With the formation of the CIS after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the members of this association faced the question of the need to ensure collective security in the post-Soviet space. After preliminary negotiations and agreements on the search for forms of interaction that suited all the CIS countries, on May 15, 1992 in Tashkent, the heads of the former Soviet republics of Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan signed the Collective Security Treaty, which was later joined by Azerbaijan, Belarus and Georgia in 1993.
This Treaty contained a number of provisions that became key for the subsequent possibility of using the document as the basis for the functioning of a full-fledged international military-political organization. Later, based on the experience of applying the Treaty, adjustments and additions were taken into account, which were included in the special Protocol of Amendments to the Treaty in 2010.
Thus, the first article of the Treaty contains an obligation of member states not to enter “into military alliances or participate in any grouping of states, as well as in actions directed against another state party.”
The fourth article of the Treaty establishes that “if one of the states parties is subjected to aggression by any other state or group of states, then this will be considered by the other states parties as aggression against all states parties to the Treaty, and in this case all other parties will provide the victim of aggression with the necessary assistance, including military, as well as support with the means at their disposal in the exercise of the right to collective defense in accordance with the UN Charter.”
Article 6 of the Treaty also stipulates the possibility of using armed forces outside the territory of the member states exclusively in the interests of international security and in strict accordance with the UN Charter.
At the same time, in the 1990s, all the republics of the former USSR found themselves in difficult conditions caused by the uncertainty of their foreign policy and geopolitical priorities, the difficult socio-economic situation, as well as the presence of a number of contradictions with each other. It was these contradictions, including the presence of intractable interstate conflicts, as a result of which relations between some members of the Treaty were seriously aggravated, that caused the withdrawal of three states from the Collective Security Treaty.
For example, the Azerbaijani leadership, disappointed in the CST’s ability to resolve the situation around Nagorno-Karabakh, began to search in the international arena for additional opportunities to resolve this problem with Yerevan. Baku has taken a firm course towards military and political integration with Turkey. In turn, Georgia’s withdrawal from the CST was largely caused by the existence of ethno-territorial conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and all failures in resolving them were blamed by Tbilisi exclusively on Moscow as the main peacemaker in the South Caucasus, forcing Georgia to adhere to peaceful ways of settlement. The reason for Tashkent’s withdrawal from the CST was the desire to avoid the country’s potential involvement in a military-political alliance under the auspices of Moscow and territorial disputes with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
At the same time, the main problem of the CST was the initial rejection of serious attempts to integrate the militarily largest republic of Ukraine after Russia into the organization. Later, Kiev’s absence from the defense alliance created by Moscow – the CST laid the foundation for the country’s drift towards NATO and the growing anti-Russian orientation of the course of the Ukrainian political leadership.
In the early 2000s, the parties to the Treaty came to a common conclusion about the need to transform the CST into a full-fledged international military-political organization. This decision was facilitated by the strengthening of statehood and awareness of the true national interests of the CST member states in the international arena, and on the other hand, the growing threat of international terrorism and extremism was obvious, especially in the context of complete destabilization of the situation in neighboring Afghanistan and the implementation of a major terrorist attack in the United States by Islamic militants Al-Qaeda in 2001. Another acute problem was the growth of drug trafficking. Thus, collective international efforts were required to stop all these threats, including. serious structural reform of the CST. Thus, on May 14, 2002, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) was established, uniting Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, and in October of the same year, the CSTO Charter was adopted. An analysis of the provisions of the charter shows that the organization is a collective defense regime in which deep formalization and consistency of principles and norms are ensured, but a number of provisions of the charter, in particular, Article 4 on cooperation with other military-political alliances, did not subsequently receive a clear procedure for application.
In 2004, the CSTO Joint Staff began its work, the activities of which are focused on solving practical problems related to the formation, functioning and use of collective forces, the preparation and conduct, together with the Ministry of Defense of the participating countries, joint operational and combat training activities, military-technical cooperation, etc. In 2007, the Peacekeeping Forces numbering about three thousand military personnel and about 600 representatives of the internal affairs bodies of the member states were created on a permanent basis to participate in peacekeeping operations within the framework of the CSTO.
One of the most important stages in the evolution of the CSTO development was the decision to create in 2009 also the Collective Rapid Reaction Forces (CRRF) to quickly respond to challenges and threats to the security of the CSTO member states.
The events in Kazakhstan in January 2022 were a serious test of the CSTO’s capability, since the Organization had never used its peacekeeping forces before. Due to the sharp deterioration of the internal political situation in Kazakhstan, President K-J.K. On January 5, 2022, Tokayev turned to the CSTO for help, calling the events taking place in the republic an act of aggression, and the rioters “terrorist gangs” trained abroad. The next day, a peacekeeping operation began, within the framework of which the most rapid deployment was carried out by Russian peacekeepers. Armenian, Belarusian and Kyrgyz units were also deployed to Kazakhstan. The peacekeepers immediately took control of the most important Kazakh state and military facilities, thereby allowing the Kazakh law enforcement agencies to free up additional forces and act more freely in suppressing resistance extremists. The actions of the CSTO troops in Kazakhstan have shown that, despite the skeptical assessments of the CSTO activities by some experts, the Organization has successfully demonstrated its collective capabilities. The successful experience of conducting a peacekeeping operation in Kazakhstan allowed Russia to amend the Agreement on Peacekeeping Activities of the CSTO. In particular, the concept of a “coordinating state” was introduced, under the leadership of which peacekeeping forces could be formed to participate in operations, including under the auspices of the UN. This innovation was supposed to allow, in Moscow’s opinion, to increase the speed of decision-making regarding emerging threats by reducing the time required for the general agreement of the member states.
At the same time, in the CSTO, there is sometimes a lack of common approaches of member states to solving security issues in different regions, which manifested itself, for example, during the resumption of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2016. At that time, Yerevan harshly criticized the position of Astana and Minsk, which, according to the Armenians, did not support their position. Another example of the lack of a common approach on the part of the members of the Organization can be their position on the NWO. Thus, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries supported the “territorial integrity” of Ukraine from the very beginning. Of all the CSTO members, Russia’s actions, starting with the recognition the DPR and LPR, were unequivocally supported only by Belarus, and the rest of the participants tried to distance themselves from any reaction to the start of the NWO. And even when Ukrainian troops invaded the territory of the primordially Russian Kursk region, only North Korean volunteers came to the rescue and no condemnation of Kiev’s aggressive actions by the CSTO members was voiced. Apparently, the threat of the introduction of secondary Western sanctions against them in response to supporting Moscow’s actions turned out to be more significant for the CSTO members than the provision of Article 4 of the Treaty, according to which the country subjected to aggression can count on assistance, including military, from all CSTO members. In this situation, it seems, the biggest problem of the CSTO has manifested itself – the lack of genuine political and ideological unity of the participating countries. In practice, this means that in a crisis situation, the Organization may not work properly, especially since, according to the provisions of the Charter, the decision to use armed forces must be made by consensus.
At the same time, Moscow did not officially turn to the CSTO for help and support, proceeding from the fact that Russia does not consider the CSTO as a direct analogue of NATO, since, unlike the Alliance, the Organization sets itself only the tasks of ensuring regional security, and also does not seek to apply its jurisdiction outside the zone of its territorial responsibility.
Using the results of the armed conflict between Baku and Yerevan and the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh by the Armenians as the main reason for accusations against the CSTO, the Armenian leadership claims that the Organization refused to fulfill its obligations to protect the Army in the conflict with Azerbaijan. At the same time, the bloc had no legal grounds for interfering in the situation around Nagorno-Karabakh. In fact, the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh was part of Azerbaijan and was never recognized by Yerevan as Armenian and was a temporarily occupied territory by local Armenian militias. Despite this, over the past two years, Armenia has suspended its participation in the CSTO and stopped paying membership fees, although formally it still remains a full-fledged member of the Organization. According to numerous statements by Prime Minister N. Pashinyan, “Armenia’s membership in the CSTO is frozen, but it does not plan to officially withdraw from it for reasons of political expediency. According to him, this provision is fixed in the election program of the ruling Civil Contract party. Thus, it seems that the Armenian leadership, for domestic political reasons, does not want to make a decision on withdrawal itself, but seeks that the member states themselves decide on the impossibility of Armenia’s further stay in the Organization.
At the same time, the organization continues to function normally. The absence of one participant does not paralyze its work, although it creates an uncomfortable political background for regional stability. In order to prevent further speculation on Armenia’s membership in the CSTO and guided by provisions of the Charter of the Organization, at the regular meeting of the Collective Security Council on November 11 this year in Moscow, a decision is expected to be made in accordance with Article 25 of the Charter, which provides for “the suspension of the right to nominate citizens of this state for quota positions within the Organization, as well as the deprivation of the right to vote in the bodies of the Organization until the full repayment of the two-year debt.”
Despite serious successes in the development of the CSTO, its activities are associated with a number of problems related to differences in the foreign policy orientation of member states, the influence of extra-regional forces, conflicts in the post-Soviet space and a number of other aspects. Nevertheless, the CSTO today represents an option for the development of military-political cooperation in terms of its prospects. The organization has become the only mechanism for maintaining security in the post-Soviet space, which has passed the test of time and the ability to collectively respond to threats, and the development of this Organization will remain one of the priorities of Russian foreign policy in the region. Thus, speaking at a session of the Collective Security Council after the events in Kazakhstan in 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin bluntly stated that “we will not allow anyone to destabilize the situation at home and will not allow the scenarios of the so-called color revolutions to be implemented.”
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