 2001, when Uzbekistan joined the treaty, it was called the Shanghai Treaty Organization. Besides the six aforementioned members, SCO also has an institution of observers — India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan. The SCO constantly dialogues with Belarus and Sri Lanka, cooperates with the CIS, ASEAN, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.
The SCO Charter features various goals — from economic and scientifically-technical cooperation to the maintaining of peace and stability in the regions, resistance to terrorism, separatism and extremism. American analysts, though, consider of its main goal to be the restriction of American regional influence.
The very existence of the SCO creates a semantic problem for the Western foreign-policy analysts, viewing the world in a unipolar light. They are hugely impressed by the potential of its member-states. All the experts agree that the SCO is actually able to efficiently able to oppose the Western influence in Central Asia. Shanghai Treaty Organization is more and more often dubbed the Asian NATO, which the reviving countries enter (implying to Russia, it seems), the emerging powers (presumably China) and the states, which can’t be dubbed “powers” as of yet, but disposing considerable deposits of energy resources, allowing them to play a role of “geopolitical bolts”, tying the union together (Kazakhstan).
After the chaos of the 90s the Russian Federation is regaining the status of the world leading powers. In 2010 Russian economy with the $2.6 trillion GDP was placed the 6th largest one. Vast deposits of energy resources allow Russia playing an important role in the international affairs. Caucasian War in August of 2008 reaffirmed the Russian dominion at the post-Soviet space. 30-year-long Chinese “economic miracle” has made Chinese economy the second largest one in the world. Last year China became the world’s largest exporter, having outstripped Germany. India, the SCO observer, is also an obvious aspirant for the title of the emerging power. Its economy is the fourth largest in the world, featuring a GDP of $3.57 trillion. The SCO members — Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan — dispose rich hydrocarbon deposits, while Turkmenistan, which has an observer’s status too, became an object of struggle between Russia and the West due to the tremendous deposits of natural gas. Iran is also reach with that natural resource — it is merely an observer yet, but it lays its claims for the SCO membership as well. Pakistan (also an observer) and Afghanistan (not having such status as of yet) also participate in the work of the SCO.
All these countries play important foreign-policy roles as they are. Afghanistan and Pakistan, which became the battlefield for the USA, NATO and Talibs, are of especial interest in that sense. After the assassination of Osama bin Laden at the Pakistani territory, American relations with this nuclear power have deteriorated rapidly. Despite the tremendous financial aid that America renders to Pakistan, recently anti-American sentiments have ripened in this country — Pakistani, who assisted the CIA during the search and discovery of the “terrorist #1” have been arrested for one. The USA are obviously “losing” Pakistan, but the very fact that this country may join the Shanghai Treaty Organization any moment make the regional situation critical for the United States. Add the scheduled withdrawal of the U.S. and allied troops from Afghanistan (which also drifts towards the SCO) here and the change of regional balance of powers becomes apparent. Simultaneously, the inveterate issue of the Indian-Pakistani stand is being settled — India also has all the chances to become an SCO member. If we add Iran, whose nuclear program has long ago turned into a stumbling block for the West, to this equation, it becomes clear that the SCO project is gaining new meaning, which our diplomats could have hardly foreseen in the middle of the 90s, when the “Shanghai Five” was created. Even today were may confidently mention the global role of the SCO, which may not only become an Asian NATO, but an actual rival of the most powerful military-political bloc in the world.
Russo-Chinese cooperation is the natural carcass of the SCO — their common goal is to oppose the U.S. dominion in the region and all over the world, along with consolidation of their own positions in the Central Asia. Success of SCO completely depends upon the strength of bilateral ties between Moscow and Beijing. Despite the existing Russian apprehensions of Chinese expansion and an obvious reframing of the Russo-Chinese cooperation, connected to the increasing role of China in the world, an unchallenged similarity of economic and military-political interests allows us to predict the further strengthening of the SCO positions all over the world.
Leaders of the SCO member states pay special attention to the consolidation of the economic partnership within the organization. During the meeting of heads of governments on the 14th of September, 2001 in Alma Ata the primary goals of the regional economic cooperation were discussed. Meeting of the heads of governments that took place on the 23rd of September, 2003 was essentially important. During this meeting its participants discussed the creation of a common economic space by 2020. The subject was the movement of goods, capitals, services and technologies. If the documents, signed during this meeting are successfully brought to life, the SCO may become not only the Asian NATO but also a sort of the European Union for Central Asia.
Anti-terrorist stand of the SCO is an essentially important factor for the Central Asia. One only has to remember the Russian and Uzbekistani assistance to Tajikistan in the matter of stabilization of the situation at home, where the threat of a civil war was clearly seen. The SCO states managed to consolidate in the face of the Islamic fundamentalist threat, mostly presented in the region by the Islamic Liberation Party (Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami), whose influence spread onto Ukraine and Belarus. In 2001 the Shanghai Convention of the Fight on Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism was signed and then the special regional counter-terrorist structure was created. SCO member-states regularly hold the joint military maneuvers. These SCO efforts will gain a peculiar importance after the withdrawal of the NATO troops from Afghanistan, which is known for production of a lion’s share of drugs, coming to Russia and European countries. Counteraction to the drug traffic has become one of the main areas of SCO activity.
Despite the fact that China and Russia — along with India and other states, lying within the reach of SCO interests — are going to resist the American supremacy in the region, in the long run the United States still remain an important strategic partner for the SCO. Globalization makes the stand between the blocs, international organizations and individual countries with global interest impossible. High level of the mutual economic dependence makes even the competing countries like China and the USA respect each other’s interests. Everyone is interested in keeping the Central Asian region stable. That’s why the successful development of the Shanghai Treaty Organization should not only lead to the consolidation of its regional positions, but also bring the partnership between the SCO and the NATO, between the European Union and the United States, to a new level.
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