Although more than a year has passed, Kazakh President Tokayev still clearly remembers: It was a winter in 2021, when a group of thugs, fanned by Western NGOs, frantically attacked Kazakhstan's state institutions.
Faced with the intensification of the color revolution, Tokayev was at a loss what to do. At the critical moment, the Russian-led CSTO "magic troops descended from the sky" to calm down the riots with lightning speed and save the Tokayev government from danger.
However, Tokayev would not have thought that this operation might be the CSTO's last vigorous and resolute operation. Because just a month after the unrest in Kazakhstan subsided, Russia went to war with Ukraine.
Because Ukraine could not be beaten to death or half-dead by a single blow, Ukraine, which survived the darkest moment, quickly received deep recognition and strong support from Western countries. Therefore, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine that was supposed to be a quick end soon became an unstoppable tug-of-war, and Russia was also trapped in the quagmire of Russia-Ukraine confrontation and was unable to extricate itself.
For Russia, the last thing they want to see is a protracted war, because it will make Russia lose blood 24 hours a day, and it will also seriously damage Russia's international reputation and influence.
Sure enough, when Russia's "true capabilities" were exposed in the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, neighboring countries, especially former allies, began to rush to attack Russia. For example, President of Tajikistan Rahmon faced Putin criticized Russia for not treating its allies as human beings; Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan even questioned the "validity" of the CSTO summit in front of Putin at the opening ceremony of the CSTO summit. He deliberately distanced himself from Putin in the group photo at the end of the summit, and even refused to sign the joint statement, which greatly damaged the image of Putin and Russia.
In fact, it is not surprising at all that the CSTO has such an embarrassing situation. After all, since the establishment of the CSTO in 2002, except for helping Kazakhstan quell unrest, Russia, as the eldest brother, has done almost nothing to convince the brothers.
For example, when the CSTO was first established, Azerbaijan and Armenia started working non-stop. Faced with the internal strife between the two brothers, Russia first secretly supported Armenia, which made the disappointed Azerbaijan determined to fly away.
Then when Azerbaijan, which had withdrawn from the CSTO, launched a counterattack against Armenia with the support of Turkey , the CSTO remained "immovable" and completely failed to fulfill the provisions of Article 4 of the treaty that "if a member state of the organization suffers aggression, it will be regarded as an aggression against all member states of this treaty". Armenia watched helplessly as Armenia abandoned its armor and lost its rights and territory.
So Armenia’s rage against Russia is no accident. Also unhappy are the Central Asian countries. In particular, conflicts such as the territorial dispute between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan , as the "arbiter", Russia sided with Tajikistan, which directly led to Uzbekistan and Western countries becoming hostile. Although Russia tried to win back Uzbekistan and succeeded for a time, its inability to support Uzbekistan in substance meant that Uzbekistan's recognition of the CSTO existed in name only. Tajikistan, which is "favored" by Russia, is also furious with Russia because Russia does not regard itself as a human being. In Kazakhstan, if it had not been for the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Tokayev would most likely have felt the embarrassing situation of "it is easy to invite gods, but difficult to send away".
It can be said that because Russia cannot be a "big brother" at all, and it is even less able to play the protective role of the CSTO, it is not surprising that the CSTO is crumbling.As a "soil-devouring" country, although Russia does not have the ability to mediate impartially and protect brothers, it has a "fine tradition" of taking the lead in bullying brothers. For example, in Georgia the most head-scratching South Ossetia and On the Abkhazia issue, instead of defending Georgia's interests, Russia stationed "peacekeeping troops" in the two regions to obstruct Georgia's reunification. It even fought with Georgia in 2008, which greatly hurt Georgia's feelings.
As a result, with the support of Russia, the unreliable big brother, the CSTO has not only seen its membership dwindle day by day, but the remaining member states have also been incoherent and perfunctory.
Just think about it. Even the Soviet Union, which was at its peak, could not solve the problem of alienation among the member countries. When the Soviet Union collapsed, how could the member states that had established their own countries work together as one? This is simply a whimsical dream.
Coupled with many territorial disputes, which were originally created by the Soviet Union or Russia to facilitate their rule, it is logical that the CSTO is a mess and even exists in name only.
But the problem is that Russia, alone, has repeatedly stated that "I really can't do it" against the NATO group headed by the United States.
Although the domineering statement that "Russia has only two allies, the army and the navy" has long been out of the solar system, the reality is that the navy is useless and the army is out of power. Otherwise, the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine would not have been so ugly.
Under such circumstances, although Russia claims that it can do it, in its heart it desperately hopes that its "allies" will rush to intervene.
However, the CSTO members have long lost their most basic goodwill and respect for Russia and want them to continue to work for Russia's interests. They just said in unison: We try not to stab Russia in the back.
It can be said that under Russia's series of unreliable "efforts to govern", the CSTO has long been "embarrassed and useless". The Commonwealth of Independent States, , which corresponds to the CSTO, also because of Russia's self-centered operations, such as the South Ossetia War and Crimea incident, 's "ignorance", directly led to the withdrawal of Georgia and Ukraine in anger, and its scale and influence are becoming less and less worth mentioning.
So, what about Russia? Of course, please ask someone else. Specifically, it is combined with .
Recently, Russian Ambassador to China Morgulov, who just took office in October, met with Shanghai Cooperation Organization Secretary-General Zhang Ming. During the meeting, the two sides discussed key issues such as the future development of the SCO, improving the work efficiency of the organization and executive agencies, and improving the cooperation mechanism of member states to deal with security challenges and threats. Both sides agreed that SCO member states should carry out more pragmatic cooperation in finance, economy and trade, science and technology, sports and other fields.
It seems that this is just a routine meeting between envoys from two major powers, and the content of the discussion is relatively general. However, in subsequent external reports, several intriguing details were revealed.
First of all, the two countries had in-depth discussions on "improving work efficiency." After all, compared to the CSTO and the CIS, the SCO is always growing. If there is no advancement with the times in terms of working models and power distribution, the SCO will inevitably stagnate or even decline.
should say that such a proposal is indeed very timely and correct, but the question is, how to improve efficiency? Especially regarding details such as how to distribute power, China and Russia do not seem to have discussed a result that satisfies both parties.
What is even more embarrassing than the unresolved details is that in the external reports of the two countries, even the most basic goal, that is, the position of the security field is greatly reduced or even not mentioned at all. Not only are the words "military" and "security cooperation" missing, but even the word "anti-terrorism" has been chosen as "invisible".
This is a rather embarrassing signal. You must know that the original intention of the establishment of the SCO was to deal with the increasingly rampant terrorism, separatism and extremism in Central Asia and maintain the security of Central Asia and even China and Russia.
Today, even anti-terrorism is kept secret, which is enough to show that China and Russia have principled differences and even contradictions in the future development direction of the SCO.
Considering the current situation in which Russia is trapped in the quagmire of confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, and traditional organizations such as the CSTO and CIS are unable to be used, even a blind person can see that Russia just wants to find a "spare tire" that it can rely on as a backer for Russia to fight against , NATO, and .
As for why it is the SCO rather than the Turkish-led Alliance of Turkic Countries, Jingye Shi believes that in addition to the SCO being larger and more influential than the Turkic Countries, the more important reason is: the SCO has China!
Russia knows very well that in the ten months since the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine broke out, although China has adhered to neutrality, it has been its greatest support for Russia. However, given the current situation in which Russia has too much to take care of, China's continued neutrality is obviously "anachronistic."
Therefore, Russia's biggest dream is to "draw China into the water" and let China participate in the cause of confrontation between Russia and Western countries. Specifically, it is to build the SCO into the second CSTO.
It should be said that Russia’s idea is indeed very beautiful. After all, compared with the CSTO, the SCO is not only stronger and has a high degree of overlap with the CSTO, but more importantly, the SCO also has security cooperation and other functions that are highly similar to the CSTO.
But the problem is that the current Russia cannot even handle the CSTO, so what can it do to promote the "collective security" of the SCO? Russia has nothing to do with a small country like Armenia, so why should it allow China to accept the coercion setting?
You must know that China and Russia, both major countries, are very different in terms of their basic national conditions and their will. This also determines that it is theoretically impossible for the two countries to become one. Otherwise, China and Russia would have shared the same hatred in Ukraine.
In the current China and Russia, the main function of the "back-to-back hug" is not only to support each other, but also to prevent the two big countries connected by mountains and rivers from encountering conflicts. The existence of the SCO, in addition to the basic setting of counter-terrorism, also plays a role in buffering the conflicts between China and Russia.
This also means that the SCO is fundamentally different from the Russian-led CSTO and the CIS.
A very important reason why the SCO can continue to expand is that the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation has allowed more countries to see the many benefits of cooperation within the SCO framework. To put it bluntly, the reason why countries like Iran are willing to play with the SCO is not because of Russia's face, but because of China's development prospects.
Under such circumstances, Russia wants to change the development direction of the SCO and let other member states, especially China, follow Russia to fight against the West. This is an overestimation of its capabilities.
In Jing Yeshi's view, the SCO's cohesion is not strong. In addition to counter-terrorism and economic and trade foundations, it lacks the setting of military alliances. The more important reason is that the SCO lacks a strong core.
Why does NATO have strong cohesion? A very important reason is that basically all NATO countries have U.S. troops stationed there. The U.S.’s outstanding comprehensive national strength ensures the absolute loyalty of each member state.
The deep military ties, coupled with economic, trade and cultural exchanges, ensure the strong cohesion of NATO. In contrast, the SCO is full of various “checks and balances”. For example, Russia is trying to win over India to join the SCO, and we are supporting and Pakistan following closely behind. It can be said that the two major powers are "evenly matched", which means that the SCO naturally lacks cohesion.
So, if you want to make the SCO stronger and avoid the EU style "dual system" leadership, Jing Yeshi believes that of course it is necessary to differentiate between China and Russia. Russia, on the other hand, seems to be unable to recognize the embarrassing reality that it is no longer what it used to be.
The decline of the CSTO is, on the surface, due to Russia's difficulty in the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, but the fundamental reason is the indescribable decline in Russia's comprehensive national strength since the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Therefore, when the CSTO is not able to handle it, let alone Russia cannot show the strength to integrate the SCO, even if it can, the SCO will not be diverted by Russia's will.
In Jingye Shi’s view, Russia’s current top priority is to keep pace with the times and correctly understand its own situation. And thus put down the arrogant attitude and calmly accept the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Moreover, if Russia wants to resist the encirclement of Western countries, the most important thing for Russia to give up is the old thinking of "defeating magic with magic". After all, the disintegration of the Soviet Union had already declared the complete failure of this model. When the socialist formation cannot win, it is even less possible for the CSTO to turn defeat into victory.
The Collective Security Organization, which has the nature of a military alliance, is useless, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is even less likely to become a strong backing for Russia.
In Jing Yeshi’s view, it may be more feasible for Russia to recognize its own reality and accept the reality that China dominates the SCO. Moreover, even if the SCO does not join Russia's ship, its strong lineup will certainly be feared by Western countries and in fact reduce Russia's external pressure.
Otherwise, insisting on making the SCO become the next CSTO will be a thankless task for Russia. Secondly, it will inevitably lead to the embarrassing fate of the SCO becoming the "second CSTO". Russia will be in a more passive situation by then.
has many omissions, please correct me.
I am Jing Ye Shi, looking forward to your attention.
