Regional Security Governance in Post-Soviet Eurasia: The History and Effectiveness of the Collective Security Treaty Organization 3030828859, 9783030828851

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Regional Security Governance in Post-Soviet Eurasia The History and Effectiveness of the Collective Security Treaty Organization Igor Davidzon

Regional Security Governance in Post-Soviet Eurasia

Igor Davidzon

Regional Security Governance in Post-Soviet Eurasia The History and Effectiveness of the Collective Security Treaty Organization

Igor Davidzon Tel Aviv, Israel

ISBN 978-3-030-82885-1 ISBN 978-3-030-82886-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82886-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 2

“The Major Geopolitical Disaster” as the Prerequisite for the Post-soviet Regional Security Governance

1

Theoretical Approaches to Patterns of Military Cooperation and Alliances

13

Post-Soviet Eurasia—The Region’s Definition and History of the Post-Soviet Regional Governance

37

Post-Soviet Reality and the Emergence of CSTO: Reasons and History of the Military Alliance Formation

73

5

Institutional Design of CSTO

89

6

The Military Capabilities of the CSTO Members-States

109

7

The Effect and Effectiveness of CSTO

153

8

Regional Security Governance in Post-Soviet Eurasia—Summary and Conclusions

185

3 4

Index

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v

Acronyms

AShM BRICS CDM CES CFAM CFE CIS CPSU CRDF CRRF CSC CSSC CST CSTO CU DPR EAEU EBRD EEC EU EurAsEC EW GDP GLCM GUAM HQ

Anti-Ship Missile Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa Council of Defense Ministers Common Economic Space Council of Foreign Affairs Ministers Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Commonwealth of Independent States Communist Party of the Soviet Union Collective Rapid Deployment Forces Collective Rapid Reaction Forces Collective Security Council Committee of Secretaries of Security Councils Collective Security Treaty Collective Security Treaty Organization Customs Union Donetsk People’s Republic Eurasian Economic Union European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Eurasian Economic Commission European Union Eurasian Economic Community Electronic Warfare Gross Domestic Product Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles Organization for Democracy and Economic Development Headquarters vii

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ACRONYMS

IFV IMF IPR ISAF JAF JF JGF- CR JGF- EER KFOR LPR MP MR MRL NATO NBC NRC NRC NWOTC OECD OSCE PA PARP PC PF PfP PKK PYD RDII RF RSC RSFSR SAM SAP SART SCO SF SIPRI SOF SRBM SRF SSBN SSM UAV

Infantry Fighting Vehicles International Monetary Fund Islamic Renaissance Party International Security Assistance Force Joint Armed Forces Joint Staff Joint Group of Forces of Caucasus Region Joint Group of Forces of East European Region Kosovo Force Luhansk People’s Republic Military Police Motor Rifle Multiple Rocket Launchers North Atlantic Treaty Organization Nuclear, Biological, Chemical NATO-Russia Council NATO-Russia Council North-Western operational tactical command Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly Planning and Review Process Permanent Council Peacekeeping Forces Partnership for Peace Kurdistan Workers Party Democratic Union Party Rational Design of International Institution Russian Federation Regional Security Complex Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Surface-to-Air Missile State Armament Program Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty Shanghai Cooperation Organization Special Forces Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Special Operations Forces Short-Range Ballistic Missile Strategic Rocket Forces Nuclear-Powered Ballistic-Missile Submarines Surface-to-Surface Missile Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

ACRONYMS

UN USA USSR WOTC WPO WTO

United Nations United States of America Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Western Operational-Tactical Command Warsaw Pact Organization World Trade Organization

ix

List of Figures

Fig. 3.1

Fig. 3.2

Fig. 4.1

Fig. 5.1

Fig. 6.1

GDP Data of the EAEU Member-States in 2019 (billions of dollars in current prices) (Source Eurasia Economic Commission. http://www.eurasiancommission.org/ ru/act/integr_i_makroec/dep_stat/econstat/Docume nts/Brief_Statistics_Yearbook_2020.pdf. Accessed 24 November 2020) Mutual Trade Structure of the EAEU States in 2019 (%) (Source Mutual Trade in Goods. Eurasian Economic Union Statistics. 2019. http://www.eurasiancommission. org/ru/act/integr_i_makroec/dep_stat/tradestat/public ations/Documents/Int_2019.pdf. Accessed December 7, 2020) CSTO Collective Forces (Source Forces and Means of the CSTO Collective Defense System. https://jscsto. odkb-csto.org/en/voennaya-sostavlyauschaya-odkb/for ces.php. Accessed December 20, 2020) The structure of the CSTO (Source Prepared by the author based on the data stipulated on the CSTO site. https://en.odkb-csto.org/structure/https://en. odkb-csto.org/structure/. Accessed December 28, 2020) Armenia’s military (thousands) (Source World Bank Database. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS. MIL.TOTL.P1?locations=AM. Accessed January 26, 2021; Russia and Eurasia [2020])

61

63

81

97

117

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 6.2

Fig. 6.3

Fig. 6.4

Fig. 6.5

Fig. 6.6

Fig. 6.7

Fig. 6.8

Fig. 6.9

Fig. 6.10

Fig. 6.11

Armenia’s Military Expenditure in Millions Constant (2018) USD (Source SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex. Accessed January 25, 2021) Kyrgyzstan’s military (thousands) (Source World Bank Database. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS. MIL.TOTL.P1?locations=AM. Accessed January 26, 2021; Russia and Eurasia [2020]) Kyrgyzstan’s military expenditure in millions constant (2018) USD (Source SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex. Accessed January 25, 2021) Tajikistan’s military (thousands) Source World Bank Database. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS. MIL.TOTL.P1?locations=AM. Accessed January 26, 2021; Russia and Eurasia [2020]) Tajikistan’s military expenditure in millions constant (2018) USD (Source SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex. Accessed January 25, 2021) Belarus military (thousands) (Source World Bank Database. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS. MIL.TOTL.P1?locations=AM. Accessed January 26, 2021; Russia and Eurasia [2020]) Belarus military expenditure in millions current USD (Source SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. https:// www.sipri.org/databases/milex. Accessed January 25, 2021) Kazakhstan’s military (thousands) (Source World Bank Database. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS. MIL.TOTL.P1?locations=AM. Accessed January 26, 2021; Russia and Eurasia [2020]) Kazakhstan’s military expenditure in millions constant (2018) USD (Source SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex. Accessed January 25, 2021) Russia’s millitary (millions) (Source World Bank Database. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.TOTL. P1?locations=AM. Accessed January 26, 2021; Russia and Eurasia [2020])

120

122

124

126

128

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134

136

140

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 6.12

Fig. 6.13

Russia’s military expenditure in millions constant (2018) USD (Source SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex. Accessed January 25, 2021) CSTO states military expenditure (% of GDP) (Source SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. https://www.sipri. org/databases/milex. Accessed January 25, 2021)

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CHAPTER 1

“The Major Geopolitical Disaster” as the Prerequisite for the Post-soviet Regional Security Governance

On April 25, 2005, during his annual statement to the Federal Assembly (the upper house of the Russian parliament), President Vladimir Putin defined the collapse of the Soviet Union as “a major geopolitical disaster of the century.” (Annual Address to the Federal Assembly, 2005). This statement by the Russian President about 15 years ago was, to a large extent, resented in the West. Thus, for instance, the former President of the European Council, Donald Tusk at the conference in Batumi, Georgia, called in turn the collapse of the Soviet empire a “blessing” event for all peoples of Eastern and Central Europe (Dzekish, 2019). Nevertheless, regardless of the political connotation of Putin’s statement, it is clear that the disintegration of the Soviet Union was a “watershed,” that forced the former Soviet republics to redefine their relations with the countries of the world, in general and among themselves, in particular. During the Soviet period, all 15 republics were part of a single large state, conducting all areas of activity subject to the regulations of the central government in Moscow. As of the mid-1980s the politicaleconomic situation in the Soviet Union began to deteriorate. Internal unrest within the ruling Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) against “Perestroika” promoted by the first and last Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, culminated in the failed coup attempt by the Party’s hard-liners on August 19–21, 1991. Against this background on December 8, 1991 at the meeting in the Belarusian Belovezhskaya © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 I. Davidzon, Regional Security Governance in Post-Soviet Eurasia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82886-8_1

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Pushcha National Park, Boris Yeltsin, Leonid Kravchuk and Stanislav Shushkevich, the leaders of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian republics respectively, signed the Belovezha Accords, which declared de-jure the dissolution of the Soviet Union. While many of the new countries did not have a tradition of independent statehood, they had from the very beginning of their independence to take care of all aspects of the countries’ activities (Golub & Golub, 2018). Consequently, after the declaration of independence, the former Soviet republics were required to reshape their relations among themselves in all areas: economics, trade, security, etc. The ultimate goal of this book is to examine the topic of the regional security governance in post-Soviet Eurasia, embedded in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO, ODKB- Organizatsiya Dogovora o Kollektivnoy Bezopasnosti in Russian)—a military alliance, assembling currently six post-Soviet countries: the Russian Federation (RF), Belarus, Armenia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (From the Treaty to the Organization). It should be noted, that notwithstanding the fact that there are many definitions of regional governance (as well as regional security governance), they mostly share similar approach to the concept referring to such terms as rules, order, authority (Schimmelfennig, 2006; Söderbaum, 2004; Nolte, 2016). Based on the definition of Kacowicz and Press-Barnathan (2016: 299), I define regional security governance as the development and dynamics of security arrangement in a given region, institutionalized through regional organization that share understandings, rules and practices in the security realm (See also Kirchner & Dominguez, 2011: Chapter 1; Adler & Greve, 2009). Accordingly, CSTO is regarded as an institutionalized regional security arrangement. Such regional security institution consists of members sharing understandings, rules and practices facilitating cooperation in the security realm. Our choice to focus in the research on a military alliance such as CSTO is derived from the fact, that it is a single security institution in the post-Soviet Eurasian region in the realm of regional security governance. Furthermore, alliances could be regarded as one of the central forms of international cooperation and as an expression of states’ policy preferences (Lai & Reiter, 2000: 203). Therefore, examining such military alliance as CSTO allows us to explore the security policy interests and preferences of the six post-Soviet republics, which shape, to a large extent, the pattern of the institutionalized international cooperation. In order to address the topic of regional security governance in post-Soviet Eurasia expressed via the military alliance, we examine the

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following questions: What are the reasons and drivers of the establishment of the post-Soviet Eurasian security governance? What are the features of institutional design of the security institution? What are the military capabilities of the CSTO-members? What are the features of the cooperation pattern adopted by the member-states within CSTO and what is the alliance effectiveness? What is the effect of the alliance on the member-states security? In contrast to most of the existing researches, which referred mostly to political (the Commonwealth of Independent States, CIS) (Obydenkova & Libman, 2019; Czerewacz-Filipowicz & Konopelko, 2017; Kubicek, 2009; Kobrinskaya, 2007) or economic (the Eurasian Economic Union, EAEU) (Vinokurov, 2018; Libman, 2020; Tar, 2016; Dragneva, 2018) realms of regional governance in post-Soviet Eurasia, the security realm embedded in CSTO drew less scholarly attention (with some exemptions: Golub & Golub, 2018; Wietz, 2014; Bescotti, 2018). Therefore, our study introduces the first attempt to tackle the gap of the insufficient research attention assigned to the study of regional governance in post-Soviet Eurasia. Moreover, beyond the book’s contribution to scholarly literature on security regional governance in post-Soviet Eurasia, the importance of examining CSTO is particularly significant given the tensions between Russia and the West and the concerns of the new Cold War outbreak in the world (World Must Avoid a New Cold War, 2019). Could such military alliance as CSTO be a reliable power tool of Russia in the new, post-Cold War wave of Russia-West confrontation? The Cold War connotation raises the question of whether CSTO could be regarded as the post-Soviet Eurasian version of existing since decades Western military alliance, the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)? After all, at their core both organizations are military alliances meant to provide security to their respective member-states. To some extent the successful transatlantic cooperation among most of the European countries, the United States (US), Canada and Turkey could be regarded as almost ideal type of cooperation within the framework of a military alliance. If so, could we similarly conceptualize them? In a broader sense, could the Western military alliance, which drew significant scholarly attention (Deutsch, et al. 2015; Risse-Kappen, 1996; Koschut, 2011; Peters, 2000) be a benchmark for analysis of security organizations out of the transatlantic area?

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Pursuant to Acharya and Johnston(2007: 13; see also Katzenstein, 1997), such Eurocentric approach might lead, however, “to the conclusion that weigh heavily in the directions of the failures and limitations” of non-Western versions of regional cooperation.” Accordingly, NATO could not be regarded as “one-size-fits-all” model to examine regional security governance in other parts of the world. By examining the postSoviet Eurasian security institution through the “lens” of the transatlantic cooperation of mostly democratic countries, one can conclude, that CSTO, which cooperation pattern is different, represents an example of a “failed” regional integration process. The perception of NATO as an almost ideal model for examining integration projects in other regions, ignores the fact that the post-Soviet Eurasian security governance has its own special and different characteristics. As noted by Yurgens (2011): The processes occurring in the post-Soviet space often do not fit into the existing Western theoretical constructs, “standing out” of the patterns identified by the example of Western regional processes.

Hence, in order to examine such case study of the non-Western security regional governance, one should assume that the alliance’s institutional design, the adopted pattern of cooperation and consequently its effectiveness, reflects interests and preferences of the respective members. In different regional organizations we should address different interests and needs of members (Nikitina, 2011). Moreover, such interests and preferences are derived from different historical and political backgrounds. The Western security regional governance embedded in NATO, which was established upon the end of the World War II to confront the Soviet threat, stresses the importance of common value-base (such as democracy and freedom) of the allies striving to a closer regional security cooperation. The post-Soviet Eurasian model of regional security governance, as reflected by CSTO, however, lacks any ideational basis and is characterized by political diversity, in which CSTO represents rather different, heterogeneous autocratic regimes, which gained their independence relatively not a long time ago and are sensible to their sovereignty. The sensibility affects the states’ readiness to deepen the participation in the regional security integration process. Such difference highlights a distinct characteristic of the post-Soviet Eurasian security governance. As Obyenkova and Libman (2019: 125), referring to economic regional institutions, remarkably noted:

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…while in the existing literature on regionalism the focus is on how countries manage to become more closely interconnected and integrated over time, in Eurasia we observed the opposite process: countries originally highly integrated had to maintain a certain level of economic tie, at the same time developing their own national economies.

Accordingly, our study appears to differ from the scholarly literature, which over the years suffered from the so-called Eurocentrism trend expressed via the focus on NATO (Acharya, 2016) and tries to further contribute to the study of non-Western military alliances. Furthermore, some previous studies of CSTO treated this organization, mostly, through the prism of Russian interests (de Haas, 2010: 40; See also Aris, 2014; Frost, 2009; Makienko, 2020). There is no doubt, that Russia is the most dominant member of the alliance, which possess the most significant economic, conventional and unconventional military capabilities. As the most influential and powerful force, Russia provides a significant part of CSTO’s military personal. Moscow is also the principal weapon systems supplier to its CSTO allies. Other researches referred to CSTO as a component in the set of tools of Russian foreign policy. In this context CSTO is perceived as a tool for power projection by Russia and “as an instrument for tying member-states closer to each other” (Klein, 2019: 29; Gorenburg, 2020; Flikke, 2009), thus striving to strengthen the Russian influence on the countries in the post-Soviet region. As Keaney (2017) noted: The CSTO most closely resembles a project to spread and deepen Russian influence, continue building upon preexisting dependencies on Russia, and prevent the entrance of other powers.

Such Russian policy was already evident in 1990’s of the previous century. As stipulated in the Decree of the President of RF dated September 14, 1995, No. 940 (Official Internet Resource of the President of Russia, 1995): The CIS incorporates our main life interests in the field of economics, defense, security, protection of rights Russians, the provision of which is the basis of the national security.

The Presidential Decree also included the goal:

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To encourage intention of the Collective Security Treaty member states to unite in a defense alliance based on a community of interests and militarypolitical goals.

Indeed, as we will demonstrate below, Moscow perceives, inter alia, the organization as an important tool of its foreign policy regarding the “near abroad”—a term referring to the former Soviet republics. Nevertheless, by referring to CSTO through the prism of Russian interests or as the instrument of the Russian foreign policy towards the “near abroad,” which serves Russian projection power goals, one pays less attention to the fact that also other CSTO members have their own important incentives to be members of the alliance, not least as a tool to acquire material benefits. Furthermore, smaller states can sometimes have a significant influence within alliance (Wallace, 2008: 229). Although we cannot ignore the goals and interests that Russia pursue in the alliance, adopting such narrow view on the security institution impairs, however, our understanding of CSTO, which institutional design features, cooperation pattern and not less important effectiveness thereof are also influenced by goals and interests of other, smaller members of the alliance. Therefore, our research contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the post-Soviet Eurasian military alliance. We argue, that after the dissolution of the Soviet empire, the new geopolitical reality forced the new countries to establish regional security governance as a functional solution to the new security challenges, that confront the now independent sovereign countries. While the Baltic republics, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia wanted to disengage from their Soviet past, reduce ties with Moscow and devoted the efforts to join the Western regional projects, the European Union (EU) and NATO, other former Soviet republics strived to maintain the security relationship that developed during the Soviet era, in general and with Russia, in particular but now as the independent political entities. As former President of Kazakhstan and one of the initiators of the Collective Security Treaty, Nursultan Nazarbayev (2017) noted: After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the CSTO was created as a collective security treaty. The organization had nothing to do with ideological confrontations, with political ones, as during the Cold War—the Warsaw Pact, NATO, and so on. We were far from such desires, we wanted the chaos that arose after the collapse of the USSR to collectively

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hold together so that states would develop independently, independence, territorial integrity are strengthened, and we fight against all threats.

Therefore, in view of the new post-Soviet geopolitical reality, the establishment of CSTO and the cooperation pattern of the members within the military alliance was derived from Moscow’s desire to preserve its influence in the post-Soviet area and the need to maintain security ties with former Soviet republics on the one hand and other CSTO members’ need to maintain security ties with Russia, as a dominant actor in the region, on the other hand. Nevertheless, whereas Russia, as an actor striving to reach regional hegemony, would be probably interested to deepen the integration and the allies’ dependencies on it, which could potentially influence their national foreign and security policies, other CSTO member-states seem not to share such interest. While other CSTO member-states are interested to maintain certain level of security ties, mainly with Russia, they strive to preserve political sovereignty in the field of security and foreign relations based on the independent multi-vector policies. Accordingly, as will be discussed in detail below, to conceptualize such specific form of “holding-together” cooperation within the military alliance, we will implement the rational choice theory of institutionalism, which stresses the importance of preferences and interests of memberstates as a factor influencing features of and cooperation pattern within a military alliance. Thus, CSTO is regarded as an institutional arrangement, reflecting the diverse preferences and interests of the member-states, which are sensitive to their independence.

The Book’s Structure The first two chapters of the book are devoted to the theoretical and historical discussion. In Chapter 2, we review the existing literature on the theoretical approaches to countries’ military cooperation patterns and alliances. Subsequently, we present the theoretical framework of our analysis of the post-Soviet Eurasian security institution. In Chapter 3, we discuss the diverse notions of Eurasia and briefly review the regional security organizations acting in the Eurasian region in its broader notion. Further to the definition of the boundaries of the postSoviet Eurasia region, we review briefly the existing literature on the post-Soviet Eurasian regional governance, referring, mainly, to the history of the political and economic regional institutions.

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The subsequent four chapters are devoted to the empirical analysis of CSTO. Chapter 4 will be devoted to discussion of reasons and main drivers of CSTO establishment by the post-Soviet republics and the main milestones in the history of the military alliance. In chapter 5, we descriptively review the main components of the institutional design of CSTO, based on the criteria elaborated by Koremenos, Lipson and Snidal (2001): membership rules; scope; rights and obligations of the member-states; organization structure and control; centralization. Chapter 6 will contain the review of the military capabilities of the CSTO member-states since the establishment of organization in 2002 and until 2020—size of the armies and defense budgets of CSTO members—to examine the states’ objective capabilities to contribute to collective defense needs of the alliance. Structurally, the chapter will be divided into six sub-chapters, each devoted to the respective member-state. Chapter 7 will examine the practical cooperation pattern with the alliance. We will refer to the effectiveness of the states, i.e., the CSTO members’ ability to overcome internal disagreements and to cooperatively respond to the interests and needs of other allies. As part of the analysis, we will review the positions and conduct of the six member-states on important foreign and security issues as expressed, inter alia, in their readiness to allocate military resources and provide political support to the other alliance members’ needs. Additionally, we will consider the effect of CSTO on security of the member-states. Chapter 8 will be devoted to the summary of the discussion and conclusions.

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Peters, I. (2000). Die NATO als “Primus Inter Pares”? Die Weiterentwicklung der Europäischen Sicherheitsinstitutionen. In W. Wagner, M., G. Dönhoff, L. Hoffmann, K. Kaiser, W. Link & H., W. Maul (Eds), Jahrbuch Internationale Politik 1997 – 1998 (pp.124–135). R. Oldenbourg Verlag. Risse-Kappen, T. (1996). Collective Identity in a Democratic Community: The Case of NATO. In P. Katzenstein (Ed.), The Culture of National Security (pp. 357–400). Columbia University Press. Schimmelfennig, F. (2006). Politisches Gestaltgen im erweiterten Europa: Ordnungsmodellen der Regional Governance. In D. Senghaas & M. Roth (Eds.), Global Governance für Entwicklung und Frieden (pp. 154–173). Bonn-Dietz. Söderbaum, F. (2004). Modes of regional governance in Africa: Neoliberalism, sovereignty boosting and shadow networks. Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, 10(4), 419–436. Tar, D. (2016). The Eurasian Economic Union of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and the Kyrgyz Republic: Can it succeed where its predecessor failed? Eastern European Economics, 54(1), 1–22. Vinokurov, E. (2018). Introduction to the Eurasian Economic Union. Palgrave Macmillan. Wallace, G. (2008, Fall). Alliances, institutional design, and the determinants of military strategy. Conflict Management and Peace Science, 25/3, 224–243. Weitz, R. (2014, July). The collective security treaty organization: Past struggles and future prospects. Russian Analytical Digest, 152, 2–4. World Must Avoid a New Cold War, UN Chief tells economic Forum in Russia. (2019, June 6). UN News. https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/06/103 9981. Accessed 1 October 2020. Yurgens, I. (2011, August). CSTO: Responsible Security. www.insor-russia.ru/ files/ODKB.pdf. Accessed 3 October 2020. [in Russian].

CHAPTER 2

Theoretical Approaches to Patterns of Military Cooperation and Alliances

Why countries establish military alliance? What functions fulfill such security institutions? Are alliances designated to deal with external threats only or could they play additional roles? Which variables influence a military cooperation pattern adopted by allies? How do domestic politics, domestic political regime affect countries preferences regarding the cooperation pattern in military alliance? There are several theoretical approaches, which strive to address these questions. We start the discussion with the review of the existing literature referring to the main theoretical approaches in the field of international relations to the study of military cooperation and alliances: neorealism, constructivism, liberal/democratic peace theory and rational choice theory of institutionalism. As part of the discussion, for the purpose of examination of the cooperation pattern of the post-Soviet Eurasian military alliance, we present our theoretic framework based on the rational choice approach.

Neorealism Neorealism characterizes the international system as anarchic (Lundborg, 2019: 233). According to the neorealist approach, states acting at the international arena, assume that “state of nature is a state of war” (Waltz, 1979: 102). Because war could break any time, states should be ready to defend itself. In a self-help system states worry about their survival © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 I. Davidzon, Regional Security Governance in Post-Soviet Eurasia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82886-8_2

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and devote efforts to protect itself against other powers. Military alliance is a response to and reflection of a power distribution among states (Mearsheimer, 1994–1995: 7). A change in power distribution may inflict in turn a change in the system structure. The structure of international system imposes restrictions and provides incentives to the states acting as rational actors based on cost–benefit calculations (Baumann et al., 2001: 37–38). Nations acting in such international environment face the following three options: They can add to their own power, they can add to their own power the power of other nations, or they can withhold the power of other nations from the adversary. (Morgenthau, 2005: 191).

Accordingly, one of the means used by states for defense purpose is a military alliance (Waltz, 1979: 105). The common assumption of neorealism is that states, driven by self-interests of survival assurance, establish military alliances for the purposes of creating a balance vis-à-vis the other power, for collective defense from external threats posed by other superior state or alliance of states (Walt, 1990: 29). Moreover, according to Morgenthau (2005: 192), alliances are a necessary function of the balance of power among states. (See also: Waltz, 1979; Kaplan, 2005; Snyder, 1990). As Liska (1962: 12) noted, “alliances are against, an only derivatively for, someone or something.” Walt (1990: 6–7) developed a more complicated approach regarding alliance formation, arguing that the distribution of power is not the only variable defining the level of external threat. According to his balance of threats theory: Although the distribution of power is an extremely important factor, the level of threat is also affected by geographic proximity, offensive capabilities, and perceived attentions

Consequently, despite the importance of power distribution considerations, states may choose either to ally with a foreign power possessing the greatest threat (bandwagoning ) or with other states against it (balancing ). Pursuant to the scholar, however, a balancing strategy is far more common than bandwagoning (Walt, 1990: 8). Since a war is always expected, alliances at least temporarily, could prevent it (Adler & Barnet, 1998: 10).

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Notwithstanding the foregoing, despite these differences among neorealists, since alliances consist of self-interested countries, neorealism admits the weakness of international institutions such as alliances and fragility of military cooperation (Keohane, 1990: 734). According to Mearsheimer: The international system is… a brutal arena where states look for opportunities to take advantage of each other, and therefore have little reason to trust each other… States can never be certain about the intentions of other states.

Such uncertainty regarding the intentions of others, affects states considerations not just whether to join military alliance, but also regarding pattern of cooperation in alliance. As Snyder (1984: 466) noted: Once alliances have begun to form, the alliance security dilemma takes on a different character. That is, having already "defected" in the primary dilemma by choosing to make alliances, states move into the second phase of the alliance dilemma, in which their choices are no longer whether to ally or not, but how firmly to commit themselves to the proto-partner and how much support to give that partner in specific conflict interactions with the adversary.

In view of the above, in such alliance dilemma countries have to cope, for example, with the possibility of defection and even realignment of allies with an adversary. States, uncertain of intentions of their partners, may even defect as a preemptive step thus causing mutual defection of allies from alliance. While neorealists admit the difficulty of allies to overcome security dilemma affecting their ability to cooperatively respond to common threats, they emphasize, however, that the cooperation nature within alliances is affected by the system structure (Snyder, 1990: 107). Alliances are more stable in terms of defection possibility of members in bipolar international system than in multipolar one (Snyder, 1984: 483– 489; Gowa, 1989: 1249–1251). In a multipolar system, which consists of a number of great powers, the probability of countries’ defection and joining another alliance is greater than in bipolar structure of the Cold War era. The bipolar structure of this period was characterized by the competition for allies between the United States and the Soviet Union (Walt, 1990: 3). As Gowa (1989: 1249–1250) pointed out:

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…a very sharp distinction is likely to exist between the two great powers of any bipolar system. As a consequence, each is likely to appeal to a very different set of potential allies, and the allies themselves will be highly constrained both with respect to their initial choice of an alliance partner and with respect to their ability to shift alliances thereafter.

Given the West–East ideological confrontation during the Cold War period, the defection option was to a great extent almost impossible for smaller member-states either in NATO or in Warsaw Pact: members of the respective blocs viewed their membership in the alliance and the military (first of all nuclear) capabilities of the superpowers, as a principal protection against the threat of the opposite bloc. Furthermore, the superpowers on their side were also interested to prevent a defection scenario and to maintain their military alliances. Nevertheless, threats appear and disappear and along with them incentive for a coalition and thus the reasoning behind an alliance’s existence. Thus, for instance, Mearsheimer (1990: 52) argued that the Soviet offensive threat was a glue that held NATO members together and with the disappearance of this threat after the Cold War, the North Atlantic alliance might have ceased to exist: Take away that offensive threat and the United States is likely to abandon the Continent, whereupon the defensive alliance it has headed for forty years may disintegrate. This would bring to an end the bipolar order that has characterized Europe for the past 45 years.

NATO, however, did not cease to exist after the disappearance of the Soviet threat and the number of its members has even increased over the years (NATO Member Countries, 2020). Therefore, based on the neorealism approach it is difficult to explain why alliances continue to exist even upon the disappearance of a threat against which they were founded. Additionally, neorealists regard mostly the value of alliance in terms of collective defense. Thus, according to Snyder (1990: 110): Security benefits in a mutual defense alliance include chiefly a reduced probability of being attacked (deterrence), greater strength in case of attack (defense) and prevention of the ally’s alliance with one’s adversary (preclusion).

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Nevertheless, collective defense against external threats is not the only function of alliance. Such security institutions may, for example, also fulfill a function of internal security management aiming at reducing tensions among former rivals and promoting internal confidence-building and cooperation among members. For instance, security management is one of the NATO’s functions, which proved its effectiveness in decrease of the tension between the former historical foes—France and Germany (Haftendorn, 2005). Moreover, as will be detailed below, CSTO continues to exist for years despite a lack of consensus among the allies regarding common threats. In light of the above, we should address other theoretical perspectives regarding military alliances.

Liberal Theory While neorealism emphasizes material issues such as balance of power, military capabilities and power asymmetries, the liberal theory stresses the importance of variables such as domestic politics (Moravcsik, 1997; Jahn, 2009). According to such approach, the important actors in the process of foreign and security policy definition are self-interested domestic political actors—individual and private groups within a state. The foreign and security policy is a result of interests and preferences of societal actors. Such actors, however, do not act in a harmony of interest among them but rather compete on the influence on state’s policy definition. Although liberals similarly to realists argue that international system is anarchic consisting of states struggling for their security survival, they assume that the final foreign and security policies of states could be variable, subject to the influence of the most powerful domestic political actor. Thus, pursuant to Moravcsik (1997: 518) based on the liberal approach states are not independent actors but a representative institution reflecting identities, interests and preferences of the most influential societal actor or group of actors in a state: …representative institution constantly subject to capture and recapture, construction and reconstruction by coalitions of social actors. Representative institutions and practices constitute the critical “transmission belt” by which preferences and social power of individuals and groups are translated into state policy… Government policy is therefore constrained by the underlying identities, interests, and power of individuals (inside and outside

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the state apparatus) who constantly pressure the central decision makers to pursue policies consistent with their preferences.

In this sense, states’ decision to join military alliance is a result of presser of the most influential domestic political actors supporting military international cooperation. Nevertheless, countries do not act in international arena in isolation but should pursue their decision taking into account other states preferences as well. Therefore, the parameter of domestic politics should determine not just states policy definition but also the nature of cooperation among states. Consequently, such inter-state interdependence could result in cooperation of several states with compatible identity, interests and preferences, that come to a conclusion that coordinated collective action, i.e., alliance, is more beneficial than an unilateral policy. From such assumption is derived the theory of democratic peace, which assumes that there is less probability that democratic countries will be involved in conflicts against each other (Maoz & Russet, 1993; Faber & Gowa, 1995; Chan, 1997; Ish Shalom, 2013). In contrast to pessimistic neorealist assumption regarding the weakness of military alliances and fragility of military cooperation, liberals, however, share an optimistic view according to which a cooperation among nations, especially democracies, is possible. For the purpose of democratic regime definitions, adherents of this theory referred to such democratic norms as competitive free election, civil rights, free press, etc. (Ray, 1998: 32). Proponents of democratic peace regard the doctrine of the German philosopher Emmanuel Kant as a source of the theory. They refer, mostly, to his essay Perpetual Peace (Zum ewigen Frieden in German) published in 1795, in which Kant noted, that one of the mechanisms to promote peace among nations is presence of a “republican constitution.” The notion of a “republican constitution” is equivalent in the theory of democratic peace to the concept of representative democracy (Mello, 2014: 2). As Chan (1997: 60) pointed out: In Perpetual Peace, Immanuel Kant posited that a republican form of government, exemplifying the rule of law, provides a feasible basis for states to overcome structural anarchy and to secure peaceful relations among themselves.

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Pursuant to this approach, the states representing the most powerful democratic and liberal domestic societal actors, share compatible policy identity, interests and preferences with other democratic states, thereby demonstrating less probability to wage war against each other. Accordingly, as Moravcsik (1997: 521) remarkably noted by: Where preferences are naturally compatible or harmonious… there are strong incentives for coexistence with low conflict.

In contrast to the neorealistic assumption that states’ cooperation in military alliances is affected by the system structure, Gaubatz (1996: 135) drawing a causal link between a type of domestic political regime and duration of alliances, noted: Democracies are no different than nondemocracies when it comes to relationships with nondemocracies. It is only alliances between democracies that appear to be more durable.

Siverson and Emmons (1991) also indicated that there is a substantially higher probability to form and maintain alliances among democracies. Indeed, the transparency of democratic politics provides a basis for mutual trust in relations among democratic states (Chan, 1997: 81). Such transparency provides an ability to monitor the policies and, if necessary, to identify an intention of a state to defect. Moreover, liberal economic orders of democracies enhance financial and trade interactions among their citizens, thereby creating interdependence and compatibility of interests (Gaubatz: 119). Consequently, such features have also implications on states’ cooperation in military alliances. The affinity of internal arrangements of allies facilitates their ability to overcome internal disagreements and to cooperatively respond to each other security needs. Hence, beyond a traditional function of collective defense, such affinity provides a basis for internal security management function of an alliance. The assumptions of democratic peace could be applicable to the concept of a pluralistic security community referring to the pattern of cooperation in NATO, that stresses the importance of democratic and liberal values and whose members strive to “contribute toward the further development of peaceful and friendly international relations by strengthening their free institutions” (The Treaty of NATO, 1949: Article 2).

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Our case study of CSTO, however, consists of states which cannot be defined as democratic. According to the Freedom in the World 2020 report (Global Freedom Scores, 2020), while Armenia and Kyrgyzstan are rated as “partly free,” Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan are rated as “not free.” For example, regarding Russia, the most dominant member of the organization, the report (Freedom House, 2020c) provides as follows: Power in Russia’s authoritarian political system is concentrated in the hands of President Vladimir Putin. With loyalist security forces, a subservient judiciary, a controlled media environment, and a legislature consisting of a ruling party and pliable opposition factions, the Kremlin is able to manipulate elections and suppress genuine dissent.

Consequently, the theoretical approach of democratic peace could not be applicable to the examination of CSTO. At the same time, if democratic peace is possible, is it possible to assume that a “nondemocratic peace” can be established, i.e., cooperation among autocracies? It should be noted that some studies tried to examine the connection between domestic politics and military alliances beyond the discussion of the democratic political regimes. For instance, Lai and Reiter (2000) examined the link of causation between similarity of political regimes and the ability of states to cooperate in military alliances. According to their findings, states with similar types of political regime are more likely to ally with each other. Moreover, two democracies are not more predisposed to establish alliances than other politically similar states, as autocracies (Lei & Reiter, 2000: 223). Nevertheless, while such findings are based on homogeneity of members of alliance’ in terms of their domestic political regimes, nondemocratic and autocratic regimes such as in post-Soviet Eurasia are not so homogeneous and their political regimes are differently organized. The non-democratic CSTO member-states reflect various forms in which their polity is organized (Obydenkova & Libman, 2019: 20). For instance, while in Armenia since the protest movement in 2019 the political parties operated in a relatively free political environment compared to previous years (Freedom in the World-Armenia, 2020a), in Tajikistan the authoritarian regime of President Emomali Rahmon “consistently marginalizes independent or opposition parties, which have

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become completely excluded from the political process” (Freedom in the World-Tajikistan, 2020b). Similarly, the application of the theoretical framework, emphasizing other parameters of domestic politics in relation to non-democratic CSTO member-countries raises, to some extent, a research difficulty. Thus, some researches referred to political ideology of member-countries as the variable, which affects the countries preferences regarding the pattern of cooperation in military alliance (Rapport & Rathbun, 2020). Other assigned attention to the impact of domestic political economy on countries’ considerations regarding alliances (Barnett & Levy, 1991). Nevertheless, as mentioned we deal with non-democratic countries, with low political transparency, which makes the establishment of a factual basis for examining the impact of such internal variables on the states’ cooperation in the alliance more difficult.

Constructivism Constructivism deals with intersubjective issues such as norms, ideas, knowledge and identities (Hopf, 1998; Checkel, 2001; Wendt, 1992; Jung, 2019). In contrast to neorealism, constructivists argue that environment in which states act is social as well as material and that neorealism ignores the “content and sources of states interests and the social fabric of world politics” (Checkel, 1998: 324–325). Constructivism admits that balance of power, structure of system may influence states calculations, but in which manner such influence takes place is dependent on “the intersubjective understandings and expectations, on the “distribution of knowledge,” that constitute state conceptions of self and other” (Wendt, 1992: 397). Therefore, constructivism stresses the role of collectively held or intersubjective ideas and understandings in relations among states (Finnemore & Sikkink, 2001: 392). The structure of system is not given exogenously but intersubjective and socially constructed. Material structures have meaning only according to social context, in which they are interpreted (Checkel, 1998: 326). The socially structured pattern of inter-states relations and cooperation is dependent on the mutual set of identities, that two or more states developed regarding each other. Thus, according to Wendt (1992: 396–397):

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A fundamental principle of constructivist social theory is that people act toward objects, including other actors, on the basis of the meanings that the objects have for them.

The process of “distribution of knowledge” among states involves identities, norms and interests. The identity reflects states’ interests, preferences and norms of behavior. As Hopf (1998: 175) pointed out: The identity of a state implies its preferences and consequent choices. A state understands others according to the identity it attributes to them, while simultaneously reproducing its own identity through daily social practice.

Consequently, specific actions, patterns of behavior of states are derived from specific interests and preferences determined by states’ identities. States develop the relations with other states through norms and practices. Such intersubjective identities create predictable expectations regarding the patterns of states’ behavior. In other words, norms refer to collective expectations for the proper behavior of actors with a given identities (Katzenstein, 1996). As Barnett (1996) noted: It is the politics of identity rather than the logic of anarchy that often provides a better understanding of which states are viewed as a potential or immediate threat to the state’s security.

It is a mutually constitutive process between socially constructed structure and agents/states, in which identities define states interests, preferences and consequently actions (regarding other states) on the one hand, and states actions reconstitute countries identities on the other hand (Checkel, 1998: 326; Jung, 2019: 2). States could overcome the security dilemma by stable intersubjective identities, which reduce uncertainty regarding the identity and behavior of other states. Thus, military alliances are socially constructed institutions. An ability to create and maintain military alliance is dependent to a large extent on the question whether social collective identity of alliance’s members generates collective interests (Wendt, 1994: 385–386). The alliances’ identity derives from the domestic variables, such as ideologic, political affinity and shared values of its members. Such collective identity generates security interests, including identification of threats to allies:

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…identity emerges as a consequence of taking in consideration a relevant “other.” While not all states with a shared identity will define threats in the same way, will treat all those outside the group as a threat, or will agree with on the means to confront the threat, there is important connection between identity and threat. (Barnett, 1996).

Collective identities not only define the boundaries between “we” (the members of alliance, who share common values and ideas) and “others” (those outside alliance), but also define norms of appropriate behavior regarding these two groups (Risse-Kappen, 1996: 363). For example, upon the deterioration of relations with the Soviet Union after the end of the World War II, the Western countries established the military alliance, NATO. The collective identity of the Western countries was derived from their political and ideological affinity as countries sharing common democratic and liberal values (The Treaty of NATO, 1949: Preamble). Such value-based collective identity of the alliance determined the security interests of the members. Although the NATO Treaty (1949) did not explicitly refer to the Soviets as a military threat, the allies identified the Soviet Union threat to expand its totalitarian system beyond the Eastern Europe as the main military challenge. Therefore, states’ shared identity generates identification of a common threat and, to certain extent, is able also to predict whether states will be friends or foes (Barnett, 1996). The constructivist approach, stressing the importance of norms and values, could be applicable to the concept of pluralistic security community of Karl Deutsch (2015). Pluralistic security community, which embedded in NATO, reflects three conditions: compatibility of values; responsiveness to each other needs, messages and actions, without resort to violence; mutual predictability of behavior. The first condition draws a connection between the abovementioned political-ideological affinity of the allies and the collective identity of the alliance. In this sense, the membership in the security community also implies the affinity of the domestic political arrangements of the member-states (Barnett, 1996). The other two conditions relating to the norms of appropriated behavior expected from the members of community. This is a mutually constituted process, in which socially constructed identity of the allies prescribes the pattern of behavior on the one hand and the action of the allies in turn reconstitute the collective identity. Such values-based pattern of cooperation, which excludes a possibility of violent action towards other members of alliance, allows member-states to overcome cooperation problem, such

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as security dilemma and to cooperatively respond to the security needs, interests and messages of each other. It should be noted, that although constructivism shares the assumptions of the liberal theory of democratic peace, that peace among democracies may exist, unlike the proponents of the democratic peace approach, constructivism argues, that a peace among liberal democratic countries is not a result of type of political regime per se, but rather is constructed by social practice. According to such approach: …if democracies do not fight each other, then it must be because of the way they understand each other, their intersubjective accounts of each other, and the socio-international practices that accompany those accounts. (Hopf, 1998: 192).

In the case of CSTO, however, despite the fact that all the six memberstates share the common Soviet past, they lack, as aforementioned, any political and ideological affinity, which would generate collective identity. Although all the member-states could be defined as autocratic in terms of their internal political arrangements, such definition cannot incorporate the diversity of polity. Therefore, the pattern of cooperating in CSTO could not be conceptualized pursuant to the constructivist approach. Military institutions such as alliances, might not be a social construction based on shared values, ideas and collective identity. Relatedly, as noted by Risse (1996), in contrast to democracies, a cooperation among autocracies is not based on shared values but rather on self-interests of respective member-states of the alliance: …it is unlikely that a similar sense of mutual responsiveness could emerge among autocratic leaders. There is nothing in their values that would prescribe mutual sympathy, trust, and consideration. Rather, cooperation among nondemocracies is likely to emerge out of narrowly defined self-interests.

Rational Choice Theory of Institutionalism The rational choice theory of institutionalism admits the neorealist assumption of self-interested states (Keohane, 1990: 734; Snidal, 1985: 926; Velickovic, 2009: 18–20). In contrast to the neorealist perspective, however, rational choice institutionalists see international institutions

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created by self-interested states, such as military alliances, as an important element of international relations (Stein, 2008: 208). As noted by Zürn (1993: 67) “institutions can be used in order to explain the behavior of actors in world politics.” Consequently, according to the theory a cooperation among states could be understood in the context of international cooperation institutions (Shepsle, 2006; Pollack, 2006, Koremenos et al., 2001; Koremenos, 2016; Keohane & Martin, 1995; Voeten, 2019). Keohane defined institutions as persistent and connected set of rules, which prescribe behavioral roles, constrain activity, and shape expectations among institutions members (Keohane, 1990: 732). Such persistent set of rules reflect preferences and interests of members of institution regarding institution’s design and cooperation pattern. As Koremenos, Lipson and Snidal (2001: 766), referring to institutional design of international organizations, pointed out: …many institutional arrangements are best understood through “rational design” among multiple participants. This rationality is forward looking, as states use diplomacy and conferences to select institutional features to further their individual and collective goals, both by creating new institutions and modifying existing ones.

Institutions are the product of the growing interdependence of states in the international system. Nevertheless, interdependence in itself is not sufficient for establishment of institutions. Countries establish institutions to promote their own common interests. (Olson, 1965: 7). A common interest, however, does not negate cooperation problem among members of institution. Beyond the common interest, states may have also their own interests, which create a cooperation problem. Only in such situation, states establish institutions to overcome cooperation problems in view of different and even conflicting interests. In other words, states establish institutions to promote the collective optimal interaction result and to prevent the sub-optimal one. Institutions should guarantee mechanisms to overcome cooperation problems (Velickovic, 2009: 19–20). Cooperation problems are essential for examining institutions, such as international economic, trade organizations, military alliances etc. The underlying cooperation problems, which are faced by states, are fundamental for understanding of institutional features and pattern of cooperation (Koremenos, 2016: 7).

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Drawn by their self-interests, member-states shape military alliance in a manner that should facilitate a solution of cooperation problems, that otherwise would prevent a mutually beneficial cooperative arrangement (Voeten, 2019: 150, Stein, 2008: 208). Thus, the specific cooperation pattern reflects a functional response to common action problem confronted members of organization relating to interests and preferences of allies (Martin, 1993). Accordingly, a specific institutional arrangement represents specific solution helping member-states of an alliance to overcome, or at least to mitigate, a cooperation problem in view of their own interests. In this respect institutions could be regarded as the most important factor in explaining interactions among states (Zürn, 1993: 67). The proponents of rational choice theory use, to a large extent, the game-theoretic language, according to which military alliances are not given exogenously but reflect rules of a game set by the players, i.e., states themselves (Shepsle, 2006: 25. See also: Stein, 1982; Snidal, 1985; Koremenos, 2016; Martin, 1992, 1993; Zürn, 1993). Based on the presumptions of such theory, they assume that a specific cooperation problem not only creates a possibility of cooperation, but also determines a specific cooperation pattern (Velickovic, 2009: 20). In other words, a cooperation pattern is subject to rules of a game relating to cooperation problems in view of different (and sometimes divergent) interests of member-states. According to Calvert (1995: 74): There is only rational behavior, conditioned on expectations about the behavior and reactions of others. When these expectations about others’ behavior take on a particularly clear and concrete form across individuals, when they apply to situations that recur over a long period of time, and especially when they involve highly variegated and specific expectations about the different roles of different actors in determining what actions others should take, we often collect these expectations and strategies under the heading of institution… Institution is just a name we give to certain parts of certain kinds of equilibria.

There are several studies that tried to conceptualize specific cooperation problems faced by countries by referring to game theoretic format. For instance, Stein (1982: 311–316), while examining establishment of international regimes, differentiated between cooperation problems of collaboration, which are reflected by the Prisoner’s Dilemma in which

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states act unilaterally even though they have a desire to reach a mutually beneficial cooperation arrangement and coordination with regards to the preferred equilibrium outcome. Snidal (1985: 925), referring to problems of international cooperation, distinguished between two main collective action problems: Prisoner’s Dilemma and coordination games ranging from (i) cooperation problem with the players’ (states) incentives not to cooperate to (ii) cooperation problem, in which states have a strong desire to coordinate, but have disagreements regarding the strategy to reach optimal outcome. Zürn (1993: 69), using more complicated situation-structural approach modeled in game-theoretic matrix, differentiated among three types of problematic social situations (cooperation problems): coordination games, which enable cooperation within relatively short period of time; dilemma games, which contain strong incentives for non-cooperation by each state; “Rambo” games, in which state reaches its optimal outcome by refusing to cooperate. Martin (1993: 95–109) proposed four-category typology of cooperation problems: collaborationproblem, coordination problem, suasion problem, assuranceproblem. Each of these cooperation problems could be, to some extent, associated with specific theoretical approaches, which we reviewed previously: Liberals have often implicitly assumed coordination or assurance games between states. Realism, with its emphasis on power asymmetries, has often assumed something close to a suasion game, while neoliberals have explicitly focused on collaboration problems. (Martin, 1993: 94)

Koremenos (2016: Chapter 2) developed more elaborated game-theory oriented typology of cooperation problems. She draws a distinction between cooperation problems captured in the “interests” category and the “constraints” category. The first category refers to cooperation problems such as Enforcement (e.g., Prisoner’s Dilemma) in which states have incentives to defect from cooperation; Distribution problem, which reflect divergent preferences regarding the substantive terms of cooperate; Commitment problem, which refers to a states’ commitment to cooperate in the long run, etc. The second category refers to uncertainty in the international realm and includes such cooperation problem as Uncertainty about Behavior, implying uncertainty regarding actions of other states; Uncertainty about Preferences referring to uncertainty about intentions and motivations of other cooperation’s partners; Uncertainty about

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the State of the World, which refers to uncertainty regarding the consequences of cooperation, such as a true distribution of the cooperative arrangement’s benefits. Since the aforementioned alternative theoretical approaches to alliances’ cooperation patterns seem not to be applicable to examination of such case study as CSTO, we will use the rational choice theory of institutionalism as the theoretical framework of our study. The case study of CSTO demonstrates an example of military alliance, in which countries pursue additional interests and goals, beyond a traditional collective defense function. Therefore, the rational institutionalism assumption of different preferences and interests of states, which affect a cooperation pattern within alliance, allows to avoid to certain extent deterministic neorealist approach, drawing a causal link between external threats and cooperation in alliances. The situation-structural approach inherent in the rational choice theory is based on the assumption that rational selfinterested states may pursue different interests which shape different patterns of military cooperation. Accordingly, the rational choice theory offers an explanation for the phenomena of cooperation in the international system, which could be useful for examining the military cooperation patterns (Velickovic, 2009: 20). Furthermore, given the importance assigned by rational choice institutionalist to states’ self-interests, such approach is useful for examining the case studies of non-democratic countries, which do not cooperate on the basis of political or ideological affinity, but are rather driven by self-interests. According to the rational choice institutionalism approach, the pattern of cooperation in CSTO is regarded as a functional solution with respect to common action problem relating to the diverse interests and preferences of the six post-Soviet republics.1 While all six allies are interested in preserving and maintain security ties, they also pursue multi-vector policies aiming to preserve their political sovereignty in the field of security and international relations. As we will demonstrate in the following

1 It should be noted that although rational choice theory admits, that non-state actors, like non-governmental organizations, may influence the design and pattern of cooperation of an institution (Koremenos et al., 2001: 763), since our case study refers to the nondemocratic members of the alliance with restricted (if any) access of non-governmental organizations to the decision-making regarding foreign and security policies, we assume that institutional design and patterns of such institution as CSTO is predominantly shaped by states.

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chapters, such multi-vector policies cause diversity and even conflict of interests, which create in turn a cooperation problem. Cooperation Problems and Patterns of Cooperation To examine the cooperation pattern of the post-Soviet Eurasian military alliance, we shall focus on the causal mechanism elaborated independently by Martin (), Zürn (1993) and Koremenos (2016). The game theoretic format embedded in the respective situation-structural approach, offers the variable problematic social situations, which could be regarded as rules of a game relating to the specific cooperation problem. International institutions with specific cooperation patterns emerge in specific problematic social situations. Thus, the following four main social situations represent specific cooperation patterns aiming at overcoming a cooperation problem faced by members of military alliance: • Collaboration—refers to cooperation problem reflecting the situations, in which cooperation is suboptimal from the allies’ point of view. Members of such military alliance prefer to defect from cooperation and thus obtain immediate pay offs. Such tendency to defect from cooperation could be derived from different (and even conflicting) interest and goals pursued by alliance’s member. An immediate payoff, i.e., achieving its own goal, could be so enticing that an ally may even take a risk of not considering the security needs and interests of other allies, thereby potentially jeopardizing a longterm benefit of cooperation. As a result, member-states of alliance characterized by such cooperation problem might tend to reach bilateral agreements, which are not necessarily compatible with the security interests and goals of other partners. A potential solution for such form of defection from cooperation is to modify/adjust such bilateral agreements to a multilateral form of cooperation thereby extending their scope to the whole alliance. In other words, cooperation pattern of allies facing such cooperation problem might be based on bilateral interdependence, that would be subsequently incorporated into a multilateral cooperation framework of military alliance. Additionally, states with diverse interests, lacking a high level of interdependence, might prefer free riding instead of formal obligation to cooperate, which would be benefactive strategy as long

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as other countries continue to cooperate. A defection from cooperation could also take the form of cooperation with/participation in international organizations, which may also be incompatible with the interests of other members of alliance. To deal with states’ incentives to defect and promote cooperation among them, alliance should also contain mechanism or quasi counterincentives, which would increase a shadow of future— ensuring that immediate cost of coordination (and immediate pay offs of defection accordingly) will be offset by long-run pay offs of cooperation, such as withdrawal of military support or denial of military-economic benefits of cooperation. • Coordination—in contrast to the Collaboration, the cooperation problem of Coordination reflects situation in which all members of alliance are interested to cooperate to promote their common interests and have no incentive to defect. Nevertheless, although allies view a cooperation as an optimal outcome, they have disagreements regarding different strategies to achieve such cooperation. Therefore, in contrast to Collaborationproblem, in which states with diverse interests have to confront a defection challenge of allies from cooperation, for example, in the field of collective defense, in Coordination problem states do not face the dilemma whether to cooperate or not but rather have to negotiate and decide which strategy/course of action will achieve such cooperation. States negotiate to coordinate a strategy of collective defense. Since countries share common interests, such as collective defense against common external threats, they have no incentive to defect. The cooperation pattern reflected in Coordination problem could be applicable to the abovementioned liberal or constructivist approaches implying a political/ideological affinity as a basis of cooperation in military alliance. Consider as an example NATO in 2014 against the background of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. Although the allies shared a common interest to cooperate in order to collectively defend themselves against the potential Russian threat, they had disagreements regarding a strategy of cooperation. While during the discussions in Wales Summit in September 2014, Poland and Baltic states, which are geographically closer to Russia, supported the option of NATO’s military forward presence, other NATO members such as Germany, fearing to further escalate relations with Moscow, opposed this option and

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appealed for establishing the ability to rapidly deploy forces in case of Russian military aggression. Finally, after the discussions the allies have chosen the second option and thus agreed on the preferred course of action in the field of collective defense (Pezard et al., 2017). • Suasion—reflects the cooperation problem in which alliance is created by hegemon, the most powerful state, but at the same time smaller states, lacking any additional cohesion basis for cooperation, have strong incentive to free ride. Such cooperation pattern in alliance reflects power asymmetry between a hegemon and other smaller members-states of alliance. Beyond a material power asymmetry, however, cooperation problem of Suasion implies an asymmetry of interests. Smaller states knowing that a hegemon has an interest to provide some public good, for instance collective defense, have strong incentive (e.g., rooted in domestic political or economic considerations) to free ride, because from their perspective collective defense will be provided by the most powerful ally also in case of non-cooperation of smaller allied states. While for a hegemon cooperation within military alliance might be a tool for regional dominance (Nolte, 2010: 895), for other smaller members, participation in alliance offers opportunity to get security benefits, even without cooperation with a hegemon. In this regard, the internal debate among the United States and other NATO allies regarding the necessity to reform burden-sharing, which intensified with the President Trump administration presser to increase military expenditure of the member-states to 2% of GDP, could be regarded as a Suasion cooperation problem (Cordesman, 2018). From such perspective, it can be argued that the smaller NATO members invested over years less resources knowing that the most powerful member-state was eager to invest substantial resources into transatlantic collective defense, primarily to counter the Soviet military threat in the Cold War period. The rational choice theory assumes that in order to deal with such kind of cooperation problem a hegemon should persuade/coerce the defectors to cooperate either by threats to defect itself from alliance (which would mean disintegration of alliance) or by threats to decrease/denial of some benefits as a sanction or increase in benefits in exchange for cooperation. Accordingly, an alliance confronted

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by Suasion cooperation problem reflects a cooperation pattern established by a hegemon to promote its security interests and maintained through persuasive/coercive mechanisms to overcome uncertainty and suspicion associated with defection tendency of smaller partners. • Assurance—refers to situation in which although a mutual defection from cooperation is possible, all allies perceive a cooperation as an optimal outcome. The probability of mutual defection from cooperation is derived from an uncertainty regarding other partner’s preferences. Such situation can be applicable to neorealist approach assuming the fragility of cooperation in military alliance considering a possible dilemma of some ally whether and how much support to give to other member of alliance in case of crisis or even war. Consequently, such kind of dilemma could cause a mutual defection, since a state that believes that there is a possibility that other partner may defect, could take a preemptive measure of defection from cooperation. Another form of defection under cooperation problem of Assurance is related to uncertainty regarding the ability of allied state to act as a rational unitary actor. A rational unitary state would choose an option of cooperation as an optimal outcome resulting in pay offs. Nevertheless, due to domestic politics process, state’s rationality could be impaired by a political struggle between, for instance, coalition and opposition powers within a state. Therefore, after its formation an alliance could face a problem of domestic commitment in which due to domestic politics considerations state might in future view non-cooperation as a state’s interest. To overcome such cooperation problem, related to uncertainty about either action taken by member of alliance or their preference, allies should create a mechanism providing transparency in domestic political arrangements to avoid uncertainty regarding future preferences and behavior. Similar to the pattern of cooperation under Coordination problem, also in case of Assuranceproblem such cooperation pattern could be applicable to military alliance consisting of democracies, which given the characteristic of their political regime, support transparency of domestic political arrangements.

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CHAPTER 3

Post-Soviet Eurasia—The Region’s Definition and History of the Post-Soviet Regional Governance

This chapter is devoted to a historical review of the post-Soviet regional governance. Before addressing this subject, however, we should examine and define what post-Soviet Eurasia means and which states are included in this space. Accordingly, we start our examination with a review of different approaches to defining the region, as developed in the scholarly literature in the post-Soviet period. The definition of region is important to our understanding which regional organizations are included in the boundaries of post-Soviet Eurasia, and not less important, which are not. Hence, we start our discussion with the question: What is post-Soviet Eurasia? This chapter moves on to briefly review the events that preceded the outbreak of the Soviet empire. We assume that the Soviet Union dissolution was a catalyst for reshaping of relations among the new independent states within the post-Soviet region. Afterwards, we will review the history of the first regional organization, established by the postSoviet republics—CIS, which was supposed to lay down the foundations of regional governance in political, security and economic realms. The rest of the chapter will be dedicated to the history of the regional economic governance embedded in EAEU. Such discussion of the main milestones of regional governance establishment in general and in economic realm in particular seems to be essential for our comprehension of the historical

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context of establishment of the regional security governance in postSoviet Eurasia. Moreover, reference to CIS and EAEU shall contribute to our understanding whether CSTO “deviates” from these central organizations in the region in terms of establishment drivers, institutional features and cooperation.

What is the Post-Soviet Eurasia? Definition of the Region Since its establishment in 1922 and throughout almost 70 years of its existence, the part of world known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was one of the central research subjects in various research disciplines in general and in the field of international relations in particular. During this period the research discourse regarding the Soviet Union demonstrated a consensus regarding the boundaries of the country and its geographical location. The former superpower included 15 republics in Europe and Asia as well: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. Following the outbreak of the Soviet Union in December 1991 all fifteen republics became independent political entities. Thus, the superpower that was one political entity split into the new states located in different geographical areas: three along the Baltic Sea area—Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia; three in the European part of the former Soviet Union bordering East European countries—Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova; three in Caucus area—Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan; five in Central Asia—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan; and Russia located in both the European and Asian parts of the former Soviet state (Hancock & Libman, 2016). Therefore, with the disappearance of the research topic of the Soviet Union as one geographical area, scholar had to reorient themselves to the fifteen new states (Bonnell & Breslauer, 1998: 2; Moshes & Racz, 2019). This caused, to a great extent, a lack of clarity among scholars regarding the definition of the region. Hence, scholars adopted different approaches to defining the region. Generally, there are three different theoretical approaches to defining regions: (a) materialist theories of geopolitics; (b) ideational, critical theories of geography; (c) behavioral theories (Katzenstein, 2005: 6–12). At the beginning of the post-Soviet period during the 1990s researchers defined the region as the space

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of the newly independent states or Commonwealth of Independent States (Brzezinski, 1997; Hancock and Libman, 2016; Kortunov, 1992; Michalopoulos & Tarr, 1997). Such definition seems to be consistent with the materialist theories of geopolitics. Pursuant to adherents of this approach, rooted in the realistic worldview, a war among states over territory is inevitable and constant characteristic of world politics (Katzenstein, 2005: 6). Thus, the theory emphasizes the political, security effects of geography on international relations. For instance, Mearsheimer (2014: 66) analyzed the effect of physical obstacles such as water or land on states’ security: “…great powers separated by water are likely to fear each other less than great powers that can get at each other over land.”

Accordingly, similarly to the Cold War period view of the Soviet Union, as a geopolitical unit of analysis, consisting of fifteen republics stretching from Europe to Asia, the definition of the new created space of the newly independent states or CIS could be well regarded as a continuation of this materialist approach. Thus Cohen (1999) argued: “… it is premature to dismiss Russia from its dominant perch over the Eurasian Heartland. A revived, albeit smaller and loosely confederated union, such as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) under Russian leadership and ideologically compatible with its East European neighbors, will remain in a position to dominate its geostrategic realm.”

Although scholars excluded from this definition of the region the three Baltic states, which strived to join NATO and EU (Brzezinski, 1997: 88), the region’s naming as CIS seems, however, to be problematic. The scholarly literature did not refer to the fact that during the years the organization do not encompass all post-Soviet republics (Hancock & Libman, 2016). For example, Georgia did not join the organization in 1991. The state became the CIS member only in 1993 but in 2009 left it (CIS Historical Background, 2020). Therefore, such definition undermined the utility of the definition. In 2000’s scholars started to use a geographic term Eurasia as the definition of the region (Hancock and Libman, 2016). The use of this general term, however, also did not contribute to clarity because different researches adopted different concepts of this term. The oldest concept

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of Eurasia refers to the ideas of Eurasianism (Vinokurov & Libman, 2012: 83). The ideas of Eurasianism could be traced back to the 19th Russian intellectual movement of slavophiles (slavyanophily in Russian) regarding Russia’s role and place in the world (Shendrikova, 2015: 5; see also Gleason, 2010). The slavophiles, such as Aleksey Stepanovich Khomyakov (1804–1860), Ivan Vasilyevich Kireyevsky (1806–1856), Konstantin Sergeyevich Aksakov (1817–1860), Yuri Fyodorovich Samarin (1819–1876), which emphasized the Slavic character of the country, advocated the idea of Russia’s distinctive, independent from the West road in the world (von Beyme, 2016: 17). Eurasianism in turn emerged in the circles of Russian emigrants in Europe in the 1920s (Vinokurov & Libman, 2012: 83). Eurasianists see Russia as a part of a specific region— Eurasia, separated by a particular geographical position and cross-cultural identity (Shendrikova, 2015: 5). Such particular geostrategic conditions imply Sonderweg for Russia in the world. As noted by the prominent German political scientist Klaus von Beyme (2016: 17–33), the Russia’s Sonderweg , underlined in the theory of Eurasianism, is prescribed by its particular position between Europe and Asia with more focus on relations with Asia. The focus on relations with Asia is not, however, a single variant of the Eurasia region definition by Eurasianists. The Eurasian region could be also viewed as a unity of Russian Orthodox and Islamic peoples (Vinokurov & Libman, 2012: 83). Thus, Nikolai Sergeyevich Trubetzkoy (1890–1938) associated with the Russian Eurasianists, emphasized the ethnic combination of the region, comprised of Slavic, Tatar and Turkic people (von Beyme, 2016: 29). Eurasianism is also associated with antiWesternism. This variant of Eurasianism, also known as Neo- Eurasianism, advocates the idea that Russia should have its own mode of development and rejects the imperialism of the European identity (Laruelle, 2008: 1). According to the controversial Russian political scientist Alexander Dugin, Eurasianism is directed against the Western hegemony and challenging liberalism, globalization, and American strategic dominance (cited in Millerman, 2014: 7). Such concept of the region could be regarded as a synthesis of materialist theories of geopolitics and ideational, critical theories of geography, which, broadly speaking, argue that regions are not given exogenously but a social construct invented by people (Katzenstein, 2005: 8). Accordingly, “Eurasianism” could be regarded as a materialist theory, which perceives Russia as a state located in a unique geopolitical position, on the one hand and as the ideational constructivist-inspired theory, according to

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which, Eurasia is a social constructed region, resulting from the particular ideas and understandings of social-political groups in the Russian society, on the other hand. Consequently, regional organization such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) could be regarded as a reflection of the Eurasianism variant implying in particular Russia’s position between Europe and Asia with more focus on relations with Asia. SCO was established in 2001 and includes the following memberstates: Russia, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (History of the SCO, 2020). It should be noted, that the SCO scope encompasses, inter alia, promoting the regional security (Lanteigne, 2018: 124). Thus, Article 1 of the organization’s Charter (2002) stipulated the following goal: “joint combating terrorism, separatism and extremism in all their manifestations, fighting against illicit narcotics and arms trafficking and other types of transnational criminal activity, and also illegal migration.”

Nevertheless, defining Eurasia region based on the concept of Eurasianism raises a number of difficulties. First, the use of several variants of the region definition does not contribute to clarification of the question—what constitutes Eurasia. Is it a unity of Christian Orthodox and Islamic peoples or does it refer to the connection between Russia and Asia? As Laruelle (2008: 2) pointed out, Eurasianism is characterized by numerous ambiguities, paradoxes and contradictions and may have a number of meanings: “the Romantic philosophy of empire developed by the original Eurasianists of the 1920s and 1930s; the theories of ethnogenesis elaborated by the Orientalist Lev N. Gumilev (1912–92); the fascistic geopolitics of the fashionable theorist Aleksandr Dugin (1962–); the philosopher Aleksandr Panarin’s (1940–2003) defense of a multi polar world.”

Second, Eurasianism is based on ideational, constructivist-inspired assumption, that a region is intersubjective and socially constructed and thus its definition is dependent upon the intersubjective understandings of other actors/states. While the ideas of the Russian Eurasianism concentrate on the specific role of Russia in the world, they paid,

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however, less attention to the question whether other states share the same understandings of Eurasia as reflected by the Eurasianism concept.1 Third and most important, as we have noted, we focus in this book on the examinations of the regional security governance of the postSoviet republics. Although such regional organization as SCO include post-Soviet member-states, its geographical scope exceeds the boundaries of the former Soviet space since the organization also includes membersstates located in South-East Asia—Pakistan and India. Accordingly, this regional institution cannot be deemed as an example of the regional security governance in post-Soviet Eurasia. In light of the foregoing, for the purposes of examination of the regional security governance of the post-Soviet republics, we should refer to another concept of Eurasia referring specifically to the post-Soviet space. The concept of post-Soviet Eurasia geographically refers to the former twelve Soviet republics, excluding the Baltic states. Since these states maintain extensive political, economic and security links among them, the concept of post-Soviet Eurasia seems to be useful for defining the examined region referring to the geographic location of the postSoviet states (Brusis et al., 2016; Hale, 2005; Simao, 2013; Stykow, 2019; Rivera, 2003). It reflects materialist and behavioral approaches to defining of region. Pursuant to behavioral approach, region is a material structure, which have behavioral effects. The political, economic and security conditions established in the Soviet period permitted the creation of the region of post-Soviet Eurasia shaped and reshaped by these continuing interstate relations. Accordingly, the region constitutes a geopolitical unit of analysis which was shaped and reshaped by the since Soviet period continuing interstate practices (Katzenstein, 2005: 10–11).

1 It should be noted, that in Kazakhstan receives attention a notion of Eurasianism, coined by Vinokurov and Libman (2012: 87) as “pragmatic” Eurasianism, which do not manifest any ideological basis but stresses the importance, for instance, of economic ties and exchange among countries. According to the notion this Central Asian state should play the role of “Eurasian bridge” striving to develop integration with the post-Soviet space, Asian states and Europe. Such definition of Eurasia can be associated with an organization such as the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which includes members from Western Europe, the post-Soviet space and Central Asian states. Nevertheless, such notion of Eurasia also cannot be applicable for the examination of CSTO, since it geographically exceeds the boundaries of the post-Soviet space. Therefore, although OSCE could be also regarded as examples of regional security governance, it could not be treated as a case study of the post-Soviet Eurasian security governance.

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The Post-Soviet Regional Governance---Historical Insight In the late 1980s the internal political situation in the Soviet Union began to deteriorate. Following attempts to reformate the political and economic system in the Soviet Union made as part of the Perestroika process promoted by the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, the subordinated Soviet republics began to demand national sovereignty in relations with Moscow. This process reached the peak with “Parade of sovereignties”—series of declarations of sovereignty by the Soviet member-republics. The voices in favor of republican sovereignty were first sounded in the Baltic states, that joined the Soviet Union as a result of Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of 1939 and mostly treated the Soviet Union as an occupation force. Nevertheless, it was the declaration of sovereignty by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) on June 12, 1990, that triggered a chain reaction. This declaration of national sovereignty determined inter alia: “The supremacy of the Constitution of the RSFSR and the Laws of RSFSR throughout the territory of RSFSR; the effect of acts of USSR that contradict the sovereign rights of RSFSR is suspended by the Republic on its territory. Disagreements between the Republic and the Union are resolved in the manner prescribed by the Union Treaty.” (Declaration of State Sovereignty, 1990).

As a result, more Soviet republics declared their sovereignty, thereby further undermining the central control of the central government in Moscow: Uzbekistan, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan (Gorbachev, 2012: 549– 550). This internal political development caused a tension within the Communist party. The internal tensions culminated on August 19–21, 1991, when the group of hard-liners within the central government and the Communist party in Moscow initiated a coup attempt. The Emergency State Committee (GKChP—Gosudarstvenny Komitet po Chrezvychaynomu Polozhéniyu, in Russian), consisted of high-level Soviet officials, including the Vice President of the Soviet Union, Gennady Yanayev, that has set the goal of declaring a state of emergency in the country and to assume the control over the country from by the then President of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev. Moreover, the members

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of GKChP opposed the intention of the Soviet leader to sign on August 20, 1991 the new treaty among the central Soviet government and the subordinated republics, which would disperse some of the central government’s authorities to the sovereign republics and transform the Soviet Union into confederative state. The failed coup attempt, however, initiated by GKChP to stop reforms process which was promoted by Gorbachev, caused in fact a relative rapid dissolution of the Soviet Union. During and after the coup attempt such Soviet republics as Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan officially declared their national independence (Gorbachev, 2012: 566). Eventually, the collapse of the Soviet state was formalized de jure on December 8, 1991 within the framework of the Belovezha Accords. On this day the leaders Russia, Belarus and Ukraine—the co-founders republics of the Soviet Union in 1922—formally declared that the Soviet Union as a geopolitical reality ceased to exist (Shushkevich, 2012:192). This agreement marked not only the end of the Soviet era, but also the beginning of a new phase of relationships among the former Soviet republics. The new post-Soviet reality contributed, to a great extent, to the need of the new countries to create regional cooperation frameworks as a tool to govern the relations among them in various spheres of activity.

The Commonwealth of Independent States The same Belovezha Accords, that led to the end of the Soviet state, created the new framework of cooperation among the former membersstates of the Soviet Union—The Commonwealth of Independent States, CIS (SNG—Sodruzhestvo Nezavisimykh Gosudarstv in Russia) (Agreement on the Establishment of the CIS 1991: Article 1). Afterwards, on December 13, 1991 the five Central Asian former Soviet republics, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in their meeting in Ashkhabad, Turkmenistan, declared their desire to join CIS subject to ensuring equal participation of the republics of the former USSR and recognition of the all CIS countries as founders. Few days later, on December 21, 1991, eight states, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, signed the Alma-Ata Declaration and thus joined CIS. As noted above, Georgia joined CIS only in 1993, however, sixteen years later after the war with

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Russia in August 2008, it left the organization in 2009. The three Baltic states have never joined CIS. CIS could be regarded as an institutionalized structure aiming to ensure, to some extent, “civilized divorce” of the former members of the Soviet state (Arbatova, 2019: 39; Libman, 2011: 3). Thus, in contrast, for example, to the European Union (EU), in which independent membercountries strive for decades to deepen the cooperation among them, the establishment of CIS was not derived from the states desire to support closer cooperation, but rather constituted a functional tool for overcoming the consequences of the disintegration of a previously existing single big political entity of the Soviet Union (Libman, 2011: 3). The former Soviet republics established this regional organization to mainly preserve many of political, economic and security ties, which resulted from the Soviet legacy (Kubicek, 2009: 237). Stressing the significance of historical ties developed among the CIS member-states, the Organization’s Charter (1993: Article 1) determined to further strengthen relations, mutual understanding and mutually beneficial cooperation. Pursuant to Article 4 of the CIS Charter (1993), the areas of joint activity of the member-states include: ensuring human rights and fundamental freedoms, foreign policy coordination, cooperation in the formation and development of a common economic space, customs policy and market, cooperation in the field of defense policy and the protection of external borders, fighting against organized crime, issues of social and migration policy, cooperation in the development of transport and communication systems and health and environmental protection. Since we will discuss the historical background of establishment of the regional security governance in Chap. 4, the security functions and the respective bodies of CIS will not be addressed in this chapter. CIS Charter also provided the basis for peaceful resolution of the internal conflicts, tensions and disagreements. Accordingly, pursuant to Article 16 of the Charter (1993): “Member-states shall take all possible measures to prevent conflicts, primarily on an interethnic and inter-confessional basis, which may entail a violation of human rights.”

Additionally, Article 17 provided:

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“The member-states of the Commonwealth will refrain from actions that could harm other member-states and lead to the aggravation of possible disputes.”

Beyond that, CIS laid foundations for future deepened cooperation in the economic sphere. Thus, in Article 19 of the organization’s Charter (1993) it is stipulated, that the member-states of CIS shall cooperate in the following areas of economic activity: “the formation of a common economic space based on market relations and free movement of goods, services, capital and labour; coordination of credit and financial policy; promotion in the development of trade and economic relations of the member states; promotion and mutual protection of investments; promotion of standardization and certification of industrial products and goods…”

Furthermore, on September 24, 1993 all eleven members of CIS signed the Economic Union Treaty, which could be regarded as an elaborated component of the CIS integration course and an attempt to further economic ties (Libman, 2012: 7). Pursuant to Article 3 of the Treaty: “The economic union presupposes: free movement of goods, services, capital and labour; coordinated monetary, budgetary, tax, price, foreign economic, customs and exchange policies; harmonized economic legislation of the Contracting Parties; availability of a common statistical base.”

Article 5 prescribed: “…consistent reduction and abolition of customs duties, taxes and fees, as well as quantitative and all other restrictions equivalent to them in their consequences; harmonization of customs legislation, mechanisms of tariff and non-tariff regulation; simplification of customs procedures; unification of forms of customs documentation for maintaining customs statistics; gradual convergence of tariffs for the carriage of goods and passengers, transit tariffs in compliance with the principle of freedom of transit; prevention of unauthorized re-export to third countries.”

To support all the political and economic cooperation activities, the CIS members created a number of entities such as: the Council of Heads of States—the supreme body of the organization, which discusses

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and decides fundamental issues related to the activities of the memberstates. The Council meets twice a year (CIS Charter, 1993: Article 21). The Council of Heads of Governments, which meets four times a year and coordinates cooperation between the executive authorities of the member-states in economic, social and other areas of common interests (CIS Charter, 1993: Article 22). It should be noted, that pursuant to Article 23 of the Charter decisions of these two bodies are adopted by general agreement. Any state can declare its lack of interest in a particular issue, i.e., abstain, which should not be considered as an obstacle to making a decision. The Coordination and Consultative Committee is a permanent executive and coordinating body of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Committee is responsible for implementation of agreements in specific areas of economic relations, submission of proposals regarding cooperation within the organization and development of social and economic ties (CIS Charter, 1993: Article 28). The Council of Foreign Ministers, based on the decisions of the Councils of Heads of States and Heads of Governments, coordinates the foreign policy of the member-states, including their activities in international organizations, and organizes consultations on issues of world politics of mutual interest (CIS Charter, 1993: Article 27). In addition to such organs, the following entities were established— Commission on Human Rights—an advisory body overseeing the implementation of human rights obligations of the CIS member-states (CIS Charter, 1993: Article 33) and Economic Court, which should resolve economic disputes among the states (CIS Charter, 1993: Article 32). As we see, the members of CIS created an institutionalized structure designed to support their cooperation and to maintain the interstate relations. The common Soviet past of the member-states was supposed to be a kind of a “glue” facilitating the cooperation. Therefore, the clause emphasizing the historical community of the people of the former Soviet Union and the ties that have developed among them was incorporated in the Preamble of all agreements related to the organization (Agreement on the Establishment of the CIS, 1991; Alma-Ata Declaration 1991; CIS Charter 1993; Economic Union Treaty 1993). What effect, however, did these agreements have on cooperation among the countries of CIS? Despite the declared intention to cooperate in various aspects of activity, CIS failed to be an effective cooperation framework for the post-Soviet states (Sakwa & Webber, 1999). Despite the intention to coordinate foreign policy, the states conduct policies

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demonstrating an increasing divergence. The analysis of voting patterns of the CIS members in the United Nations General Assembly in the years 1991–2013 conducted by Hansen (2015: 76) demonstrates than since 1992 the level of disagreement among the CIS countries regarding different foreign policy issues has increased significantly. The Economic Union Treaty has never been implemented, while the agreements associated therewith such as the agreement on the CIS Payment Union to establish effective payment system of the Economic Union became obsolete over time (Obydenkova & Libman 2019: 151). In 2011 within the framework of CIS the agreement on establishment of free-trade area, was signed. Nevertheless, not all the countries joined such agreement, whereas, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan refused to sign. Moreover, after signing the Association agreement and free-trade area between Ukraine and the EU, in January 2016 Moscow imposed economic sanctions on Kyiv. Earlier, in 2014 Moscow imposed economic sanctions, such as import restrictions, against Moldova, which signed the Association agreement with EU in June 2014. It should be noted, however, that from the very beginning the cooperation within CIS was affected by a built-in tension between the desire of the states to preserve their independence, first of all from Russia, and the need to maintain a certain level of ties. As will be discussed later, such built-in tension between independence considerations and the need to maintain a certain level of ties could be recognized in other regional institutions in post-Soviet Eurasia. In his memoir, the first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin (2008: 371), referring to CIS remarkably noted: “Around us now is the intermediate, unsettled space of the CIS. Nobody wants to be dependent upon Russia. And at the same time, nobody wants to lose Russia.”

This statement of Yeltsin reflects perfectly two inherent and to some extent contractionary dynamics. Upon its establishment in 1991, CIS was conceived, inter alia, as a tool to facilitate the states’ path to independence. It was one of the main reasons for the states’ desire to join CIS—the CIS agreement declared de jure that all republics of the former Soviet Union became independent (Obydenkova & Libman 2019: 145). Furthermore, the Alma-Ata Declaration (1991) provided that the new independent states shall recognize and respect each other’s territorial integrity and the inviolability of existing borders.

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At the same time, there was recognition that the CIS aim is to create mechanisms to avoid conflicts and breakdown of interstates links originating from the common Soviet past, on the one hand, and to realize equitable mutually beneficial cooperation among the former Soviet republics (Sakwa & Webber, 1999: 379), on the other hand. These interstate links were essential for the unstable economics of the new independent states. According to Stanislav Shushkevich (2012: 178), who was the first leader of independent Belarus and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Belarusian republic, behind the initiative to arrange the meeting in which the Belovezha Accords were signed, was a need to negotiate with the Russian leadership the supply of oil and gas to Belarus. Thus, maintaining some degree of relations with the economically stronger Russia, that has possessed significant deposits of energy resources, presented a significant interest for the new independent states. This raises the question on the nature of dynamics prevailing in CIS, whether this of independence facilitation and the concern from return of the Russian domination or that of preservation of interstate links and mutually beneficial cooperation? Already in the late 90s, Konstantin Zatulin (1997), the member of Duma (the lower House of Russia’s Parliament) and member of the Parliament’s committee for relations with the CIS and Eurasian integration, referred to the sensitivity of the CIS members to their political independence (primarily from Moscow) expressed by tendency to define different and even inconsistent with Russia’s interests, foreign policies: “…disintegration processes in the CIS are becoming prevalent, many participating countries are actively looking for new niches for themselves in other international economic, political and security structures. Apart from Russia, and sometimes against Russia.”

The emphasis on independence is also expressed in the CIS Charter (Article 23), which, as mentioned, allows the member-states to abstain from any decision, without a concern of any formal sanctioning. Hence, in CIS a dynamic of “civilized divorce” has prevailed at the expense of deepening of interstate cooperation. Under such circumstance CIS became rather a platform for the meetings of the states’ leaders than an effective regional institution facilitating cooperation (Libman 2012: 8). This state of the CIS was confirmed in the speech of the Russian President Putin in Erevan in 2005:

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“If anyone expected from the CIS some special achievements, for instance, regarding the economy or cooperation in political, military or other spheres, this indeed did not happen, nor could it have happened. There were declared aims, but in reality, CIS was established so as to make the process of the USSR’s dissolution the most civilized and smooth one, with the fewest losses in the economic and humanitarian spheres… The CIS has never had economic super tasks, such as economic integration… This is a very useful club for mutual information and the clarification of general political, humanitarian and administrative problems.” (cited in Kobrinskaya, 2007: 14–15).

In order to rectify such “disbalance” and to strengthen the cooperation dynamic, Sergey Prikhodko, the first Deputy Head of the Russian Government Office, suggested that “CIS from a divorce contract should be turned into a marriage contract.” (Institute of Political Economy, 2012). Would it be possible? Although the organization has not yet disintegrated so far, it seems that the heterogeneity of the member-states impairs the ability of CIS (despite the formally undertaken commitments) to agree on common goals and jointly cooperate. The CIS members are, first of all, heterogonies in view of their cultural and religious differences. The organization is possibly one of the few regional organizations, which is characterized by a presence of different movements of Christianity (Orthodox Christianity in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and Moldova, Old Orthodox Christianity in Armenia, Catholic and GreekCatholic denominations in Belarus and Ukraine) Islamic denominations of Shia and Sunna in Central Asian republics, Russia and Azerbaijan and Buddhist minorities in some parts of Russia (Obydenkova & Libman, 2019: 146). Moreover, beyond the differences in economic development inherited from the Soviet past, the former Soviet republics, as aforementioned, also demonstrate heterogeneity in terms of their domestic political arrangements. Although none of them is democratic in a sense of Western democracy, they demonstrate a significant diversity of their domestic political regimes. According to the Global Freedom Status of the Freedom House (2020) out of 11 members, only Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan are defined as “partly free” all other states are identified as “not free.” Whereas all states in the category of “partly free” are characterized by generally competitive electoral environment with a real opportunity for opposition parties to enter a parliament, oligarchs still exert significant influence over local politics through their financial

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support for different political forces. Regarding the second category of “not free” states of CIS, Russia and Belarus are authoritarian states, that although emulate democratic election processes, ban or marginalize opposition political forces and restrict their ability to be elected to the national parliaments. The same can be applied to the Central Asian countries and Azerbaijan, which demonstrate little movement towards democratization: in Kazakhstan Parliamentary and Presidential elections are neither free nor fair and political opponents are repressed, jailed and even exiled; in Kyrgyzstan representatives of opposition forces have faced politically motivated criminal investigations and prosecutions; in Uzbekistan no opposition parties operate on the legal basis; in Turkmenistan elections are tightly controlled by the authoritarian state, with almost unanimous victories of the president and his supporters; and in Tajikistan political processes are controlled almost exclusively by the President Rahmon and his extended family, thereby preventing any substantial competition for the presidency and control over the local parliament. The situation in Tajikistan is similar to the authoritative political system in Azerbaijan, in which most of the power is concentrated in President Ilham Aliyev’s hands along with his extended family (Freedom in the World, 2020). The heterogeneity of the CIS members generated different and even contractionary interests and is expressed at the practical level, to a great extent, by the tendency of the states to define independent multi-vector foreign policies, also coined by Brzezinski (1997: 119) as the “geopolitical pluralism.” Moreover, the new political identities produced, at least in case of some members, increasingly divergent foreign policies. As demonstrated, while states as Ukraine and Moldova are approaching Western liberal and democratic political norms and openly declared their aspirations to join EU, other CIS members such as Russia, Belarus, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan established authoritarian regimes contradicting the Western liberal norms (Hansen, 2015: 76). In case of Moldova, the country alongside with its membership in CIS, started to promote the policy aiming at deepening the relationships with the West in general and EU in particular. In November 1994 the then President of Moldova, Mircea Snegur, signed with EU the agreement on partnership and cooperation. It marked the beginning of the EU-oriented policy of Chisinau. The Moldavian pro-Western orientation has been also expressed by the most consistent support of pro-Western agenda in the UN General Assembly, thereby standing in contradiction to Belarusian voting pattern, which mostly sided with Russia. (Hansen, 2015: 765). In 2014 the Moldavian

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Parliament ratified the Association agreement with EU. In line with its pro-European politics Moldova provide EU political support. Thus, in March 2020 the Moldavian government joined the EU Council decision to extend the existing restrictive measures against persons, entities and bodies in view of the situation in Ukraine (Declaration by the High Representative, 2020). Moreover, despite the attempts of the former Moldavian President, Igor Dodon, to get closer to Moscow, because of its financial dependence on Western governments and international financial organizations, Chisinau foreign policy currently remained West-oriented (Vardanean, 2018: 10–11). Another example is Ukraine, a co-founder of CIS, which in early 1990’s begun to promote the foreign policy with “European Choice” as a central pivot thereof. In 1993, Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament approved the resolution “On the Main Directions of the Foreign Policy of Ukraine” according to which the foreign policy activity should be guided by striving to development of European regional cooperation. The European direction of the Ukrainian foreign policy, a participation in Western regional organizations and the striving to deepen the cooperation with the EU was also perceived as a possible solution to the uncertainty of Ukrainians regarding the further relationship with Russia. This relationship was characterized, to some extent, by disputes over the status of the city of Sevastopol, undermarketed borders and the partition of the Black Sea Fleet. Despite a necessity to maintain friendly relations with Russia, European integration and cooperation with Western organizations remained a central priority of Kyiv over decades (Shyrokykh, 2018). Undoubtedly, since the Russia’s annexation of Crimea by and its support of separatists in Eastern Ukraine, joining EU and even NATO became a strategic goal of Kyiv. Therefore, the multi-vector nature of foreign policies of some states could be seen as a consequence of the states’ preference of preservation of national independence at the expense of deepening cooperation in the Russia-dominated regional institutions. In addition, the multi-vector foreign policy of such states as Ukraine and Moldova could be regarded as a kind of balancing between West and East, i.e., Russia: while these countries promoted Europe-oriented foreign policies, they were interested for political and economic reasons (e.g., gas and oil supply by the Russian state-controlled corporations) to maintain friendly relations with Moscow, though without cooperation deepening in the Russiadominated regional institutions, which would jeopardize from their point

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of view, their Western integration aspirations. The second President of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, formulated this policy as follows: “Being located at the European crossroad, in a complicated system of international axes, being at the same time pivotal for central, western and southeast Europe, our country cannot afford not to have tight relations with these countries.” (cited in Shyrokykh, 2018).

It seems, however, that with the onset of the Russian aggression Ukraine has begun to abandon such balancing policy and even announced in 2018 its desire to withdraw from agreements related to the organization (The Presidential Decree 139/2018). Beyond the challenge of multivector policies for successful cooperation in the CIS, post-Soviet Eurasia faced also the problem of military conflict between two members of CIS, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Established by the Soviet government in the 1920s, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Republic within Azerbaijan, populated dominantly by ethnic Armenians, proclaimed independence in 1991. This event triggered a protracted military conflict between Baku and Erevan. The cease-fire brokered by Russia transformed the Armenian–Azerbaijani war into a frozen conflict. The situation has changed in 2016 with artillery shelling and minor skirmishes among Armenian and Azerbaijani soldiers. Four years later in 2020 both states were already involved in a full-scale war, which ended upon the execution of agreement, once again brokered by Moscow, obliging Erevan to withdraw from several parts of the occupied territories in Nagorno–Karabakh (Council on Foreign Relations, 2020). Accordingly, the multi-vector policies and hostile relationships among some members of CIS, undermined the organization’s ability to overcome internal disagreements and to transform this regional organization from “a divorce contract into a marriage contract.” In other words, as noted by Bremmer and Bailes (1998: 137), the main problem that impaired the cooperation within CIS was a polarity of views concerning the purpose of CIS. As a dominant state in the region, Moscow saw the organization as an instrument for preserving its influence over the countries in “near abroad” (Czerewacz-Filipowicz & Konopelko, 2017: 20). As noted in the Presidential Decree (1995 Official Internet Resource of the President of Russia), one of the main objectives of Russia’s policy in relation to the CIS states was:

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“Strengthening Russia as the leading force in the formation of a new system of interstate, political and economic relations in the territory of the post-Union space.”

Such approach implies, from Russia’s perspective, a perception of CIS as a monolithic space, in which all the former Soviet states should be interconnected and develop strong ties to Russia (Bremmer & Bailes, 1998: 136). Nolte is right, however, when he argues that regional powers are dependent on the cooperation of other states in a region, the “followers.” (Nolte 2010: 892). While the cooperation in CIS was supported by Russia allowing it to try preserve its hegemony over new independent states, other members did not share the Russian view regarding the cooperation within CIS: “Eventually CIS fell into two competing camps: one favoring tightened integration (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan) and one against (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan.” (Bremmer & Bailes, 1998: 137).

To sum up, CIS was created as part of the strategy to keep the door open for establishment of regional governance in different spheres. Nevertheless, since the first attempts to establish some form of regional governance were made immediately upon the outbreak of the Soviet state, the members of CIS, which gained their independence after decades of being part of the great empire, were not keen to participate in regional organization with high level of cooperation, let alone to delegate some of their powers to any kind of supranational institution. Hence, the organization’s institutional design (with the emphasis on such institutional feature as freedom to refrain from adopting decisions made in CIS) reflected the members’ sensitivity to independence. (Obydenkova & Libman 2019: 149). The recognition of inability of the CIS members to realize the declared level of interstate relations in economic and security fields caused already in the initial periods of CIS existence to a search of alternative cooperation frameworks (Libman 2012: 6). Consequently, post-Soviet Eurasia witnessed the appearance of new regional organizations limited to a particular realm of cooperation, such as EAEU and CSTO. Although such organizations include a smaller number of members, the states participating in these regional institutions more positively perceive a potential cooperation with Russia, at least as tool for acquiring economic

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or security benefits (Bremmer & Bailes, 1998: 138). In the next pages we will review the history of the Eurasian Economic Union, which could be perceived as institutionalized form of regional economic governance in post-Soviet Eurasia.

The Eurasian Economic Union The idea to establish another advanced and more effective form of economic governance in post-Soviet Eurasia was first voiced by the former President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev. In his speech on March 24, 1994 in Chatham House in London he stated, that it would be better to give up the desire to keep all states within the CIS and spoke about the need to create an effectively working Euro-Asian Union, in which members should comply with agreements (Nazarbayev, 1997: 26). On June 3, 1994 (1997: 39, 41), in the draft of the document on formation of the Eurasian Union, Nazarbayev stated: “The experience of the past years of the functioning of CIS shows the need to move to a new level of integration, which will guarantee the compliance with jointly accepted obligations by all participating states…Taking into account the differences between countries in the levels of development of the market economy, democratization of political processes, we propose the formation of an additional integration structure- the Eurasian Union. The goal is to harmonize economic policy and adopt binding for the memberstates programs of economic reforms.”

This position of the Kazakhstani leader was based on the need to combine the process of national state-building, on the one hand and the preservation and development on this basis of interstate integration processes, on the other hand (Nazarbayev, 1997: 39). To preempt our findings, such combination of state-building process with interstate cooperation process could be indeed recognized in an institutionalized form of the regional economic governance embedded in the EAEU. Such assumption reflected the interests of the organization’s member-states. Over years, the idea of regional economic cooperation encompassing a group of post-Soviet republics was realized in several organizations, that preceded EAEU. These organizations, established by a very similar group of countries—Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan as core-members, joined sometimes by Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Armenia—could be

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regarded as continuations of one other (Obydenkova & Libman 2019: 179). In 1995, the following three countries: Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan signed the Customs Union (CU) Treaty (Tochitskaya, 2010: 4). In March 1996 Kyrgyzstan and in 1998 Tajikistan also joined the aforesaid Treaty. The aim of this initiative was to remove obstacles to the free economic interaction among the countries, ensuring free trade and fair competition (Eurasian Economic Integration, 2017: 4). Although many agreements suggested in the Treaty were not implemented, the cooperation pattern of the participating states reflected the dominance of the wealthiest memberstate-Russia. Such dominance was expressed, for instance, by the decision of Belarus to harmonize the tariffs with those set by Russia—the move whose benefit to Belarusian consumers is questionable. A similar step was taken by Kazakhstan, which in addition raised its automobile tariffs (though the state has no automobile industry to protect). Although such step was protective for Russian manufactures, such as AvtoVAZ, it has made the automobile trade with non-CU members more expensive (Hancock, 2009: 129–130). Eventually, no more countries have joined the CU Treaty and it did not last long. In January 1996 Kazakhstan officially expressed its desire to accede to the World Trade Organization (WTO) (Accession Request of the Republic of Kazakhstan 1996). This step imposed an obligation on the country to reduce tariffs, which was unacceptable for other members of the CU Treaty. Moreover, the economic crisis in Russia, accompanied by the devaluation of the Russian currency, Ruble, created favorable conditions for Russian exports to other countries and forced them to provide protective trade measures (Obydenkova & Libman 2019: 181). Consequently, 1995 CU Treaty became the first false start of the post-Soviet economic integration (Vinokurov et al., 2017: 23). In 2000, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan signed the agreement to establish the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC). In 2006 Uzbekistan joined the Treaty but to suspend its participation in 2008 (Gleason, 2008). According to the agreement, signed by the states on October 10, 2000 (Treaty of EurAsEC 2000: Article 2), the goal of this regional institution was effectively to advance the process of the formation of a customs union and a single economic space. At a first glance, EurAsEC exhibits some differences compared to CIS. First, the member-states had not the ability any more to selectively

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participate in agreements (Vinokurov 2018: 4). According to Article 9 of the EurAsEC agreement (2000): “A Contracting Party in breach of the provisions of this Treaty and/or of treaties in force within the Community may be suspended, by a decision of the Interstate Council, from participation in the work of EurAsEC organs. If the Contracting Party continues to be in breach of its obligations, the Interstate Council may decide to exclude it from the Community from a date to be determined by the Council itself.”

Second, according to the procedure for the decisions-making process stipulated in the Treaty (2000: Article 13), the decisions adopted at the level of two main organs of EurAsEC, the Interstate Council (which is composed of heads of states and heads of governments and responsible for determining a strategy, directions and taking decisions for implementing defined goals) and the Integration Committee (a standing body which is composed of the deputy heads of governments and responsible for drafting decisions for the Interstate Council and monitoring of the implementation of adopted decisions) demonstrated different pattern of voting compared to the CIS: the Interstate Council should have adopted all decisions by consensus, according to the principle “consensus minus the vote of the interested Contracting Party”; in the Integration Committee “decisions should have been taken by a majority of two thirds of the votes.” The number of votes for each country should correspond to its contribution to the budget of the Community, as follows: Belarus—20 votes, Kazakhstan—20 votes, Kyrgyzstan—10 votes, Russia—40 votes, Tajikistan—10 votes. Nevertheless, despite the declared voting procedure, in practice the Interstate Council, the only body, which was authorized to make binding decisions, adopted resolutions through the hard-to-reach consensus (Kaveshnikov, 2011). Another feature of EurAsEC, characterized by Borodin and Strokov (2015: 339) as the “symptoms of the old disease,” was the inability to build multilateral relations. The states promoted the cooperation through the bilateral agreements—Russia–Kazakhstan and Russia–Belarus and so on (Vinokurov et al., 2017: 24). Thus, the free-trade area with cancellation of customs duties among the members of the Community, was not achieved within the multilateral framework of EurAsEC but rather through unilateral and bilateral measures. The EurAsEC states also failed

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to reach any substantial progress in harmonization of the external customs tariffs (Obydenkova & Libman 2019: 181). In October 2007 three countries, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, decided to move to another form of CU and after the two years of preparations on December 19, 2009 signed in the city of Alma-Ata the Joint Declaration on the Formation of CU (Vinokurov 2018: 6). The new CU came into effect on January 1, 2010. On July 6, 2010 after the preparatory work by the CU Commission, the CU Customs Code, referring to harmonization of customs tariffs and procedures, entered into force (Eurasian Economic Union 2018: 29). Additionally, according to the agreement the three states had to eliminate most duties on mutual trade (Yarashevich, 2014: 585). It should be noted that even after the agreement came into force, CU suffered from disagreements. Minsk insisted that Russia shall stop imposing duties on all oil exported to Belarus. Only after the negotiations with Russia, Belarus has officially confirmed its intention to participate in CU with Russia and Kazakhstan (Vorobyova, 2010). Nevertheless, the essential characteristic, which distinguished the organization from its predecessors, was a significant degree of compliance of the CU memberstates, which managed to harmonize their customs tariffs and abolished internal customs checks (Obydenkova & Libman 2019: 182). Such multilateral cooperation, however, did not last long. Similar to the case of the first CU of the middle 1990’s, Kazakhstan, which strived to accede to WTO, had to resolve differences between its commitments to CU and WTO requirements. The country became the WTO member in 2015 and as a condition of joining the organization had to unilaterally reduce tariffs on goods (Putz, 2015). In the meantime, in November 2011 the leaders of “troika,” i.e., the Presidents of Russia (Dmitry Medvedev), Belarus (Alexander Lukashenko) and Kazakhstan (Nursultan Nazarbaev) signed the Declaration on Eurasian Economic Integration and announced the transition to the next stage of integration: the Common Economic Space (CES). The Declaration set forth the following main directions of further integration: “Ensuring the effective functioning of the common market for goods, services, capital and labour; the formation of a coherent industrial, transport, energy and agricultural policy; further harmonization of national legislations; strengthening cooperation in the monetary sphere and in the

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economic security area.” (Meeting of the Presidents of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan 2011).

Thus, in addition to tariffs and free trade regulations under the CU agreement, CES prescribed creating conditions for free movement of goods and labor. It should be noted that the Declaration incorporated also the intention of the three leaders to strive to complete by January 1, 2015 the codification of international treaties that make up the legal framework of the CU and CES, and on such basis to create the Eurasian Economic Union. In January 2012 CES was officially established. On May 29, 2014 the presidents of the CU and CES memberstates signed the Eurasian Economic Treaty, which entered into force on January 1, 2015 (Vinokurov, 2018: 8). On January 2, 2015 Armenia became a full member of EAEU. On August 12, 2015, upon implementing the roadmap and completing the ratification procedures, Kyrgyzstan also became a full-fledged member of the Union (Eurasian Economic Union 2018: 9). In the same year EurAsEC ceased to exist (Obydenkova & Libman 2019: 182). The provisions of the EAEU Treaty mainly codify and systematize the existing regulations under the CU and CES agreements (Obydenkova & Libman 2019: 182). Pursuant to Article 1 of the Treaty (2014) the EAEU members pursue the goals, that were mostly stipulated in the CU and CES agreements: The Parties hereby establish the Eurasian Economic Union (hereinafter “the Union,” “the EAEU”) ensuring free movement of goods, services, capital and labour within its borders, as well as coordinated, agreed or common policy in the economic sectors determined under this Treaty and international treaties within the Union.”

Article 4 provides that the main objectives of the Union are: “to create proper conditions for sustainable economic development of the Member States in order to improve the living standards of their population; to seek the creation of a common market for goods, services, capital and labour within the Union; to ensure comprehensive modernization, cooperation and competitiveness of national economies within the global economy.”

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Section III of the EAEU Treaty defined the main entities responsible for supporting the organization’s functioning. The supreme body of the Union is the Supreme Council consisting of the heads of the memberstates. According to Article 12 of the aforesaid Treaty, the Council is responsible, inter alia, for outlining the strategy and directions pertaining the formation and further development of EAEU and make decisions aimed at implementing the objectives of the Union. Additionally, the organ is empowered to decide on negotiations with a third party on behalf of the Union, including the conclusion of international treaties as well as making decisions to be bound by an international treaty with a third party, termination/suspension of or withdrawal from an international treaty. The Supreme Council adopts its decisions by consensus except from issues related to the termination of membership of a member-state in the organization, that shall be taken on the principle of “consensus minus the vote of the Member State declaring its intent to terminate its membership in the Union.” (EAEU Treaty, 2014: Article 13). The second Union’s organ is the Intergovernmental Council, which consists of the heads of governments of EAEU states. The Intergovernmental Council should hold its meetings at least twice a year and is responsible to ensure and control the implementation of the Treaty, international treaties and agreements signed by the Union and decisions of the Supreme Council. Decisions of the Council are also made by consensus (EAEU Treaty, 2014: Articles 14–17). The Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), which began its work the in February 2012, was later incorporated as one of the EAEU bodies. EEC, which consists of the Council (which provides general management of the Commission’s activities and regulation of integration processes) and the Board (executive body of EEC), is responsible to ensure conditions of the functioning and development of the Union and its powers cover such areas as: regulation of foreign trade, customs, tariff and nontariff regulations, the Union’s labor market regulations etc. (Vinokurov 2018: 45). Similar to the Supreme and Intergovernmental Council, in the EEC Council decisions are also made by consensus. Nevertheless, for decision approval in the Board of the Commission a two-thirds qualified majority of votes of the Board all members is required. (EAEU Treaty, 2014: Articles 18). According to Annex 1 of the EAEU Treaty, referring to the regulation on EEC, the Commission adopts decisions with regulatory and binding effect on the members.

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Additional principal body of the organization is the Court of EAEU. Pursuant to Annex 2 of the Union Treaty regulating the Court’s activity, the objective of the Court’s is to ensure uniform enforcement by the members and entities of the Union of the Treaty and other binding agreements and decisions. Similarly, the Court shall resolve disputes with respect to the enforcement. Despite the fact that compared to CIS, EAEU consists of a smaller number of members, which would be supposed to facilitate the cooperation, the reality looks different. It seems that the member-states still demonstrate heterogeneity in terms of cultural-religious features, economic capabilities and domestic political arrangements. Beyond the political and cultural-religious heterogeneity discussed above, the states demonstrate also significant economic disparity. Economically Russia is the most dominant member of the Union. Thus, according to the data of the Eurasia Economic Commission (2020: 14) the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of EAEU in 2019 was in current prices 1965,6 billion dollars, of which Russia generated approximately 86%, Kazakhstan 9%, Belarus 3.2%, Armenia 0.6%, Kyrgyzstan 0.4% (see the Fig. 3.1). As will be demonstrated below, it seems that such dominance of Russia has implications on the cooperation pattern within the economic organization. Moreover, EAEU is characterized by the geographical scattering as well. Thus, for example, Armenia is geographically disconnected from other Union’s members. Relatedly, geographical disconnection contributes to the heterogeneity of the EAEU states preferences (Obydenkova & Libman 2018: 191). Notwithstanding the declared goals of economic integration, the heterogeneous character of the Member-State Russia Belarus Armenia Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Total/EAEU

Accession Date 01.01.2015 01.01.2015 02.01.2015 01.01.2015 12.08.2015 -

GDP 1700,1 63,2 13,6 180,3 8,4 1965,6

Fig. 3.1 GDP Data of the EAEU Member-States in 2019 (billions of dollars in current prices) (Source Eurasia Economic Commission. http://www.eurasi ancommission.org/ru/act/integr_i_makroec/dep_stat/econstat/Documents/ Brief_Statistics_Yearbook_2020.pdf. Accessed 24 November 2020)

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EAEU member-states, lacking any common value-basis of cooperation, contributes to a specific form of “holding together” cooperation. Obydenkova and Libman (2019: 125), already cited by us in Chap. 1, described such regional cooperation in post-Soviet Eurasia as follows: “…while in the existing literature on regionalism the focus is on how countries manage to become more closely interconnected and integrated over time, in Eurasia we observed the opposite process: countries originally highly integrated had to maintain a certain level of economic tie, at the same time developing their own national economies.”

In EAEU such specific cooperation was reflected in the tendency of the members to associate their main objective of membership in the organization with bilateral relations with the most dominant member—Russia (Obydenkova & Libman 2018: 193). Similarly, Mostafa and Mahmood (2018: 170) described such tendency of the member-states as an attempt “to gain as much as they can from Moscow.” Russia is an important economic partner of Kazakhstan. The both countries have extensive trade conditions. A closer economic cooperation with Russia within the EAEU framework created improved conditions for this bilateral trade relations (Laruelle 2015: 7). For Belarus Russia is the main sales market for Belarusian goods. The country also receives support from Russia in the form of loans and investments in the Belarusian economy (Vinokurov et al., 2017: 41). Accordingly, the membership in EAEU granted the country a much-needed financial resources and cheap energy (Mostafa & Mahmood, 2018: 167). Armenia is a country which demonstrates considerable dependence on Russia. Beyond the close military ties, that we will discuss later in the book, Moscow controls major assets in the Armenia economy (Obydenkova and Libman 2019: 193). Although the country purchases gas from Russia with a discount, the Russian state-controlled corporation “Gazprom” controls the Armenian gas distribution network. Kyrgyzstan, the poorest country with the lowest GDP of 8.455 billion in current US $ (World Bank Data, 2019) among the Union member-states. A significant share in the country’s GDP is made up of remittances from Kyrgyz migrants working in Russia. This dependence significantly influenced the decision of Bishkek to join EAEU (Vinokurov et al., 2017: 44). The membership in Russia-dominated regional economic organization facilitated a movement of migrant workers to Russia (Cherevyk, 2017: 40). Furthermore, Moscow supports Bishkek’s economy through

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Russia

Belarus

Kazakhstan

Armenia

Kyrgyzstan

Tr ad

e

Pa rt

ne r

the Russian-Kyrgyz Development Fund (Russian-Kyrgyz Development Fund, n/s). Consequently, it seems that the EAEU members perceive the organization more as a platform for relations with Russia than for development of economic relations among them. In this regard the trade patterns within the Union are illustrative. Except from Kyrgyzstan, which maintains significant volume of trade with Kazakhstan (alongside with Russia), all other EAEU members trade mainly with Russia, but not with each other (Vinokurov et al., 2016: 35) (see Fig. 3.2). At the same time, the post-Soviet republics pursue independent policy aimed at advancing their national economies (including through fostering connections with the West), detached from interests of the Union members. Thus, for instance, Nur-Sultan follows a multi-vector economic policy, which opens the door for economic cooperation with the West, China and other Asian countries (Laruelle 2015: 7). Kazakhstan–China trade relations in this regard are remarkable. In 2018 China was even ahead of Russia in terms of the Kazakh export. While the China’s share in Kazakhstan’s export was 10.32%, the export of Kazakhstan to Russia was only 8.64% (World Integrated Trade Solution, 2018). Furthermore, despite the dependence on Russia, the states did not support it in course of Moscow-West tensions in 2014. After imposition of western sanctions on Russia due to its aggressive activity regarding Ukraine, Moscow reacted with countermeasures, imposing a ban on the import of dairy, meat, fish products, as well as vegetables and fruits from the EU, USA, Canada and Australia. Contrary to Russia’s expectations,

State Armenia Belarus Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan

export 96.6% 94% 88.5% 43.8%

import 96.6% 99.2% 93.6% 66.9%

export 2.3% n/a 1.7% 2.1%

import 3% n/a 4.3% 2.2%

export 0.7% 5.2% n/a 54.1%

import 0.3% 0.7% n/a 30.9%

export n/a 0.4% 0.1% n/a

import n/a 0.1% n/a n/a

export 0.4% 0.4% 9.7% n/a

import 0.1% n/a 2.1% n/a

Fig. 3.2 Mutual Trade Structure of the EAEU States in 2019 (%) (Source Mutual Trade in Goods. Eurasian Economic Union Statistics. 2019. http:// www.eurasiancommission.org/ru/act/integr_i_makroec/dep_stat/tradestat/ publications/Documents/Int_2019.pdf. Accessed December 7, 2020)

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however, other member-states did not impose sanctions against the European countries (Mostafa & Mahmood, 2018: 168). Such position has even been adopted by the economically weak Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, which are, as noted, to a significant extent dependent on supply of energy, materials and economical support by Russia. Lukashenko (2014) argued that Belarus cannot join the sanctions imposed by Russia and prohibit the transit of food from West to Russia because it would worsen its economic situation: “We must get out of the sanctions that were applied against us. We have enough problems.”

Nazarbayev (2014) in turn declared his plans to develop relations with the EU and conclude new cooperation agreements. Similarly, no EAEU state supported the Belarusian sanctions against EU, imposed on October 2, 2020 as a counterreaction to EU sanctions against Minsk after controversial presidential elections held in the country in August. Although on the same day the Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, stated that the list of Belarusian response sanctions that entered into force will be automatically applied in the RF as well, this was not as part of the country’s membership in EAEU, but rather within the framework of Russian–Belarusian bilateral relationships2 (Comment by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman, 2020). Additionally, as in the case of CIS the cooperation in EAEU is affected by the members’ sensitivity to national independence. Hence, at the declarative level the EAEU Treaty (Article 3) set forth no only economic, but also the functioning principles resulting from such sensitivity: “Respect for the universally recognized principles of international law, including the principles of sovereign equality of the Member States and their territorial integrity; respect for specific features of the political structures of the Member States; ensuring mutually beneficial cooperation, equality and respect for the national interests of the Parties; respect for the principles of market economy and fair competition.”

2 It should be noted that on December 8, 1999 Russia and Belarus signed the Treaty aiming to create the Union state of the two states.

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Additional expression of the independence sensitivity is the assumption incorporated in the Treaty, that the decisions of the Supreme Council and the Intergovernmental Council shall be binding pursuant to the national legislation of the members. While the original draft of the EAEU Treaty incorporated the assumption, that the Union’s legal acts would have direct effect in the territory of the member-states, thereby receiving priority over their national laws, the final version of the Treaty (Vinokurov 2018: 52; 2014: Article 6), reflecting the members’ concern of undermining their sovereignty, states that resolutions shall be performed by the member-states in accordance with their national legislation, which negates the priority of the EAEU acts. Relatedly, the priority of national legislation also affects decisions of the EAEU Court in case of conflict between the members’ national law and Union’s acts. (Vinokurov 2018: 52; EAEU Treaty, 2014: Article 6, Annex 2: Chapter VII, clause 102). It should be noted, that few years before the establishment of EAEU in the article in the Russian newspaper “Izvestia” (2011) President Putin outlined his vision of the Union, implying, inter alia, a political component of integration: “We propose a model of a powerful supranational association capable of becoming one of the poles of the modern world and at the same time playing the role of an effective "link" between Europe and the dynamic Asia-Pacific region.”

Nevertheless, except from retaining certain level of economic ties, the EAEU does not pursue any political aims. The avoidance of political integration was, mainly, resulting from strict position of Kazakhstan, which was concerned about an increasing interference of Russia in its domestic affairs (Obydenkova & Libman 2019: 192–193). In this respect, the Kazakhstani President Nazarbayev (Interview of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the Khabar Agency, 2014) stated: “The EAEU is an exclusively economic union, not a political one: all participating countries have an equal voice, everything will be decided by consensus. In addition, Kazakhstan always has the right to withdraw from this union if there is a threat to independence.”

He also added:

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“If the rules which were previously established in the Treaty are not respected, then Kazakhstan has the complete right to end its membership in the Eurasian Economic Union. Astana will never participate in an organization which represents a threat to the independence of Kazakhstan.” (News.ru, 2014).

In 2019 during the meeting of the Supreme Council he reiterated that position: “Commitment to economic goals and the intention to implement tasks exclusively through the prism of the economic component should remain a key priority in the activities of our institutions.” (Speech of President of Kazakhstan 2019).

It can be assumed, however, that this position was shared by other countries. Thus, for instance, another co-founder of the organization, the Belarusian leader Lukashenko (2011) noted: “The prospect of powerful and deep integration that opens up today is truly breathtaking. But the cornerstone of everything that we are going to build is the sovereignty of our states, which does not cancel even the closest integration.”

In conclusion, it seems that EAEU suffers from the same symptoms, which characterized the cooperation among post-Soviet republics in CIS—a built-in tension between independence sensitivity and the need to maintain a certain level of economic ties, mainly with Russia. As for Russia, it seems that due to the concern of possible undermining of the organization it would not insist on deepening the integration. Nonetheless, Russia tries to exploit energy dependence of the members as instrument for increasing its influence. At the meeting of the Supreme Council in May 2020 Putin rejected the idea to set a single tariff for gas transportation and transit services proposed by Armenia and Belarus. According to him, to accept such proposal the Union members should agree on deeper cooperation (Meeting of the Supreme Council, 2020). Therefore, in view of the independence sensitivity of its members, EAEU would most probably remain an example of regional institution limited to particular fields of strictly economic cooperation imitating to certain extent the EU, which is deemed to be the most successful form of regional cooperation worldwide (Obydenkova & Libman 2019: 197).

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Treaty on the Establishment of the Eurasian Economic Community. (October 10, 2000). United Nations Organizations. https://treaties.un.org/doc/pub lication/unts/volume%202212/v2212.pdf. Accessed 21 November 2020. Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union. (2014). Internet portal of EAEU. https://docs.eaeunion.org/Pages/DisplayDocument.aspx?s=bef9c798-397842f3-9ef2-d0fb3d53b75f&w=632c7868-4ee2-4b21-bc64-1995328e6ef3& l=540294ae-c3c9-4511-9bf8-aaf5d6e0d169&EntityID=3610. Accessed 20 April 2021. Vardanean, E. (2018, August). Moldova between Russia and the West. Internal divisions behind the Commitment to European Integration. IFRI Russia/NIS Center. Vinokurov, E. (2018). Introduction to the Eurasian Economic Union. Palgrave Macmillan. Vinokurov, E., Korshunov, D., Pereboev, V., & Tsukarev, T. (2017). Eurasian Economic Union. https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/82051/. Accessed 21 November 2020. [in Russian] Vinokurov, E., & Libman, A. (2012). Eurasia and Eurasian integration: Beyond the Post-Soviet Borders. EDB Eurasian Integration Yearbook, 2012, 80–95. von Beyme, K. (2016). Die Russland-Kontroverse. Eine Analyse des ideologischen Konfliktes zwischen Russland-Verstehern und Russland-Kritikern. Springer Fachmedien. Vorobyova, I. (2010, June 7). Lukashenko changed his mind. RBK. https://arc hive.is/lmTPO#selection-401.0-406.0. Accessed 22 November 2020. World Bank Data. (2019). GDP of Kyrgyz Republic. https://data.worldb ank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=KG. Accessed 6 December 2020. World Integrated Trade Solution. (2018). Kazakhstan Trade Summery 2018. https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/KAZ/Year/ LTST/Summarytext. Accessed 8 December 2020. Yarashevich, V. (2014, December). Post-communist economic integration: Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia. Journal of Economic Integration, 29(4), 582–623. Yeltsin, B. (2008). Presidential notes: Reflections, memories, impressions. ROSSPEN. [in Russian]. Zatulin, K. (1997). CIS after Chisinau: The beginning of the end of history. https://zatulin.ru/sng-posle-kishineva-nachalo-konca-istorii/. Accessed 10 November 2020. [in Russian]

CHAPTER 4

Post-Soviet Reality and the Emergence of CSTO: Reasons and History of the Military Alliance Formation

What security challenges did the new independent countries have to deal with? How did the security relations among the countries develop after the dissolution of the Soviet Union? What are the reasons and the main drivers for establishment of CSTO by the post-Soviet republics? Or in other words, what are the main milestones pertaining to the transformation from the organization aiming at managing a “civilized divorce” among the new independent countries in the post-Soviet period into institutionalized security arrangement sharing understandings, rules and practices? As stated in the previous chapter, we assume that the outbreak of USSR was a trigger for redefining of the countries’ security relations in postSoviet Eurasia and establishment of regional security government at a later stage. Accordingly, we commence our discussion with the review of security environment and challenges faced by the former Soviet republics in course and after the dissolution of the Soviet state. The discussion will be followed by the examination of the main reasons and drivers for establishment of regional security governance in post-Soviet Eurasia and review of the main milestones in the development of CSTO. We argue that the security threats and challenges that the new countries had to deal with and the need to manage the security inter-state relations in the initial period of the countries’ independence, were among the reasons for security cooperation and establishment of regional military alliance. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 I. Davidzon, Regional Security Governance in Post-Soviet Eurasia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82886-8_4

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The Collapse of USSR and the Search of a New Format of Military Cooperation The new political reality created at the end of 1991 caused countries to look for effective ways to manage the security aspects of a “civilized divorce” among them. Beyond the need to create their own national armed forces, the post-Soviet republics had to cooperate for the purposes of management of the military assets and unites of the former Soviet army stationed within their borders (Obydenkova & Libman, 2019, pp. 153– 154). As Miller (2005: 5) noted, the Soviet state disintegrated into 15 independent states, and the question of who will control the former Soviet armed forces could not be ignored. The cooperation was also necessary due to the presence of the Soviet unconventional weapons in the new republics. Pursuant to the data of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) at the territory of the three nuclear successor states of the Soviet Union more than 3,000 strategic offensive nuclear warheads were stockpiled: in Ukraine 1750, in Belarus 100 and in Kazakhstan 1400 (de Andreis & Calogero, 1995: 3). Therefore, the most urgent task for these countries was to find cooperative solutions for disintegration, including ensuring safety for nuclear weapons (Nikitina, 2013). Indeed, the security aspects of the disintegration process were expressed in the Agreement on the Establishment of the CIS. Pursuant to Article 6 of the Agreement (1991): “The member states of the Commonwealth will preserve and maintain, under a joint command, a common military-strategic space, including a single control over nuclear weapons, the implementation of which is regulated by a special agreement.”

Beyond the establishment of the joint command of the CIS armed forces, the agreement (1991: Article 6) also guaranteed the necessary conditions for further deployment, functioning, material and social security of the strategic armed forces in the new republics. The Alma-Ata Declaration (1991) reiterated: “In order to ensure international strategic stability and security, the joint command of the military-strategic forces and the unified control over nuclear weapons will be preserved; the parties will respect each other’s aspirations to achieve the status of a nuclear-free and/or neutral state.”

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During the interim period until the dismantlement of the nuclear arsenal in the three abovementioned republics or its transfer to Russia, the use of a nuclear weapon was under the authority of the President of Russia (Nikitina, 2013). In view of the foregoing, in the first post- Soviet years within CIS the Council of Defense Ministers (CDM of CIS) and the High Command of the Joint Armed Forces (JAF) subordinated to CDM (CIS Charter, 1993: Article 30) were established. CDM of CIS was established on February 14, 1992 and until 1993 had been in charge of the former Soviet military forces command during their reorganization into national military institutions of the new independent countries (Ministry of Defense of Russian Federation). The first chairman of the Council, located in Moscow, was a Russian general, Evgeniy Shaposhnikov. The agreement on the establishment of the High Command of JAF was signed in July 1992. At the same time, the process of establishing national armies continued. Thus, for instance, during 1991–1992 Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, based on the former Soviet unites deployed on their soil, founded their national armed forces. With the establishment of national armies by the new independent republics this organ lost its relevance. In December 1993, it was abolished and replaced by the Headquarters for the Coordination of Military Cooperation (Decision on the Headquarters for the Coordination of Military Cooperation, 1993). CDM has also changed its functions and become responsible for expansion of multilateral military cooperation of the CIS member-states (Ministry of Defense of Russian Federation). The “civilized divorce,” however, was not the only concern of the states. In early 1990s post-Soviet Eurasia witnessed hostilities and tensions. Three years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Armenian–Azerbaijan conflict over the control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region has begun. Consequently, Erevan and Baku waged a first war, which left over 30,000 casualties and ended in 1994 with relative success of the Armenia troops which managed to take control of the Nagorno Karabakh region and several Azerbaijani districts adjacent to it. The post-Soviet Central Asia also became a region of instability. Since 1992 Tajikistan was involved in a protracted civil war, in which Islamic armed opposition received support from Afghanistan. The government in Uzbekistan was challenged by Islamic opposition as well. Kyrgyzstan, in turn, experienced in 1999–2000 invasions of the Islamists from neighboring Uzbekistan. (Makienko, 2020; Marat, 2010). Furthermore,

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several radical Islamist organizations originally founded in Central Asian countries, found refuge in Afghanistan and potentially endangered the stability of the secular political regimes in the Central Asia countries (Laumulin, 2016: 66). Hence, after the proclamation of the independence, the new republics had to seek a new form of security cooperation as a solution for the new security challenges. The concerns about potential external threats led several post-Soviet states to the signature of the Collective Security Treaty (CST). On May 15, 1992 Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan signed the CST. In 1993 also Azerbaijan, Belarus and Georgiajoined the Treaty (From the Treaty to the Organization). Ukraine, Turkmenistan and Moldova, however, declared the policy of military neutrality and did not join the Treaty (Weitz, 2018: 2). Article 4 of the document reflected the collective defense component of the regional cooperation: “If one of the Member States undergoes aggression (armed attack menacing to safety, stability, territorial integrity and sovereignty), it will be considered by the Member States as aggression (armed attack menacing to safety, stability, territorial integrity and sovereignty) to all the Member States of this Treaty. In case of aggression commission (armed attack menacing to safety, stability, territorial integrity and sovereignty) to any of the Member States, all the other Member States at request of this Member State shall immediately provide the latter with the necessary help, including military one, as well as provide support by the means at their disposal in accordance with the right to collective defense pursuant to article 51 of the UN Charter.”

Additionally, beyond the abovementioned collective defense clause, the Treaty also provided a security managements function aiming at decreasing tensions and disagreements among the participating states: “The Member States shall confirm the obligation to abstain from use of force or threat by force in the interstate relations. They shall undertake to settle all disagreements among themselves and other states by peaceful means.

In 1995 the eight states, except from Azerbaijan, adopted the Collective Security Concept, which provided that Russia through its strategic nuclear

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forces would provide nuclear deterrence against possible aggression intentions against the CST states in accordance with military doctrine of the Russian Federation (Collective Security Concept, 1995: Article II). The document (Collective Security Concept, 1995: Article III) also defined the bodies of political and military leadership of the CST states, namely, the Collective Security Council (CSC) and the subordinated to it the Council of Defense Ministers (CDM) and the Council of Foreign Affairs Ministers (CFAM). Notwithstanding these proclaimed goals, the CST had limited success. The security cooperation under the CST was undermined, to a large extent, by substantial disagreements among the participating states, coined by Rozanov and Dovgan (2010: 7) as “fault lines between Russia– Georgia, Uzbekistan–Tajikistan and Armenia–Azerbaijan. Therefore, the effectiveness of the security cooperation of the post-Soviet republics under the CST in terms of ability of the states to overcome internal disagreements and to cooperatively act against agreed challenges and threats was limited. According to Article 11 of the Treaty (1992), it was concluded for the period of five years with the possibility of prolongation. The six states—Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan—signed a Protocol on the extension of the CST. Azerbaijan, Georgia and Uzbekistan, however, did not join the Protocol. In the late 1990s Tbilisi began to change the vector of its foreign policy in favor of tightening ties with the West. As noted by the Georgian representative to UNO (2009): “[In 1999] the will towards integration into the Euro-Atlantic space became stronger and some steps have been taken to rid Georgia of Russian influence.”

As a result, in April 1999 Georgia withdrew from the CST (Vasilyeva & Bakhturidze, 2015). Uzbekistan, claiming the inefficiency of the CST, also withdraw from the Treaty (Yurgens, 2011: 23). Despite the expectation of Tashkent, that the CST countries would help it in the fighting against extremist insurgents, it did not happen (Nikitina, 2013). The Uzbekistani President at the time, Islam Karimov, was frustrated from the inability of CST to prevent the entry of Islamists through Tajikistan and even suspected that the Tajiki Leader Rahmon had encouraged the penetration of terrorists into the Uzbek territory (Rozanov & Dovgan, 2010: 10). In 1999, the Tajik–Uzbek border was even unilaterally mined by

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Uzbekistan to protect against the penetration of terrorist groups (Sarkorova, 2016). Moreover, although the CST formally guaranteed military assistance to the attacked country, in practice, the participating countries did not create multinational troops, which would be capable to provide military assistance if necessary. For Azerbaijan the CST should be a platform for resolving its territorial dispute with Armenia over Nagorno–Karabakh. In reality, the CST by means of security management failed to assist in the dispute resolution. The hostilities in Nagorno–Karabakh lasted until 1994 (Yurgens, 2011: 17). They ceased, however, not through multilateral platform based on the CST, but after the mediation of Russia, which leveraged its bilateral relations with both rival parties (Askerov, 2020). Against this background Baku decided to terminate its participation in the Treaty. The former Defense Minister of Azerbaijan, Safar Abiyev, explained his country’s decision to terminate its participation in the Treaty by arguing that the system of collective security provided by the Treaty had proved incapable of reducing internal contradictions among its participants (cited in Golub & Golub, 2018: 196). It is worth mentioning that in October 1997 Azerbaijan and Georgia along with Ukraine and Moldova founded the regional Organization for Democracy and Economic Development (GUAM). In 1999 Uzbekistan joined the organization, but in 2002 withdrew from it. According to the organization’s Charter one, of its main goals is “deepening European integration for the creation of a common security space.” (About GUAM). Setting the goal of cooperation deepening with alternative European organizations was inconsistent with the security cooperation of the former Soviet republics under the CST. Thus, while at the first stages, during the period of independent armed forces formation, CST was designated to provide a legal framework for preserving and jointly defending the national sovereignty of the newly independent states (Golub & Golub, 2018: 195), its subsequent effectiveness at later stages was undermined by substantial disagreements among the participating states. Relatedly, the inability to overcome such disagreements potentially affected the ability of the states to provide collective defense if necessary. Moreover, the lack of assistance of the CST states to Uzbekistan against Islamic terror demonstrates that this cooperation platform was not designed to deal with the variety of security challenges and threats, mainly from non-state actors (Nikitina 2013). Such results of cooperation led the former President of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze to conclude that the Treaty did not work and will not work (Paliy,

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1999). As a result, the states that remained to be a party to the Treaty striving to find more effective cooperation framework moved to a new form of regional security cooperation, reflected in creation of regional security governance. The security governance in post-Soviet Eurasia was realized through institutionalized regional military alliance characterized by agreed upon understandings, rules and practices.

The Formation of CSTO On May 14, 2002, in the meeting held in Moscow the leaders of Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan reached an agreement to establish CSTO. During the press conference after the meeting President Putin emphasized: “CSTO should create favorable conditions for cooperation, a stable situation in the region, should help the participating countries to solve problems among themselves in a spirit of partnership, taking into account each other’s interests.” (Russian President’s Press Conference, 2002).

In October 2002 in Chisinau the CSTO member-states approved the organizations Charter. In December 2003, the Charter of the alliance was registered with the United Nations (UN) Secretariat. A year later the organization received an observer status in the UN General Assembly (From the Treaty to the Organization). The establishment of CSTO was based on the CST and the Preamble of the Charter (2002) clearly provided that the allies confirmed “the commitment to the purposes and principles of the Treaty and to the international treaties and resolutions accepted thereunder.” Compared to the declarative character of the CST, however, the provisions of the Charter significantly deepened the military and political aspects of the cooperation and provided an institutionalized structure responsible for the decision-making process and functioning of the alliance (Golub & Golub, 2018: 197). Accordingly, the alliance’s Charter lays foundations for political and military cooperation of the six allies. According to Article 7 of the CSTO Charter: “The Member States shall take joint measures to achieve the purposes of the Organization to form thereunder the efficient system of collective security providing collective protection in case of menace to safety, stability,

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territorial integrity and sovereignty and exercise of the right to collective defense, including creation of coalition (collective) forces of the Organization, regional (united) groups of armies (forces), peacekeeping forces, united systems and the bodies governing them, military infrastructure.”

Indeed, the subsequent years after the military alliance establishment were devoted to the build-up of its military component. Pursuant to the decision adopted at the meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council in the capital of Tajikistan, Dushanbe, on April 24, 2003 the Joint Staff (JF) of CSTO was established. The declared responsibility of this body is formation and the use of the alliance’s forces. The headquarters are located in Moscow at the former Headquarters of the Warsaw Pact Organization (WPO) (The History of the Organizational Development the CSTO Joint Staff). At the same time, the organizational structure of the CSTO JF demonstrates that except from playing an advisory role at the political level of the organization, coordination and planning the training of forces, the JF does not fulfil any function of overall coordination and command of joint operations (Norberg, 2013: 19). Additionally, the states established the Military Committee consisting of either Chiefs of General Staffs or First Deputy Chiefs of General Staffs of the allied armies. This organ shall expeditiously consider the issues of planning and use of forces and means of the collective security system of the alliance and prepare recommendations for CDM (Military Committee). The military component includes also the formation of multinational forces (see Fig. 4.1). It should be noted, that even prior to the formal formation of CSTO, the escalation of threats from Afghanistan’s side in the early 2000s led Russia and three Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Tajikistan, to establish Collective Rapid Deployment Forces of the Central Asian region (CRDF, KSBR- Kollektivnyye Sily Bystrogo Razvortyvaniya in Russian) (Nikitina, 2013). The decision to establish the CRDF was made on May 25, 2001. Subsequently, the formation consisting of about 5,000 people was formed. The main tasks of the CRDF are: (a) participation in repelling external military aggression; (b) participation in joint counterterrorism operations (Rapid Deployment Collective Forces). CRDF is supported by the Russian airbase located in Kant, Kyrgyzstan, which is part of the Russian 14th air force and air defense army (Airbase Kant). Another military unit of the alliance is the Collective Rapid Reaction Forces (CRRF, KSOR- Kollektivnyye Sily Operativnogo Reagirovaniya in

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Original name in Russian

English version

Foundation year

Geographical scope

KSBR- Kollektivnyye Sily Bystrogo Razvortyvaniya

CRDF- Collective Rapid Deployment Forces

2001

Central Asia

KSOR- Kollektivnyye Sily Operativnogo Reagirovaniya OGVKR-Obyedinennaya Gruppirovka Voysk Kavkazskogo Regiona

CRRF-Collective Rapid Reaction Forces

2009

All CSTO states

All CSTO members

JGF- CR- Joint Group of Forces of Caucasus Region

2016

South Caucasus

Russia+Armenia

OGVVR- Obyedinennaya JGF-EER- Joint Group of Forces of Gruppirovka Voysk East European Region Vostochnoyevropeyskogo Regiona

1999

West Russia and Belarus

Russia+Belarus

2008

Inside and outside the territory of the CSTO members

All CSTO members

MS - Mirotvorcheskie Sily

PF- Peacekeeping Forces

Participating states Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan

Fig. 4.1 CSTO Collective Forces (Source Forces and Means of the CSTO Collective Defense System. https://jscsto.odkb-csto.org/en/voennaya-sostavlya uschaya-odkb/forces.php. Accessed December 20, 2020)

Russian). In contrast to the forces designated for the Central Asia, the CRRF, which were formed on February 4, 2009, are not restricted to specific geographical area but designated to provide quick response in case of threat to security of the CSTO member-states (Collective Rapid Reaction Forces). The main tasks of this multinational military formation, consisting of about 18,000 people, are, inter alia: (a) deployment on the territory of any of the CSTO member-states in order to demonstrate readiness for the use of military force; (b) participation in the prevention and repulsion of an armed attack, including aggression; (c) strengthening the troops protecting state borders and state and military facilities of the CSTO member; (d) participation in antiterrorist activities, combating drug trafficking and other types of transnational organized crime; In Southern Caucasus and on the CSTO’s Western flank, at the territory of Belarus and Western Russia the formation of the collective defense forces was based on the bilateral agreements between Russia–Armenia and Russia–Belarus, respectively. The agreement with Erevan was signed on November 30, 2016. At the first glance the main tasks of the Joint Group of Forces of Caucasus Region (JGF-CR) are similar to those of the CRRF.

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According to the supplement of the “Agreement on the Joint Group of Forces of the Armed Forces of Armenia and Russia” (2016: Article II (3), the main functions of the JGF-CR include: )repelling aggression against Russia and Armenia; )protection of the land part of the state border of the both states; )protection of the Russian and Armenian airspace; )participation in the air defense of troops; At the same time, the agreement does not clearly address the threat of terrorism, which, as stated, is central to the countries of Central Asia. As will be discussed later, this difference implies a variation in security interests of the allies. The agreement on the establishment of a regional Russian–Belarusian grouping of troops, which was later incorporated in CSTO as Joint Group of Forces of East European Region (JCF-EER), was signed in 1999. The document was a continuation of the integration processes between the two countries that gained momentum in the mid-1990s. Similarly to the agreement with Armenia, the Russia–Belarusian agreement also addresses the goals of collective defense without clearly addressing terrorist threats from non-state actors. The agreement (1999: Article 1) defined regional military security as: “the military-political situation in the region, in which the protection of the national and common interests of the Union of Belarus and Russia from potential and real military threats is guaranteed.”

It should be noted that each regional military formation within CSTO, in Central Asian, East European and Caucasus regions, has a unified regional air defense system. All these systems were established based on the separate bilateral agreements: the Russian-Belarusian agreement was signed in February 2009, the Russia–Armenian was concluded in December 2015 and the Russia–Kazakhstani, covering the airspace control of other two CSTO states in Central Asia, was signed in January 2013 (Collective Security Regions). In addition to the abovementioned forces, on October 6, 2007 the members of the alliance also agreed on establishment of the CSTO Peacekeeping Forces (PF, MS—Mirotvorseskiye Sily in Russian) consisting of approximately 3,600 people. The agreement (2007: Article 4) allows for

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the use of peacekeeping forces both inside the territory of the CSTO states and outside it. To date, the forces have not taken part in any peacekeeping operation, including in 2020 following the recent Armenian–Azerbaijani war in Nagorno–Karbakh (Mukhin, 2020). Nevertheless, according to the Secretary General of the military alliance, Stanislav Zas, in 2021 the CSTO plans to agree with the UN on the inclusion of its peacekeepers in the international peacekeeping forces (CSTO Plan to Start Negotiations with UN, 2020). It should be emphasized that until hereof, the collective forces of CSTO did not take part in any operational activities (Weitz, 2020). Nonetheless, in order to train the forces and test their readiness, the organization conducts military exercises. Accordingly, the CRDF has participated in anti-terrorism exercises titled “Rubezh” (Border in English). In 2020 the CRRF conducted the “Echelon-2020” united training. In the same year the PF forces took part in the training “Indestructible Brotherhood.” On October 14, 2016 the CSTO member-states adopted the Collective Security Strategy of the alliance until 2025. The document specifies the security challenges and threats to CSTO. Along with the threats associated with external aggression, the document also considers the threats of interference in the internal affairs of states, the use of technologies of the so-called “color revolutions and “hybrid wars” as a challenge to collective security (Collective Security Strategy, 2016: Sect. 3). It seems that such threat perception was derived from the concern of the autocratic members of the military alliance for repeating of the scenario of revolutions (as has happen for example in Ukraine in 2005 and 2013– 2014 and in Kyrgyzstan, 2010), that could threat survival and stability of their political regimes. Beyond the process of building collective military capabilities, the alliance also underwent a process of building of political guidance organs. In the next chapter on institutional design, we will discuss in detail the roles and functioning of these bodies. However, it is important here to note that the build-up of the political organs was based, to a large extent, on the organs already provided by the Collective Security concept of 1995. Thus, the political component of the military alliance includes the decision-making organ, such as the CSC and advisory and executive bodies—the Permanent Council (PC), the Committee of Secretaries of Security Councils (CSSC), CDM, CFAM and the CSTO Secretariat.

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Additionally, in November 2006 within the organization the Parliamentary Assembly (PA), which examines the organization’s activities and status of implementation of the CSC decisions, was established. (The CSTO Structure). The process of security governance formation, however, has not gone smoothly. As part of its multi-vector policy, Uzbekistan tried to develop relations with the West, and especially USA. For years the state has tried to balance between Moscow and Washington. In 2001 Tashkent allowed Americans to deploy about 2000 soldiers in the military base “Hanabad,” near the border with Afghanistan. In 2005, following the suppression of the antigovernment protests in Andijan and subsequent criticism from the West, the Uzbek President, Karimov, closed the American base in the country and decided to join the CSTO (Malashenko, 2013: 30). In 2006 Uzbekistan joined the alliance (Golub & Golub, 2018: 197). Tashkent’s membership in the organization, however, was marked by friction with allies. Thus, for instance, the state opposed the decision of other CSTO members to form the CRRF. According to the position voiced in the Uzbek parliament: “Uzbekistan believes that each of the CSTO member states is able to resolve their internal contradictions and confrontations on their own without involving armed forces from outside. In turn, the CRRF should be involved and used only to repel external aggression and outside interference. There are a number of "frozen" conflicts on the territory of CIS, therefore Uzbekistan stands for the exclusion of any, even hypothetical, possibility of using CRRF to resolve them and insists on reflecting this moment in the Agreement on the CRRF.” (Uzbek Parlament Support Karimov’s decision on the CRRF, 2012).

Uzbekistan also has not ratified the agreement on establishment of the alliance’s PF (Yurgens 2011: 54). At the time, Tashkent resumed the dialog with Washington and began to receive supplies of American weapons (Sukharevskaya, 2020). Moreover, Uzbekistan was concerned about the apparent strengthening of Russian military presence in Central Asian region. Hence, the state opposed the deployment of a Russian military base in Kyrgyzstan which was supposed to be used for the needs of CSTO. According to the Foreign Ministry of Uzbekistan:

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“The Uzbek side does not see any expediency in the implementation of plans to deploy an additional contingent of Russian armed forces in the south of Kyrgyzstan.” (Solovyov, 2009).

The Uzbek government had also disagreement with the CSTO allies regarding the policy towards unstable Afghanistan and apparently preferred to deal with Kabul on a bilateral basis (Norberg, 2013: 31). The Uzbekistani–Tajiki friction contributed to the intra-alliance tensions as well. The tense relations between two Central Asian countries reached a peak with the economic blockade against Tajikistan (including blocking the railway communication and suspending the supply of electricity to the republic) initiated by Uzbekistan in 2012 in response to Tajikistan’s plans to complete the construction of Rogun hydroelectric power station, which from the point of view of Tashkent, could limit the flow of water to its agriculture (Blank, 2012). Ultimately, following the tension with the partners, on June 28, 2012 Tashkent sent the organization a notice of its intention to withdraw from the organization. In December 2012, Uzbekistan’s membership in CSTO was officially suspended (Kembaev, 2016: 130). The tensions with Uzbekistan and the state’s tendency not to cooperate regarding essential for other allies issues were not a single example of an ally conducting independent multi-vector policy. Other CSTO member-states as well while pursuing different and even conflicting (with the agreed alliances objects and goals) interests, demonstrate tendency to defect from cooperation. As will be discussed in the following chapters, such tendency influenced the cooperation pattern within the post-Soviet Eurasian military alliance.

References About GUAM. GUAM. https://guam-organization.org/en/about-the-org anization-for-democracy-and-economic-development-guam/. Accessed 17 December 2020. Agreement between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus on the Joint Ensuring of Regional Security. (1999). http://docs.cntd.ru/document/ 901796828. Accessed 20 December 2020. Agreement on the Establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent. (1991, December). Internet-portal of CIS. https://e-cis.info/page/3373/79405/. Accessed 13 December 2020.

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Agreement on the Joint Group of Forces of the Armed Forces of Armenia and Russia. (2016). http://www.publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/000 1201711300035. Accessed 20 December 2020. Agreement on Peacekeeping Activities of CSTO. (2007). CSTO. https:// jscsto.org/upload/iblock/d4b/d4b3d9593b3ac38f869eecdac1198bf1.pdf. Accessed 22 December 2020. Airbase Kant. Ministry of Defense of Russia. http://ens.mil.ru/education/hig her/more.htm?id=11753@morfOrgEduc. Accessed 22 December 2020. Askerov, A. (2020). The Nagorno-Krabakh conflict: The beginning of the Soviet end. In A. Askerov, S. Brooks, & L. Tchantouridze (Eds.), Post-Soviet conflicts (pp. 55–82). Lexington Publishing Group. Blank, S. (2012, May 25). Tajikistan—Uzbekistan Feud. Eurasianet. https://rus sian.eurasianet.org/node/59365. Accessed 26 December 2020. Charter of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. (2002). CSTO. https:// en.odkb-csto.org/documents/documents/ustav_organizatsii_dogovora_o_k ollektivnoy_bezopasnosti_/. Accessed 11 December 2020. Charter of the Commonwealth of Independent States. (1993). Internet-portal of CIS. https://cis.minsk.by/page/180#:~:text. Accessed 14 December 2020. Collective Rapid Reaction Forces. CSTO. https://jscsto.odkb-csto.org/en/voe nnaya-sostavlyauschaya-odkb/ksorodkb.php. Accessed 18 December 2020. Collective Security Regions. CSTO. https://jscsto.org/security/forces-andmeans/. Accessed 21 December 2020. Collective Security Strategy of CSTO for the period up to 2025. (2016). CSTO. https://jscsto.org/upload/iblock/8fb/8fb1080ee5c6d7ede7ea3b18 02ca0c3d.pdf. Accessed 21 December 2020. Collective Security Concept. (1995). http://docs.cntd.ru/document/1900793. Accessed 26 December 2020. Collective Security Treaty. (1992). CSTO. https://en.odkb-csto.org/doc uments/documents/dogovor_o_kollektivnoy_bezopasnosti/. Accessed 11 December 2020. CSTO Plan to Start Negotiations with UN 2020. (2020, October 16). Belta. https://www.belta.by/society/view/odkb-planiruet-v-2021-godu-nachat-per egovory-po-vkljucheniju-svoih-mirotvortsev-v-oon-411332-2020/. Accessed 21 December 2020. [in Russian] de Andreis, M., & Calogero, F. (1995). The Soviet nuclear weapon legacy. Oxford University Press. Decision on the Headquarters for the Coordination of Military Cooperation. (1993, December). The Parlament of Ukraine. https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/ laws/show/997_209#Text. Accessed 14 December 2020. From the Treaty to the Organization. CSTO. https://en.odkb-csto.org/25y ears/. Accessed 11 December 2020.

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Golub, K., & Golub, Y. (2018). Collective security treaty organization: Origins of the multidimensional mandate and modern means for its implementation. International Organizations Research Journal, 13(1), 193–203. Kembaev, Zh. (2016). Legal framework and the document approval process within CSTO. In A. Douhan, & A. Rusakovich (Eds.), Collective security treaty organization and contingency of planning after 2014 (pp. 119–133). Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces. Laumulin, M. (2016). Afghanistan in the system of regional security after the withdrawal of the international security assistance force. In A. Douhan, & A. Rusakovich (Eds.), Collective security treaty organization and contingency of planning after 2014 (pp. 65–93). Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces. Letter from the Permanent Representative of Georgia to UNO addressed to The Secretary General. (2009, August). UNO. https://undocs.org/pdf?symbol= ru/A/63/953. Accessed 16 December 2020. Makienko, K. V. (2020). The allies. Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies. [in Russian]. Malashenko, A. (2013). Interests Russia’s and chances in Central Asia. Pro Et Contra, 1–2(58), 21–34. [in Russia]. Marat, E. (2010). The military and the state in Central Asia. From red army to independence. Routledge. Military Committee. CSTO. https://en.odkb-csto.org/authorized_organs/ 367/. Accessed 14 April 2021. Miller, S. (2005). Moscow’s military might: Russia in search of security in a transitional era. In S. Miller & D. Trenin (Eds.), Russian armed forces: Power and politics (pp. 1–49). MIT Press. [in Russian]. Ministry of Defense of Russian Federation. http://mil.ru/smosng/about/his tory.htm. Accessed 14 December 2020. Mukhin, V. (2020, November 17). Why there are no CSTO peacekeepers in Karabakh. Nezavisimaya Gazeta. https://www.ng.ru/armies/2020-11-17/ 1_8016_karabakh.html. Accessed 21 December 2020. Nikitina, Y. (2013). Security cooperation in the Post-Soviet Area within the Collective Security Treaty Organization. ISPI Analysis, 152, 1–5. Norberg, J. (2013). High ambitions, harsh realities. Gradually building the CSTO’s capacity for military intervention in crises. FOI Russia Studies Programme. Paliy, A. (1999, March 11). Tbilisi withdraws from the Tashkent treaty. Den. https://m.day.kyiv.ua/ru/article/den-planety/tbilisi-vyhodit-iz-tashke ntskogo-dogovora. Accessed 17 December 2020. Press Statement of the Russian President after the meeting of the Collective Security Council. (2002, May). Official internet resource of the President of

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Russia. http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21592. Accessed 18 December 2020. Rapid Deployment Collective Forces. CSTO. https://jscsto.odkb-csto.org/en/ voennaya-sostavlyauschaya-odkb/ksbrtsar.php. Accessed 18 December 2020. Rozanov, A., & Dovgan, E. (2010). Collective Security Organization 2002–2009. The Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces. Sarkorova, A. (2016, August 30). Tajikistan wondered if it was possible to improve relations with Uzbekistan. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/rus sian/features-37224374. Accessed 16 December 2020. Solovyov, V. (2009, August 5). Uzbekistan against the appearance of a Russian military Dase in the Osh region of Kyrgyzstan. Kommersant. https://www. kommersant.ru/doc/1215989. Accessed 23 December 2020. Sukharevskaya, O. (2020, August 16). Military cooperation between Uzbekistan and the United States Threatens Russia. Regnum. https://regnum.ru/news/ polit/3037854.html. Accessed 25 December 2020. The Alma-Ata Declaration. (1991, December). Internet-portal of CIS. https:// e-cis.info/page/3373/79406/. Accessed 14 December 2020. The CSTO Structure. CSTO. https://en.odkb-csto.org/structure/. Accessed 10 December 2020. The History of the Organizational Development the CSTO Joint Staff. CSTO. https://jscsto.odkb-csto.org/en/istoricheskaya-spravka/. Accessed 19 December 2020. Uzbek Parliament Support Karimov’s Decision on the CRRF. (2012, July 7). https://online.zakon.kz/Document/?doc_id=30438664#pos=3;-82. Accessed 23 December 2020. Vasilyeva, N., & Bakhturidze, Z. (2015). Characteristics of entering former Soviet republics into the system of international relations: Georgia as an example. Management Consulting, 4, 26–34. Weitz, R. (2018). Assessing the Collective Security Treaty Organization: Capabilities and vulnerabilities. U. S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute. Weitz, R. (2020, November). Absent with leave: Moscow’s deficient Eurasian military alliance. Middle East Institute. https://www.mei.edu/publications/abs ent-leave-moscows-deficient-eurasian-military-alliance. Accessed 11 December 2020. Yurgens, I. (2011, August). CSTO: Responsible security. www.insor-russia.ru/ files/ODKB.pdf. Accessed 3 October 2020. [in Russian]

CHAPTER 5

Institutional Design of CSTO

This chapter is devoted to the discussion of the institutional features of CSTO. What are the aims of the regional security organization? What decision-making procedures do the members of CSTO adopt in order to achieve the goals of the organization? What are the rules of accession to the organization? To what extent countries are ready to forfeit their sovereignty over issues of security and foreign affairs to the central organs of the military alliance? What is the decision-making process applicable in the alliance? All these questions refer to the alliance’s institutional design. Clarifying the dimensions of the CSTO institutional design shall shed light on the institutionalized mechanism, which is supposed to facilitate cooperation among the six post-Soviet republics. In order to examine institutional design of the military alliance, we turn to its basic documents, namely CST, the CSTO Charter and other supplementary formal documents of the organization. Institution, such as military alliance, represents regularized patterns of behavior of members within it. Such patterns of behavior within institution could be regarded as the rules of the game which dictate the appropriate behavior of members (Lenz & Marks, 2016). In this sense, institutional design of regional organization could be defined as set of rules of a game that members of a military alliance will play (Aligica, 2014: 134). Furthermore, institutional design of organization is variable and each organization may adopt a different set of game rules. Institutions are © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 I. Davidzon, Regional Security Governance in Post-Soviet Eurasia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82886-8_5

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organized in different ways and accordingly demonstrate different institutional features (Acharya & Johnston, 2007: 1; Haftel & Thompson, 2006: 253; Lenz & Marks, 2016; Voeten, 2019: 148). Thus, some may have strong central organs empowered with broad authorities, others in contrast may demonstrate weaker institutional bodies serving as platforms for consultations and exchange of information among the states. There may be organizations that do not have supranational organs (or have at most weak ones), whose decision-making process is affected by considerations of sovereignty sensibility and promoting national interests (Koremenos et al., 2001: 761–762). The above raises the question of what accounts for such variability? According to the rational choice theory of institutionalism implemented by us in this book, states create regional organizations to serve their interests (Kirchner & Diminguez, 2011). Different (and sometimes conflictual) interests and preferences of states, however, create cooperation problems among them. Consequently, states select specific institutionalized set of game rules for the purpose of cooperation facilitating among them. Thus, organization’s institutional design is a rational, negotiated response to a cooperation problem that states face relating to their interests and preferences (Koremenos, 2016: 4). It is an institutional outcome the states select, which reflects a political compromise among different interests and preferences of states (Koremenos et al., 2001). Therefore, institutional design of regional organization reflects, to a large extent, the nature of the cooperation problems, which the organizations members try at least to mitigate, if not to solve (Abbott & Snidal 2000: 421; Acharya & Johnston 2007: 16). Accordingly, institutional design of CSTO is a response to the cooperation problem faced by the CSTO states. It should provide institutionalized tools to overcome cooperation problems and facilitate cooperation among states (Velickovic, 2009: 19–20; Wallace, 2008: 227). Such link of causation between institutional design and cooperation problems is obviously similar to the process in which the specific pattern of cooperation reflects a functional response to common action problem faced by the members of the organization (Martin, 1993). Nevertheless, whereas the CSTO institutional design is legally codified in the international treaties, which formally prescribe and proscribe rules of the game within it, thereby providing mechanisms to overcome internal cooperation problem, cooperation pattern refers to the effectiveness of the CSTO

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states i.e., to the practical ability of allies to overcome internal disagreements and to cooperatively respond to the interests and needs of other allies and practical consequent rules of the game among the allies. This implies the difference between the institutional design and perfomance of the organization since not all provisions stipulated in the treaties are actually implemented by the post-Soviet member-states (Wallace, 2008: 228). In other words, alliance may not do what they are meant to do (Lall, 2017). At the same time, a review of institutional design of CSTO is a good starting point for exploring the effectivnes of the military alliance. To understand legally codified rules applicable within the post-Soviet Eurasian alliance, we refer to the Rational Design of International Institution (RDII) approach developed by Koremenos et al. (2001) and rooted in the rational choice theory of institutionalism. The RDII descriptive criteria allows us to map the institutional features of CSTO (Goltermann et al., 2012). Therefore, to examine the institutional design of the postSoviet Eurasian regional military alliance we refer to the following dimensions: membership; scope; rights and obligations of the member-states; control; centralization.

Membership Who belongs to the CSTO? Is membership exclusive or not? Currently, the members of the post-Soviet Eurasian military alliance support nonexclusive membership. Formally, according to Article 19 of the Charter (2002) CSTO adheres to the non-exclusive membership principle: Any state sharing the goals and principles of the Organization and being ready to undertake the obligations containing in this Charter and other international treaties and resolutions effective within the framework of the Organization may become a member of the Organization.

At the same time, taking into account the historical background of the six members of CSTO, we can assume that the current membership basis is closely associated with their common Soviet past as well. As of 2021, the only example of a country’s acceptance to the organization is Uzbekistan in 2006, which, as noted, in 2012 suspended its membership. In addition, on November 8, 2018 the members of the military alliance approved the third protocol on amendments to the organization’s Charter, that regulated the status of observing states and organizations

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in CSTO. Pursuant to the amendment, states that are not members of CSTO and international organizations can obtain a status of observer at the alliance without undertaking obligations to take part in its practical activities. Furthermore, emulating the relations of NATO with some countries outside the Western alliance, the protocol also enabled states to obtain the status of partner. Unlike the status of observer, however, the partner of CSTO should undertake obligations to take part in the alliance’s practical activities: States that are not members of the Organization, as well as international organizations that share the goals and principles of the Organization, wishing to establish and develop relations of mutually beneficial cooperation with the Organization in areas of mutual interest, with the commitment to participate in practical activities of the Organization, may receive the status of a Partner of the Organization. (Third Protocol of Amendments to the CSTO Charter, 2018)

Accordingly, following the meeting of CFAM in May 2020 the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, stated that there is a consensus among the CSTO states on granting observer status to such organizations as SCO and CIS. As for countries, at the moment Tashkent has possible prerequisites for the status of at least an observer (CSTO Has a Consensus, 2020). Thus, in 2019 Military units of Uzbekistan took part in the Russian exercises “Center-2019” along with contingents from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Russian and Tajik forces also arrived to Uzbekistan to conduct joint exercises (Mendkovich, 2019). In addition, in September 2016 during his meeting with the Uzbekistani President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the Speaker of the Russian Parliament and PA of CSTO, Viacheslav Volodin, invited Uzbekistan to become an observer in PA (Zamakhina, 2019).1 Additionally, Serbia, which also has maintained relations with the organization, may apply for the status of an observer or partner as well. In September 2020 during the meeting with the Serbian Minister of Defense, Aleksandar Vulin, the CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas declared:

1 As of 2021, the observer status in PA of CSTO have parliaments of Afghanistan, Serbia and National Assembly of the Union of Russia and Belarus (Observer States).

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The scale and direction of our cooperation in recent years have shown that the CSTO cooperation with Serbia is becoming one of the most important areas of our activity, which in the future can transform into qualitatively new partnership relations. (CSTO-Serbia Cooperation, 2020)

Scope What functions should the regional security organization fulfill? What issues are covered within the military alliance? What is the geographical coverage of CSTO? As noted in the previous chapter, Article 4 of the CST (1992) reflects a traditional function of a military alliance— providing collective defense to the alliance’s members. Article 3 of the Charter (2002) of the alliance referring to the organization’s goals and principles specifies the collective defense function of CSTO: The goals of the Organization shall be strengthening of peace, international and regional security and stability, protection of independence on a collective basis, territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Member States, in achievement of which the Member States prefer political means.

Nevertheless, as the events in Kyrgyzstan in April 2010 accompanied by interethnic tensions between Kyrgyz and Uzbek minority in the south of the country have demonstrated, that in the course thereof the President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was forced to resign, the CSTO’s collective defense clause has exclusions. Thus, Dmitry Medvedev the then President of the alliance’s leading member, Russia, rejected the possibility of deployment of the CSTO collective troops, mainly PF, for the purpose of stabilizing the precarious situation in the Central Asian country. In this context in June 2010 Medvedev declared as follows: CSTO has a separate Mission and it largely focuses on ensuring security. Therefore, the criteria for the use of the CSTO force is a violation by a state or any non-state entities of the boundaries of the CSTO memberstates, that is, in other words- an attempt to seize power from outside. Only in these cases we acknowledge an attack on the Collective Security Treaty Organization and in accordance with our Constitution we have the ability to use the CSTO forces and assets. Right now, this is not the case because all problems in Kyrgyzstan come from inside, they come from the weakness of the previous government and their unwillingness to deal with the needs of the people. (cited in Tihomirov, 2016: 38).

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Although in August 2020, after the commencement of mass protests that began after the announcement of the election results in Belarus, Putin allowed the possibility of assisting President Lukashenko’s regime to stabilize the situation inside the country, it cannot be assumed with certainty that such an initiative of Moscow would receive the necessary support of all the heads of the CSTO members (on the effectiveness of the states within the alliance see in detail Chapter 7). Therefore, in response to a journalist’s question on the subject, the Russian leader stressed the bilateral basis of providing such possible aid to Minsk: “Russia and Belarus have mutual obligations “to protect sovereignty, external borders and stability”. (Bocharova & Nikolsky, 2020)

Beyond the protection of the allies on the collective basis, CSTO also provides its members with the function of security management— management of intra-alliance relations through decreasing tension among the states and providing confidence measures. According to Article 1 of the CST (1992) the member-states shall settle all disagreements peacefully and are obligated to abstain from the use of force or threat by force in relations among them. The above also applies to the possibility of states entering other alliances: The Member States shall not enter military alliances or take part in any groups of the states, as well as in the actions against other Member State.

The cooperative framework provided by the alliance also acts as a platform for exchange of information among the partners to prevent escalation of intra-alliance disputes into an armed confrontation (Wallace, 2008: 227). The Charter (2002: Article 8) of the organization provides legal framework for policy and activities coordination among the member-states to decrease potential tensions. The security management within the alliance used to be relevant during the period of Uzbekistan’s membership in the organization and, as will be discussed in the following chapters, still retains its applicability. Concerning the geopolitical coverage, neither CST nor the Charter specifically define the geographical borders of CSTO. Nevertheless, since Article 4 refers to the attack against the member-states, which are situated in Europe and Asia as well, we may infer that the geopolitical coverage of the alliance is broadly speaking, post-Soviet Eurasia.

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Rights and Obligations of the Members The obligations and rights of the members of the organization are, largely, derived from the functions of the military alliance. As noted below, in the field of the collective defense in case of aggression against any CSTO member the allies are obligated to provide it with “the necessary help” according to the common decision of the all heads of the CSTO memberstates (CST, 1992: Article 6). Nevertheless, the obligation to provide assistance to the attacked states is conditional as it is not an automatic allies’ duty, but subject to the unanimous decision of all allies (see below the discussion on the decision-making process with the military alliance): In case of menace to safety, stability, territorial integrity and sovereignty of one or several Member States or menace to international peace and safety of the Member States shall immediately launch the mechanism of joint consultations for the purpose of their positions coordination, develop and take measures for assistance to such Member States for the purpose of elimination of the arisen menace. (CST, 1992: Article 2)

Accordingly, each member has a right to ask for assistance in case of a threat. Furthermore, the post-Soviet states are also obliged to make use of the alliance’s forces outside the territory of CSTO states solely in the interests of international security in accordance with the members’ national legislation and the UN Charter (CST, 1992: Articles 4, 6; Kembaev, 2016: 119). As for the security management function, the CSTO states undertook a number of commitments. According to the Collective Security Strategy of CSTO (2016: Section 4): The strategic goal of the CSTO is to ensure collective security by consolidating the efforts and resources of the CSTO member states on the basis of strategic partnership and universally recognized norms and principles of international law.

Such objective implies expanding intra-alliance coordination and political cooperation, mainly in the foreign policy field (Golub & Golub, 2018: 199). First, as aforementioned, the allies are obliged to solve any disputes among them peacefully, refrain from the use of force and/or join any military alliance threatening other CSTO states (CST, 1992: Article 1).

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Secondly, the organization’s Charter (2002: Article 9) requires the states coordination of foreign policy: The Member States shall approve and co-ordinate their foreign policy positions on the international and regional security problems, using, in particular, consulting mechanisms and procedures of the Organization.

Likewise, pursuant to Article 8 of CST (1992) the CSTO members shall undertake not to conclude international treaties incompatible with the provisions of CST. Thirdly, Article 7 of the Charter prescribes the coordination of any ally’s decision to allow deployment of foreign troops and/or military infrastructure on its soil with other members of the alliance. The Member States shall adopt a resolution on placement in their territories of groups of armies (forces), objects of military infrastructure of the states which are not members of the Organization after carrying out of urgent consultations (coordination) with other Member States.

This point is primarily related to the position of Russia, which has always reacted negatively to any initiatives of outside players in the post-Soviet space, whether the USA, China or Turkey. In this regard the example of the American airbase Manas in Kyrgyzstan is illustrative. Upon the commencement of a US military operation in Afghanistan against the Taliban, Kyrgyzstan has granted its consent to the establishment of a US air base at Manas Airport, near Bishkek. In 2011 following the election of the new president, Almazbek Atambayev, Bishkek changed his attitude towards the US military presence in his country and in 2014 closed the base. (Toktonaliev, 2014).

Organization Structure and Control The foundations of the organizational structure were laid down, as stated, in the Collective Security Concept (1995). At the same time, the CSTO Charter specified the roles and areas of responsibility of the CSTO organs (see Fig. 5.1). The supreme decision-making body of the alliance is CSC. Its main tasks are detailed in Article 13 (Charter of the CSTO, 2002): The Council shall consider the issues of principle of the Organization’s activity and adopt the resolutions focused at implementation of its goals

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Fig. 5.1 The structure of the CSTO (Source Prepared by the author based on the data stipulated on the CSTO site. https://en.odkb-csto.org/structure/ https://en.odkb-csto.org/structure/. Accessed December 28, 2020)

and tasks, as well as provide coordination and joint activity of the Member States for implementation of these goals.

According to the Charter, CSC shall include the heads of the memberstates. At the same time, it should be noted that according to the second protocol on amendments to the Charter of CSTO (2018), not only the CSTO member-states’ Presidents, but also the Prime Ministers of the allied states shall participate in the CSTO CSC’s work sessions, if, in accordance with the legislation of their state, they are endowed with the necessary powers in the field of defense and state security, similar to those of the head of state. This change was a consequence of the constitutional reform carried out in Armenia, pursuant to which since April 9, 2018 this country has passed to a parliamentary form of government. As a result, the Prime Minister of Armenia, who also heads the state’s Security Council, became the Supreme Commander-in-Chief (SCC) of the Armenian armed forces, vested with the authority to make decisions on the use of the national military. CDM, CFAM and CSSC fulfil similar advisory and executive functions. CDM is responsible for the coordination of the interaction of the member-states in the field of military policy, military construction and military and technical cooperation (Charter of the CSTO, 2002: Article

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15). Similarly, CFAM serves as a platform for consultations and coordination of the allies’ cooperation in the field of foreign policy (Charter of the CSTO, 2002: Article 14). CSSC provides coordination of the CSTO member-states in the field of their national security (Charter of the CSTO, 2002: Article 16). As for PC, which fulfils the coordinating function, Article 16 (1), as amended in December 2010(Charter of the CSTO 2002; see also Protocol of Amendment December, 2010) defined its tasks as follows: Permanent Council shall be the coordinating body of the Organization dealing with cooperation within the framework of the Organization during the period between the sessions of the Council and providing implementation of the resolutions adopted by the Council, CFAM, CMD and CSSC together with permanent working bodies of the Organization.

The Secretary General is appointed by CSC for a period of three years upon the recommendation of the CFAM. Article 17 of the Charter (2002) defines the function of Secretary General as “the supreme administrative official performing coordination of activity of permanent working bodies of the alliance. He is accountable vis-à-vis CSC and his responsibilities include (a) coordination of the draft documents submitted for consideration of the respective organs; (b) alliance representation at the international arena. Since January 1, 2020 this position is held by Stanislav Zas of Belarus. The Secretariat subordinated to him is located in Moscow and is responsible for: (a) organizational, information, analytical and consultative support of activity of the CSTO bodies; (b) preparation of draft resolutions and other documents of the Organization’s bodies. After examining the organizational structure, we will now turn to the question of control—how are collective decisions made in the organization? Similarly to the Collective Security Concept (1995), which outlined the procedure for making decisions on collective security issues by consensus, decisions of CSTO are also based on consensus procedure and have a binding effect: Resolutions of the Council, CMFA, CMD and CSSC on the issues, except for the procedural ones, shall be adopted by consensus. When voting, any Member State shall have one vote. The voting procedure including on the procedural issues shall be regulated by the Rules of the Procedure of the Organization Bodies approved by the Council. (Charter of the CSTO, 2002: Article 12)

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Nevertheless, despite the fact that the Charter provided that each member-state shall have one vote, in fact CSTO is characterized by an asymmetry. Russia is the dominant state, which possesses superior military conventional capabilities vis-a-vis other members of CSTO (Hancock & Libman, 2016). More importantly, however, as noted in previous chapter, after Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan joined Lisbon Protocol (1992), Russia remained the only nuclear weapon state in post-Soviet Eurasia. Accordingly, the Russia’s CSTO allies heavily rely on its leadership and commitment to deterrence and common defense, by unconventional and conventional means as well. As will be discussed in the next chapter, such dominant position of Russia has also implications for cooperation pattern within the alliance and for conduct of the smaller allies. Furthermore, as noted in Chapter 2 the interests and preferences heterogeneity deriving from the CSTO states independent multi-vector policies in the field of security and international relations, causes even a conflict of interests among the allies and create in turn a cooperation problem. Therefore, the organizational structure of the military alliance and its decision-making process should provide a mechanism to overcome the abovementioned internal cooperation problem, which from time to time expressed by non-compliance with organizations goals and collective decisions (defection). The consensus-oriented decision-making process within CSTO is designated not only to reach common decisions but serves also as a platform for exchange of information facilitating cooperation and internal compliance. As noted by the former Secretary General of the military alliance, Nikolay Bordyuzha, the compliance with decisions is essential for the functioning of the CSTO (2015): … we have a consensus rule - all decisions are made only with the consent of all heads of state. And if one of the states breaks out of such a stable, predictable work, then, naturally, we will have certain costs in collective activities, while we must maintain the pace of work that we have gained today.

Consequently, in cases of non-compliance of a member-state with decisions of the bodies of the organization, the Charter provides possibility for sanctions implementation:

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In case of a Member State failure to fulfil the provisions of this Charter, resolutions of the Council and the resolutions of other bodies of the Organization adopted for execution of the former, the Council may suspend its participation in the activity of the Organization bodies. In case of continuation of a Member State’s failure to fulfil the specified obligations, the Council may adopt a resolution on exclusion thereof from the Organization. (Charter of the CSTO, 2002: Article 12)

Decisions on imposing sanctions concerning a member-state noncompliance shall be accepted without counting its vote. It should be noted, that the CSTO Charter contains also punishment in case of non-payment to the budget of the alliance by the states: In case of the Member States failure to fulfil the obligations on repayment of indebtedness to the Organization budget within two years, the Council shall adopt a resolution on retention of the right to propose the citizens of this state to the quota positions within the framework of the Organization, as well as on vote deprivation in the Organization bodies until full repayment of the indebtedness. (Charter of the CSTO, 2002: Article 25)

Accordingly, the abovementioned mechanism should allow the memberstates to manage their interaction, alleviate uncertainties regarding other members intentions and actions thereby overcoming intra-alliance disagreements (Wallace, 2008: 227–228).

Centralization Are the CSTO states ready to transfer authority to the central alliance’s bodies? Are the allies ready to shift some of their sovereign responsibilities to a superordinate body thereby granting autonomy in decision-making? Regional organizations could be conceptualized on the spectrum between intergovernmentalism and supranationalism. In this respect we refer to the decision-making mode as an indicator, which determines how much control individual member-states have on organization’s activities and how authorized decision-makers within institution are tied to national interests (Haftel & Thompson, 2006: 257–258). While in supranational organization members do not monopolize decision-making practice and delegate some relevant powers to organization’s bodies, in intergovernmental organization states control decisionmaking process. Such distinction corresponds with two following strategic

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imperatives: delegation and pooling (Lenz & Marks, 2016). Delegation is defined as a conditional grant of authority by member states to an independent body, such as organization’s secretariat, court (Hawkins et al., 2006; Hooghe & Marks, 2014; Lenz et al., 2014). Under such conditional grant of authority, a delegated agent enjoys some degree of autonomy in which he is allowed to pursue its own agenda (Lenz & Marks, 2016). It should be noted that delegation is less likely in organization which demonstrates preferences and interest heterogeneity of member-states. (Hawkins et al., 2006). Pooling, in contrast, describes joint decision-making among the member-states themselves. In such case states transfer the authority to make binding decisions from themselves to a collective body, which, for instance, could be an interstate body consisting of presidents or heads of governments, within which they may exercise more or less influence. Such collective body receives authorities in decision-making and organization’s agenda setting. In pooling states have to define the rules of making decision and their enforceability (Hooghe & Marks, 2014; Lake, 2007; Lenz & Marks, 2016). It should be noted that in pooling a decision-making process is associated within majoritarianism (Lenz et al., 2014). There may be organizations that, however, demonstrate low or even nearly zero degree either of pooling or delegation (Lenz & Marks, 2016). Thus, for instance, autocratic states by joining regional organization have to deal with the dilemma of cooperation vs. loss of control which is associated with accepting some limits on independent policy-making. Such states have concerns that other (especially dominant) partners will use the membership in organization to limit their sovereignty (Obydenkova & Libman, 2019: 50–51). In such case their ability to conduct independent security policy could be undermined (Abbot & Snidal, 2000: 437). Therefore, as Koremenos et al. (2001: 771) accurately noted: “Centralization is controversial, politically and conceptually, because it touches so directly on national sovereignty.” Consequently, autocratic states may establish regional organization, whose institutional design includes some elements of pooling (mainly collective body consisting of heads of states with authority to make binding decisions), which wedded to consensusoriented decision-making procedure and emphasizes national sovereignty and non-interference in domestic affairs of member-states as one of the guiding principles. Consensus-oriented decision-making is meant to protect the states’ sovereignty in the alliance and allow veto imposing

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in case of disagreement (Haftel & Thompson, 2006: 258). Such rules of decision-making allow states to be able to block resolutions regarding adoption of new rules and or procedures, new members acceptance and even concerning use of force (Koremenos et al., 2001: 722). As for CSTO, it seems that the alliance could be associated with organizations demonstrate low or even nearly zero degree either of pooling or delegation. The reluctance of the CSTO allies to adopt neither pooling nor delegation could be explained by the concern of loss of control over the independent policy-making in foreign and security fields. While in delegation the strategic problem lies in the risk of loss of control over decision-making as a result of a conduct of supranational body pursuing its own independent (and probably inconsistent with states’ national interests) agenda, in pooling the strategic problem is that in case of disagreement of one of the members on certain issue it could be outnumbered under majoritarian decision-making (Hooghe & Marks, 2014). From the point of view of autocratic members of the military alliance, delegation and pooling are also problematic given the heterogeneity of the allies’ interests and preferences. In such situation as noted above, delegation is less likely to be adopted, whereas pooling in turn poses a risk of losing a national veto in the decision-making process in which participate the states with different and even inconstant national interest and preferences. Hence, preference for consensus-guided decision-making process seems to be derived from the post-Soviet republics sensitivity to national sovereignty and is designated to protect the states’ sovereignty. In fact, the institutional design of CSTO reflects a built-in tension, which is presented both in CIS and EAEU, between the allies’ desire to preserve their national independence and sovereignty and the interest to maintain security ties. Therefore, on the one hand the organization’s Charter (2002: Preamble) expresses the states’ willingness “to further develop and deepen the military and political cooperation in interests of providing and strengthening of the national, regional and international security.” On the hand, however, due to the members’ sensitivity to national sovereignty and concerns that other states, mainly Russia, would intervene in their national policy, the Charter (2002: Article 5) provided as follows: The Organization shall operate on the basis of strict respect of independence, voluntariness of participation, equal rights and duties of the

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Member States, non-interference into the affairs falling within the national jurisdiction of the Member States.

The important sign of organization’s autonomy is the degree of responsibility that the member-states transfer to the organization’s bureaucracy (Haftel & Thopmson, 2006: 260). Despite the fact that sensitivity to national sovereignty characterized CIS and EAEU as well, such sensitivity is especially high in the regional alliance covering issues, which are important to national security of the member-states. Moreover, although such feature may be applicable to many military alliances, it is especially relevant to CSTO consisting of the autocratic post-Soviet members-states (Abbot & Snidal 2000: 440). Although within the military alliance was established the permanent secretariat headed by Secretary General, in practice, except from organizational, consultative and technical support of activity of the CSTO bodies, it does not have a power to initiate and recommend policies, let alone to pursue its own agenda. The same applies to PC, which besides of coordination work, is not authorized to initiate policies. Such design of the organization’s bodies indicates as well as the member’s preference not to forfeit the sovereignty. Similarly, CSC, CDM, CFAM and CSSC, serve as the platforms for decision-making, consultation and coordination among the member-states, are tied to the national interests of the participating states. Another expression of the states’ sensitivity to national independence and sovereignty, which was also evident in cases of CIS and EAEU, is the priority of members’ national legislation over decisions of the alliance. Accordingly, the collective decisions adopted by the allies have no direct impact on their territory but have to be implemented according to the national legislation of the member-states. The priority of national laws is incorporated in Article 12 of the Charter (2002): Resolutions of the Council and the resolutions of CMFA, CMD and CSSC adopted for execution thereof shall be binding for the Member States and shall be executed in accordance with the procedure established by the national laws.

The same sovereignty sensibility of the post-Soviet republics is also apparent in formation and deployment of collective armed forces. Thus, Article 7 of the alliance’s Charter (2002) stipulated the goal of formation of the alliance’s forces:

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The Member States shall take joint measures to achieve the purposes of the Organization to form thereunder the efficient system of collective security providing collective protection in case of menace to safety, stability, territorial integrity and sovereignty and exercise of the right to collective defense, including creation of coalition (collective) forces of the Organization, regional (united) groups of armies (forces), peacekeeping forces, united systems and the bodies governing them, military infrastructure.

Indeed, as illustrated in Chapter 4, following this goal the allied countries established several multinational and regional military formations. Nevertheless, these forces are not permanently deployed and until respective decision remain under national control of states. Relatedly, pursuant to Article 11 of the Agreement on the Procedure for the Formation and Functioning of Forces and Means of the Collective Security System of CSTO (2010): Military contingents and formations of special forces, pending a decision on the deployment and use of a coalition and/or regional (combined) grouping of troops, as well as joint military systems, are under national jurisdiction at the points of permanent deployment and remain directly subordinate to the relevant ministries and departments of the Parties, which ensure the necessary degree of their readiness to perform the assigned tasks.

In view of the abovementioned, since the forces designated for the alliance remain under the national command of the states and due to the fact that the decision on their deployment and use is made by consensual decisionmaking, it could be assumed that Article 4 (collective defense) of CST has non-committal character—practical military assistance is conditional upon the activation of a consultation mechanism in which allies are supposed to make a decision regarding the use of the forces (Collective Security Treaty, 1992: Article 2). Hence, it implies that similar to other decisions of CSTO, also a decision on providing collective defense is also tied to the national interests of the member-states. In conclusion the discussion of the institutional design of CSTO demonstrates several institutional features. First, although formally the membership rules in the alliance’s rely on the non-exclusive principle, the current membership basis is obviously connected to the common Soviet legacy of the member-states. Second, the same post-Soviet past common to all six members, serve also as catalysator for the states striving preserve

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political sovereignty, thereby conducting independent security and foreign multi-vector policies. Third, consequently the institutional features of the military alliance reflect the tension (also associated with other regional organizations in post-Soviet Eurasia) between the allies’ desire to preserve their national independence and sovereignty with the emphasis on the principle of non-interference in the states’ domestic affairs and their interest to cooperate in security field. It should be noted that these findings regarding the case study of the post-Soviet Eurasian military alliance correspond with the conclusions of Acharya and Johnston (2007: 17) regarding regional institutions in other part of the world, which noted that Asian states with colonial past, will be highly suspicious of interference in their internal affairs. Similarly, Braveboy-Wagner (2009: 211–212) referring to the institutions of the Global South, highlighted the states’ suspicion of intrusive institutional features and their sovereignty-guided preference of rules of the game within organization: …southern states [are reluctant] to give up too much of their sovereignty, even if they try mightily to expand their functional and security cooperation. Agencies with supranational intent are rare in the south, and mechanisms for relating state control over the integration process proliferate.

Fourth, similarly to NATO CSTO is meant to fulfill the agreed upon between all allies collective defense and security management functions. Nevertheless, the heterogeneity of interests and preferences of post-Soviet member-states, rooted in their independent multi-vector policies, cause the cooperation problem. Accordingly, the institutional design is response to the collective action problem deriving from this heterogeneity and should provide a mechanism to overcome the abovementioned internal cooperation problem.

References Abbot, K., & Snidal, D. (2000, Summer). Hard and soft law in international governance. International Organization, 54(3), 421–456. Acharya, A., & Johnston, A. (2007). Comparing regional organizations: An introduction. In A. Acharya & A. Johnston (Eds.), Crafting cooperation. Regional international institutions in comparative perspective (pp. 1–31). Cambridge University Press.

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Agreement on the Procedure for the Formation and Functioning of Forces and Means of the Collective Security System of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. (2010). CSTO. https://en.odkbcsto.org/documents/docume nts/soglashenie_o_poryadke_formirovaniya_i_funktsionirovaniya_sil_i_sred stv_sistemy_kollektivnoy_bezopas/. Accessed 21 December 2020. Aligica, P. (2014). Institutional diversity and political economy. The Ostroms and beyond. Oxford University Press. Bocharova, S., & Nikolsky, A. (2020, August 27). Russia is ready to provide military assistance to the Belarusian authorities. Vedomosti. https://www.vedomo sti.ru/politics/articles/2020/08/27/838017-rossiya-belorussii. Accessed 1 January 2021. Bordyuzha, N. (2015, March 19). Kazakhstan’s role in the CSTO. Russian Council of International Relations. https://russiancouncil.ru/analytics-andcomments/comments/generalnyy-sekretar-odkb-rasskazal-o-roli-kazakhstanav-deya/. Accessed 3 January 2021 [in Russian]. Braveboy-Wagner, J. A. (2009). Institutions of the Global South. Routledge. Charter of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. (2002). CSTO. https:// en.odkb-csto.org/documents/documents/ustav_organizatsii_dogovora_o_k ollektivnoy_bezopasnosti_/. Accessed 27 December 2020. Collective Security Concept. (1995). http://docs.cntd.ru/document/1900793. Accessed 27 December 2020. Collective Security Strategy of CSTO for the Period Up to 2025. (2016). CSTO. https://jscsto.org/upload/iblock/8fb/8fb1080ee5c6d7ede7ea3b18 02ca0c3d.pdf. Accessed 21 December 2020. Collective Security Treaty. (1992). CSTO. https://en.odkb-csto.org/doc uments/documents/dogovor_o_kollektivnoy_bezopasnosti/. Accessed 27 December 2020. CSTO Has a Consensus on Granting Observer Status to SCO and CIS. (2020, May 25). RIA News. https://ria.ru/20200526/1572011563.html. Accessed 2 January 2020 [in Russian]. CTO-Serbia Cooperation Can Transform into a New Partnership. (2020, September 7). Belta. https://eng.belta.by/politics/view/secretary-gen eral-csto-serbia-cooperation-can-transform-into-a-new-partnership-1332182020/. Accessed 3 January 2021. Goltermann, L., Lohaus, M., Spielau, A., & Striebinger, K. (2012). Roads to regionalism: Concepts, issues and cases. In T. Börzel, L. Goltermann, M. Lohaus, & K. Striebinger (Eds.), Roads to regionalism. Genesis, design, and effects of regional organizations (Chapter 1). Routledge. Golub, K., & Golub, Y. (2018). Collective security treaty organization: Origins of the multidimensional mandate and modern means for its implementation. International Organizations Research Journal, 13(1), 193–203.

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Haftel, Y., & Thompson, A. (2006). The independence of international organizations. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 50(2), 253–275. Hancock, K., & Libman, A. (2016). Eurasia. In T. A. Börzel & T. Risse (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of comparative regionalism (Chapter 9). Oxford University Press. Hawkins, D., Lake, D., Nielson, D., & Tierney, M. (2006). Delegation under anarchy: States, international organizations, and principal-agent theory. In D. Hawkins, D. Lake, D. Nielson, & M. Tierney (Eds.), Delegation and agency in international organizations (Chapter 1). Cambridge University Press. Hooghe, L., & Marks, G. (2014, June). Delegation and pooling in international organizations. The Review of International Organizations, 10, 305–328. Kembaev, Z. (2016). Legal framework and the document approval process within CSTO. In A. Douhan & A. Rusakovich (Eds.), Collective security treaty organization and contingency of planning after 2014 (pp. 119–133). Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces. Kirchner, E., & Diminguez, R. (2011). Regional organizations and security governance. In E. Kirchner & R. Dominguez (Eds.), The security governance of regional organizations (Chapter 1). Routledge. Koremenos, B. (2016). The continent of international law: Explaining agreement design. Cambridge University Press. Koremenos, B., Lipson, C., & Snidal, D. (2001, Autumn). The rational design of international institutions. International Organization, 55(4), 761–799. Martin, L. (1993). The rational state choice of multilateralism. In J. G. Ruggie (Ed.), Multilateralism matters. The theory and praxis of an institutional form (pp. 91–121). New York: Columbia University Press. Lake, D. A. (2007). Delegating divisible sovereignty: Sweeping a conceptual minefield. Review of International Organizations, 2, 219–237. Lall, R. (2017, Spring). Beyond institutional design: Explaining the performance of international organizations. International Organization, 71(2), 245–280. Lenz, T., Bezuijen, J., Hooghe, L., & Marks, G. (2014). Patterns of international organization: Task specific vs. general purpose. Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 49, 131–156. Lenz, T., & Marks, G. (2016). Regional institutional design. In A. Börzel & T. Risse (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of comparative regionalism (Chapter 6). Oxford University Press. Mendkovich, T. (2019, September 19). Will Tashkent Return to CSTO? Expert Opinion. Sputnik. https://uz.sputniknews.ru/columnists/20190919/124 55805/Vernetsya-li-Tashkent-v-ODKB.html. Accessed 2 January 2021 [in Russian]. Observer States. Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. https://paodkb.org/#observers. Accessed 3 January 2021.

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Obydenkova, A., & Libman, A. (2019). Authoritarian regionalism in the world of international organizations. Oxford University Press. Protocol on Amendments to the Charter of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. (2010, December). http://docs.cntd.ru/document/902395154. Accessed 28 December 2020. Protocol to the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. (1992, May 23). http://www.bits.de/NRANEU/START/ documents/start1/LisbonProtocol.htm. Accessed 3 January 2021. Second Protocol on Amendments to the Charter of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. (2018, November). Official Internet Resource of the President of Russia. http://kremlin.ru/acts/news/61220. Accessed 28 December 2020. The CSTO Structure. CSTO. https://en.odkb-csto.org/structure/. Accessed 28 December 2020. Third Protocol of Amendments to the Charter of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. (2018, November). Official Internet Resource of the President of Russia. http://kremlin.ru/acts/news/61222. Accessed 29 December 2020. Tihomirov, A. (2016). Approaches of the main actors in the development of CSTO after 2014 (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan). In A. Douhan & A. Rusakovich (Eds.), Collective security treaty organization and contingency of planning after 2014 (pp. 35–63). Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces. Toktonaliev, T. (2014, July 16). Drift towards Russia. Radio Svoboda. https:// www.svoboda.org/a/25458096.html. Accessed 2 January 2021 [in Russian]. Velickovic, E.-M. (2009). Der institutionelle Wandel der KSZE/OSZE nach dem Ende des Ost-West-Konflikts: Formen und Wandel von Sicherheitsinstitutionen in der internationalen Politik. Lit Verlag. Voeten, E. (2019). Making sense of design of international institutions. Annual Review of Political Science, 22, 147–163. Wallace, G. (2008, Fall). Alliances, institutional design, and the determinants of military strategy. Conflict Management and Peace Science, 25(3), 224–243. Zamakhina, T. (2019, September 16). Volodin invited parliamentarians from Uzbekistan to be observers in PA of CSTO. Rossiyskaya Gazeta. https://rg.ru/2019/09/16/volodin-priglasil-parlamentariev-iz-uzb ekistana-v-nabliudateli-v-pa-odkb.html. Accessed 3 January 2021.

CHAPTER 6

The Military Capabilities of the CSTO Members-States

Following the historical review of the establishment of the regional security governance in post-Soviet Eurasia and review of the political and military components of the regional military alliance, the aim of this chapter is to explore the distribution of military power among the CSTO allies and to examine the military potential of each member in terms of its ability to provide a necessary military assistance in case of aggression against any ally, i.e., Article 4-interventions. Accordingly, this chapter focuses on examination of the military characteristics of the allies. Specifically, we review the objective military capabilities of the CSTO member-states. Such review will allow us to clarify the following questions: What is the military power of each of the allies? What is the potential contribution of each member of CSTO to the collective defense of the alliance? What is the specific mix of military capabilities of the five smaller members (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan) and the dominant military power, Russia, within the alliance? For the purposes of the examination, we turn to the two following indicators—size of the national armed forces of the CSTO states and their respective military expenditures. We begin the discussion by referring to the rationale behind the selection of these indicators for examining the military power of the states and operationalization thereof. We proceed with the review of the military power of each of the six allies. Accordingly, the chapter will be divided into six sub-chapters, each devoted to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 I. Davidzon, Regional Security Governance in Post-Soviet Eurasia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82886-8_6

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the review of the military power of specific member-state. Afterwards we summarize our discussion by examination of the relative power relations between the five smaller CSTO partners and Russia.

Parameters of Military Power What are the factors reflecting the basis of countries’ readiness for threats? How can we measure the state’s power and examine a relative power of state A vis-à-vis state B? The power plays a central role in the global politics or as Singer (1963: 420) remarkably noted “power to international politics what money is to economy.” As Nye (1990: 177) cleverly pointed out: Power, like love, is easier to experience than to define or measure.

This raises the question—how can a state’s power be measured? There are two basic approaches: one conceptualizes power as an outcome and another treats it in terms of material resources. The first approach based on the assumption that outcomes is a “best predictor” of power relations among states (Arreguín-Tof, 2001: 95). According to such approach, power is connected to influence (Baldwin, 2016; Dahl, 1957). As Dahl (1957: 202–203) stated: My intuitive idea of power, then, is something like that: A has a power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do.

Pursuant to such definition, Baldwin (2016: 7) used the terms of power and influence interchangeably. Power is an ability that an actor possesses and may use to affect the actions of another actor (Michael & Duvall, 2005: 45). Another definition connects power to an ability of a country to shape world politics in line with its interests (Beckley, 2018: 8). Therefore, pursuant to the outcome-oriented approach, power can be measured once it was implemented or quoting Mearsheimer: …power exists only when a state exercises control or influence, and therefore it can be measured only after the outcome is determined. Simply put, the most powerful state is the one that prevails in dispute.

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Thus, while the relative weakness or power in terms of resources and assets is less relevant, it is the strategic interactions, more precisely its outcome, which defines whether a country is strong or weak. Nevertheless, the outcome-guided approach to power measurement suffers from some weaknesses that would undermine our ability to measure the power of the CSTO members. Whereas trying to determine which state would prevail in a dispute or influence the other state, the outcome approach relies on such non-material parameters as a character of strategy, resolve, weather conditions etc., one cannot ignore a set of material resources, that are at the disposal of a state. For instance, although the Afghani irregular armed troops, Mujahidin, managed to expel the 40th Soviet army from the country, it does not mean that the Soviet Union, the superpower of the Cold War period, was inferior via-vis the Afghani armed opposition in terms of resources. So even if a powerful state in terms of resources fails to exercise influence on a weaker one, we could not argue that such country is weak. These are specific to case study circumstances, such as weather, strategy, resolve, that helped a weaker state to impose such unfavorable outcome on a powerful one. Disregarding the fact that strategies, resolve of states are not permanent and for various reasons may be changed in course of strategic interactions between states, it is possible that in course of another strategic interaction, be it a war or even dispute at a diplomatic level between states, the same strategy would not be so successful. Accordingly, while we are interested to conduct power measurement across six different states over a relatively long period of time, the usefulness of such approach is restricted to specific case study. Therefore, it seems difficult to base power measurement on the outcome approach. Hence, since conducting power measurement across several countries based on such approach appears to be implausible, we should turn to the second, resources-oriented approach thereby creating a constant criteria for power evaluation. Pursuant to resources-oriented approach, power reflects a possession of material resources, which are available to a state (Davidzon, 2020: 38). Conceptualization of power as set of resources makes it more concrete, measurable, and predictable (Nye, 1990: 178). Such approach offers “rough and reliable ways” to measure power (Mearsheimer, 2014: 78). As Waltz (2010: 131) pointed out:

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States are not placed in the top rank because they excel in one way or another. Their rank depends on how they score on all of the following items: size of population and territory, resource endowment, economic capability, military strength, political stability and competence…. Ranking states, however, does not require predicting their success in war or in other endeavors.

Accordingly, such approach rejects the behavioral perception of power, associating power with outcomes (Balwin, 2016: 136). Many scholars tend to measure power in terms of political dimensions, such as efficiency of government, economic wealth, industrial production rates, natural resources and military capabilities (Kennedy, 1987; Layne, 1993; Organski & Organski, 1961; Singer et al., 1972; Tellis et al., 2000; Waltz, 2010). According to Mearsheimer (2014: 78) such different dimensions deriving from state’s political, economic and demographic features relate to state’s latent power. Latent power reflects “raw potential” of the state. For example, a developed economy could be regarded as a basis for formation of effective and qualitative national military. Similarly, large population is a basis for large armies. However, states convert varying parts of its latent power into military might (Mearsheimer, 2014: 102). Consequently, the balance of power among nations is predominantly defined in terms of military power. Thus, an efficiency of state’s power depends on its military forces. For instance, although Germany is economically much more developed than Russia (e.g., pursuant to World Bank National Accounts Data, whereas in 2019 Berlin’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in current US$ was 46,445.2, Moscow’s GDP was only 11,585), it is definitely inferior compared to Russia in terms of military power. As we noted, our aim is to examine the contribution of each memberstate to the military alliance in terms of ability to provide necessary military resources for collective defense needs. Therefore, in line with Mearsheimer’s definition of power largely in military terms we should look for indicators allowing us to measure military power of all the six members of CSTO. Consequently, we argue that at the core of military power lie such material resources as size and strength of state’s armed forces (army, air and, if applicable, naval forces) and supportive dimension of size of the financial resources, that state is able to allocate for the military needs (military expenditure). In the two next sub-sections we will explain the logic behind the selection of these indicators for the

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military power measurement. These two dimensions do not represent a “raw potential” of the states, but rather the “final output” of military power. Subsequently, we will operationalize these two criteria for power measurement of the CSTO states.

Size of Armed Forces A state’s power is reflected in its army, naval and air forces and paramilitary troops, such as border guards and National Guard (Mearsheimer 2014: 111). Undoubtedly, a national military plays a central role in a country’s security in general, and during hostilities, in particular. Armed forces, however, play significant role not only in conflicts and wars but also in cooperation frameworks such as military alliance. A country with a greater military power gains more military and political weight within the military alliance compared to militarily weaker members. Moreover, in such institutions, providing collective defense to its members, a state’s military power may be regarded as some kind of leverage. An allocation of national armed forces for deterrence and defense against external threats means that provision of protective force could be used as (implicit) bargaining tool at the level of intra-alliance relationship (Nye, 1990: 181). In other words, a military power could be conversed for political purposes. For example, in case of NATO–Turkey relations, Ankara used its contribution of forces to the North-Atlantic alliance as leverage in its disputes with other allies. Turkey with the second largest military in the alliance, gives the alliance a strategic presence, especially in respect of the Black and Mediterranean seas (Emmott, 2019). Given such value of its military to the North-Atlantic defense, it seems that the Turkish government feels sometimes confident not to cooperate with NATO on some important issues. Relatedly, NATO seems not to be interested to jeopardize its relations with the country and not to lose such important ally. Thus, in 2019 Ankara blocked the alliance’s defense plan for Poland and Baltic states. The plan, also known as Eagle Defender, was drawn after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Despite the attempts to resolve this intra-alliance dispute, Ankara refused to change its position unless NATO recognizes the Kurdish PYD/PKK party as a terrorist entity (Emmott & Irish, 2020). At the same time, allies which are weaker in terms of their military power, are dependent on the provision of collective defense, assured first of all, by more powerful members. Hence, such countries may

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have difficulty to promote its interests in alliance, dominated by substantially more powerful states. Illustrative in this case is the example of the NATO Baltic member-states, which, being restricted in military resources, perceive NATO together with the American presence in Europe as sine qua non of their security (Corum, 2013). For instance, as abovementioned in Chapter 2, the discussions on a defense plan for the Baltic region and Poland were already underway in September 2014. While Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia along with Poland located in the geographical proximity to Russia, made the case for the NATO forward presence, much more powerful members of the alliance, such as Germany insisted only on maintaining the ability of rapid deployment of the collective forces in case of Russian military aggression (Pezard et al., 2017). Therefore, in light of the abovementioned for the purpose of further examination of cooperation pattern of CSTO it is important to understand the balance of power—a description of how power is distributed within the regional military alliance. To explore the trends of military power in terms of size of the national militaries of the CSTO states we will refer to the period of about two decades from the establishment of the organization as of 2002 until 2019.

Size of Military Expenditure The main reason behind countries’ motivation to spend money on military is to acquire military capability (Perlo-Freeman, 2017). State military expenditure is usually anchored in a dedicated budget, which is meant to provide a financial support for developing national military capabilities (Smith, 2016). Governments construct the military expenditure data, primarily for purposes of budgetary control, fiscal policy and national defense planning. A size of a military expenditure reflects the extent of financial resources a country is capable to allocate to its own military (Davidzon, 2020: 41). It serves as a measure of resources provided to a military (Tellis et al., 2000: 136). The larger is the expenditure, the greater is the ability of a country to form and maintain a larger, higher-quality army. A size of military expenditure is an outcome of a state’s “raw potential,” i.e., economic capabilities. The stronger the economic support, the more resources a country could allocate to its military and vice versa—a limited financial contribution, derived, inter alia, from economic difficulties and country’s budget deficit, affect a state’s ability to allocate

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adequate resources to military needs. The economic component of power constitutes a basis for development and maintenance of armed forces. Furthermore, a military expenditure size serves not only for assessment of the allies’ military capabilities, but also for estimation of the burdensharing among them, an issue which, as demonstrated by dispute on the military expenditures between the former US President, Trump, and other NATO allies, may be also significant for intra-alliance relationships. Consequently, the conduct of cross-states study of military expenditures of the CSTO member-states, similarly encompassing the time period between 2002 and 2019, should yield additional, supportive indication of their military capability and relative contribution. It should be noted that the comparison of single state’s military expenditure over time and a comparison of military expenditure across several states encounters an obstacle and a researcher interested in both types of military expenditure analysis is required to deal with a double difficulty. While for the comparison of the levels of military expenditure of the states across time, one needs to remove the effects of inflation to get a real, constant price, for comparisons of the levels of military expenditure across countries one needs to express the figures in a common currency. As a solution, the figure of constant (2018) US dollar figure helps to deal with this obstacle (Smith, 2016).

Armenia Size of the Armed Forces Unlike other republics of the former Soviet Union, Armenia began to build its own military already towards the end of the Soviet period. The trigger for this was the commencement of the conflict with the Soviet republic of Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh and weakening of Moscow’s influence over the republics. Nevertheless, officially the national armed forces were established after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. On January 29, 1992 the decree of the President of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, on the formation of the armed forces, was issued (Makienko, 2018: 64). After proclamation of independence on the territory of Armenia remained military unites of the former Soviet military. Pursuant to the Tashkent agreement as of 1992, the new independent republic got control over the major part of the military equipment of the former Soviet 7th army, including, among others, artillery, combat

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helicopters and tanks. In 1993–1996 Erevan received from Russia additional equipment (Makienko 2020: 17). Although it served as a basis for the formation of the national armed troops, we should not ignore the fact, that during this period Armenia continued to be involved in the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh and allocated human and financial resources to support the local forces fighting in the area. Since geographically the country does not have access to the sea, the main components of Armenian armed forces are army, air and air defense forces and paramilitary units. Quantitatively, the army is the largest component of the military and according to the Military Balance Report (Russia and Eurasia, 2020: 183) contains 41,950 soldiers.1 It includes the special forces (SF) brigade, 5 mechanized corps, the independent motor rifle (MR) training brigade and forces of combat support: artillery brigade, multiple rocket launchers brigade (MRL), engineering, anti-tank and air defense (radiothech) regiments. The army units are united in 5 corps located in different parts of the country (Makienko, 2020: 22). The size of the air and air defense forces is 1,100. It includes only 14 ground attack aircrafts, 4 transport and 14 training aircrafts as well as 30 helicopters of various types. The air defense is based on surface-toair missile (SAM) long-range systems. The scope of the military’s third component, the paramilitary troops is 4,300 thousand in total and it contains border troops and police unites (Russia and Eurasia 2020: 183). Without a doubt, the protracted Armenian–Azerbaijani conflict guided, to a large extent, the build-up of the Armenian military. The efforts to increase the military, however, were naturally affected by the relatively small size of Armenia’s population, which during the 1990s and 2000s was in constant decline from 3,53,171 million people to 2,876,538 million people. This decline was slightly halted in 2012 and the country’s population in 2019 even increased to 2,957,731 people (Population of Armenia). Nevertheless, given the small size of the population, the Armenian army has not been able to grow significantly over years. The military has grown inconsistently from 45,6 thousand soldiers to 55,54 thousand soldiers in 2011. Since then, there has been a decline in the size of the military, which in 2019 was 49,1 thousand soldiers (see Fig. 6.1). 1 It should be noted, that due to the lack of sufficient data, the figures regarding the size of Armenia’s military do not reflect its current state, after the war with Azerbaijan in 2020.

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55.57 55.53 55.54 49 45.6 45.6

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49.1 49.1 49.1 49.1 49.1

47 42

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40.0 30.0 20.0 10.0 0.0 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Fig. 6.1 Armenia’s military (thousands) (Source World Bank Database. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.TOTL.P1?locations=AM. Accessed January 26, 2021; Russia and Eurasia [2020])

Despite the efforts to increase the size of the military and to provide equipment, in comparison to its principal rival, Azerbaijan, Armenia suffers from a substantial quantitative asymmetry. This trend was already evident as of the mid-1990s and this quantitative asymmetry has been maintained for decades in favor of Azerbaijan. In 2019 Azerbaijan’s military was 30% higher than the Armenian one (Russia and Eurasia, 2020: 183–184). This asymmetry is even intensified if one takes into consideration the Turkey’s military support of Azerbaijan. Since 1990s Baku headed by the then President, Heydar Aliyev, considered Ankara as its closest ally and both countries referred to their relations as being one between “two states, one nation” (Fraser, 2020). Moreover in 2010 both countries have signed the Strategic Partnership and Mutual Assistance Agreement stipulating that Ankara and Baku will help each other by all possible means’ in the event of aggression by a third party (Isachenko, 2020: 2). The inferiority of the Armenian military vis-a-vis Azerbaijan armed forces, actively supported by the Turkish military, clearly manifested itself during the last war over Nagorno-Karabakh in Autumn 2020. Turkey provided its ally with military, logistical and intelligence assistance and has reportedly deployed Syrian militants to support Azerbaijani forces on the ground (Racz, 2020: 2). Despite attempts to prevent the enemy forces from advancing, Armenians were not able stop the overwhelming numerical superiority of the Azerbaijani forces (Rubin, 2020: 8). Eventually, the hostilities have ended up for Erevan in significant casualties and

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loss of the territories in the Nagorno-Karabakh area, which were occupied by them since 1990s. In addition to the quantitative asymmetry vis-à-vis Azerbaijan, with exception of the Tajik and Kyrgyz militaries, the Erevan’s military also demonstrates power asymmetry vis-à-vis the CSTO allies—Kazakhstan, Belarus and certainly Russia. As of 2019 the Armenia’s armed forces constituted only about 70% of the Kazakhstan’s military forces, about one third of the Belarus military and about 3% of Russia’s one. Accordingly, Armenia belongs to the weaker members of the Russia-led alliance. Consequently, it seems that the Armenia, with its relatively small military in absolute numbers, not to mention compared to other more powerful members of the alliance, could not be considered as a significant contributor to the alliance’s defense. The state’s ability to contribute to the collective defense is also impaired due predominantly preoccupation of the Armenian armed forces with the constant threat posed by Azerbaijani forces. Given the constant Azerbaijani threat, especially to the areas in Nagorno-Karabakh still remaining under the Armenian control, the country may find it difficult in some situations to divert some of its forces in favor of alliance’s missions.

Size of Military Expenditure As in the case of other former Soviet republics, the economic situation of Armenia has deteriorated upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union. While until 1991 the state-owned enterprises of Soviet Armenia, acting under the guidance of the Soviet planned system, were economically interconnected with other parts of the state, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union the regular economic ties were disrupted and Armenian enterprises suffered from the loss of markets. Thus, during the 1990s, there was a decrease in Armenia’s GDP per capita compared to the situation in 1991. While in 1991 the state’s GDP per capita in current US dollar was 590.121 thousand, in 1992 it decreased to 369.633 thousand. Only towards 1998 did the country manage to return this indicator to the 1991 level (GDP per capita of Armenia). The economic crisis in the country, however, was complicated by the consequences of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (Makienko, 2020: 12). Yerevan actually fell into the economic blockade imposed by the neighboring Azerbaijan and Turkey (Vinokurov, 2018: 18). Another neighbor of Armenia, Georgia, was at the time under political instability, which

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made it difficult to maintain trade relations with it and to import goods through its territory. Under such circumstances, Iran became an important channel for supplying products to Armenia (Moniquet & Racimora, 2013: 4). Nevertheless, despite the trade ties with Tehran, Armenia perceived Russia as its major strategic economic partner. According to the official statistic, in 2017–2019 Russia was ranked at 1st place in share of main trade partners in the exports of Armenia (Statistical Yearbook of Armenia, 2020: 35). Despite the general tendency of growth (with some declines in 2009 and 2015–2016) in GDP per capita (see GDP per capita of Armenia), the Armenian economy remained in poor condition. Thus in 2019 26.4% of the Armenian population were defined living in poverty. The level of unemployment in the country in 2019 was 36.8% (Statistical Yearbook of Armenia, 2020: 72, 135). One of the consequences of the economic situation has been immigration from the country, including the departure of migrant workers to Russia. Moreover, being sandwiched between and blockaded by two unfriendly countries, the state’s policy of economic relations cultivating with Russia has evolved over time in unproportionable dependence of the Armenian economy on Russia. Despite the poor economic conditions, Erevan is forced to allocate substantial financial resources to military expenditure (Makienko, 2020: 13). Similarly to the formation of the armed forces, the military expenditure of Armenia is also guided by the perceived threats from neighboring Azerbaijan and Turkey (Eaton, 2001: 88). During the period of 2002– 2019 the rate of military expenditure has grown to by 4.6% (see Fig. 6.2). Furthermore, a sharp increase in the volume of defense expenses was recorded in 2018. It seems that such increase in military expenditure is a result of increased tensions in Nagorno-Karabakh following the 2006 clashes in the area between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Even compared to other CSTO member-states, economically weak Armenia maintains relatively high level of military expenditure. Thus, in several years between 2010 and 2019 Armenia’s share of military expenditure out of GDP was the highest after such power powerful ally as Russia (see Fig. 6.13). At the same time, one should take into account, that the scope of the Armenian economy is smaller than the economies of Kazakhstan and Belarus, let alone Russia. Accordingly, the expenditure of Armenia for military purposes has to be lower. To sum up, a limited capacity of Armenia to allocate financial resources to the defense needs affects its ability to maintain effective defense forces. Consequently, the significant power asymmetry characterized Erevan visà-vis its adversaries makes it more dependent on CSTO as the collective

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Fig. 6.2 Armenia’s Military Expenditure in Millions Constant (2018) USD (Source SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. https://www.sipri.org/databases/ milex. Accessed January 25, 2021)

defense provider. Such dependence on the provision of collective protective force caused also the asymmetry in terms of the state’s bargaining power within the alliance. As will be discussed in Chapter 7, being a militarily weaker CSTO member with the perception of acute security threat, which is also dependent on the military-technical assistance from Russia, bears implications on Yerevan’s ability to promote its own foreign and security interests.

Kyrgyzstan Size of the National Military The formation of the national armed forces commenced after the proclamation of independence by Bishkek on August 31, 1991. On May 29, 1992 the decree of the Kyrgyzstan’s President was signed regarding the subordination of military formations of the former Soviet Union deployed on the territory of Kyrgyzstan to the military command of the new republic. Nevertheless, already in December 1991 the first military unit of independent Kyrgyzstan—the national guard was formed. Like other post-Soviet states, the Kyrgyz army inherited the physical legacy of the Soviet armed forces and the formation of the Kyrgyz national military was based on the outstanding Soviet assets (O’Malley & McDermott, 2003).

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The problem was, however, that in contrast to other post-Soviet republics, in case of Kyrgyzstan the Soviet legacy was not great in terms of military infrastructure and units. Pursuant to Tashkent agreement of 1992, the Kyrgyz army received the property and units subordinated to the Soviet Ministry of Defense: 8th mountain MR brigade, 69th MR, Kant airbase, which was used for pilots training and several regiments of air defense (Makienko, 2020: 129). At the same time, these former Soviet military forces were not tailored to meet the specific security needs of the independent state (O’Malley & McDermott, 2003). After the declaration of independence, the one of the main security threats was derived from the internal political instability (Gorenburg, 2014: 15). Such internal turbulence was the result of rivalry between the elites of the country. It should be noted, that this rivalry has not disappeared over the years and has even escalated to the point of overthrowing the rule of one elite group by another: in 2005 President Askar Akayev was forced to resign, in 2010 President Kurmanbek Bakiyevand by 2020 it was already the turn of President Sooronbay Jeenbekov to resign (Nechepurenko, 2021). Another aspect of the internal instability was the interethnic clashes between Kyrgyz people and Uzbek minority, which erupted in the southern city of Osh in 1990 (History of Interethnic Relations in Kyrgyzstan, 2010). Similarly to other countries in Central Asia, Bishkek also had to deal with the threat of Islamist terror. As noted to Chapter 4, such threat materialized in 1999–2000. Thus, the state had to build its own military forces (Beishenov & Osmonaliev, 2014: 26). Similar to Armenia, in view of the lack of access to the sea the military does not include navy and is comprised of army, air force and paramilitary troops: border guards, internal troops and National Guard. As of 2019 the size of the army is 8,500 soldiers. In terms of organizational structure, the army includes: SF brigade, MR brigade, mountain brigade and two brigades of combat support of artillery (Russia and Eurasia, 2020: 192). The geographical division of the country by mountain ranges into two weakly connected northern and southern parts affects the deployment of the army, whose units are located in northern and southern areas (Makienko, 2020). The air component of the national military consisting of 2,400 soldiers, has only 4 combat capable aircrafts, 6 transport aircrafts, 4 training aircrafts and 10 helicopters. The air defense is based on the SAM medium- and short-range systems (Russia and Eurasia, 2019: 192). The

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paramilitary units include 9,500 soldiers: border guards–5,000, internal troops–3,500 and national guard–,000. Notwithstanding the efforts to develop and increase own military capabilities, the Kyrgyz military has failed to significantly increase its size and it ranged between 15,9 thousand soldiers in 2002 and 20,9 thousand soldiers at the peak in 2018. In 2019 it even decreased to the 2015 level of 20.4 thousand men (see Fig. 6.3). As noted, the size of state’s military is undoubtedly conditioned by an objective figure of its population size. Nevertheless, in the case of Kyrgyzstan despite the almost constant increase of its population over the last three decades, during which it has grown by slightly more than two million (in 2019 the population of Kyrgyz Republic was 6,459,900 million people) (Population of Kyrgyz Republic), the state has failed to convert this, though limited, raw power potential into a more significant military power. Additionally, the invasion of Islamic armed groups in 1999, also known as Batken events, exposed the ineffective conduct of the Kyrgyz military. Despite the official claims, neither paramilitary troops nor army units conducted successful combat engagements with the insurgents. It applies also to the conduct of the poorly equipped air force, which found it difficult to provide effective assistance (O’Malley & McDermott, 2003). 25 21 20 15.9 15.9

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Fig. 6.3 Kyrgyzstan’s military (thousands) (Source World Bank Database. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.TOTL.P1?locations=AM. Accessed January 26, 2021; Russia and Eurasia [2020])

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Moreover, as reflected in the figures below, the Bishkek’s small army is relatively weak among the armed forces of the CSTO memberstates and its air force is also considered as one of the weakest and smallest in the Central Asia region (Gorenburg, 2014: 18).Out of all the CSTOmembers, only Tajikistan has a smaller military force. In light of the relatively weakness of the small military of Kyrgyzstan, it seems that it in case of threat to any CSTO ally it has a restricted (if any) ability to provide effective military assistance for the collective defense of the alliance.

Size of Military Expenditure In Soviet times, Kyrgyzstan was considered economically weak and was largely dependent on more industrialized and powerful Soviet republics (Schmitz & Trevisani, 2011: 18). Needless to say, that after the end of the Soviet era, the economic situation of the republic has worsened (Dzhamankulov, 2019: 821). Thus, throughout the 1990s the country’s GDP per capita consistently declined in terms of current US dollars from 609,173 thousand in 1990 to 258,049 thousand in 1999 (GDP per capita of Kyrgyz Republic). Despite some growth in GDP per capita indicator in the last two decades, the economy of the republic remained in a painful state. Consequently, as we mentioned in Chapter 3, the country’s continuous problematic economic situation caused to the continuation of its economic dependence on former post-Soviet republic, mainly Russia and Kazakhstan (Vinokurov, 2018: 20). Over the years Bishkek did not manage to create sufficient workplaces and therefore it has been dependent upon remittances from Kyrgyz migrants working abroad, mainly in Russia. According to the World Bank report, in 2019 worker remittances were equivalent to about 28% of Kyrgyzstan’s GDP (The World Bank in the Kyrgyz Republic). Furthermore, according to the analysis of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), due to such high dependence on external resources of financing the Kyrgyz economy has been severely affected by Covid-19 disruptions. Consequently, as early as March and April 2020, for the purposes of dealing with the economic consequences of the pandemic, Bishkek received emergency assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), totaling US$ 241.8 million (Kyrgyz Republic Overview).

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140.0 112

120.0 94.3

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Fig. 6.4 Kyrgyzstan’s military expenditure in millions constant (2018) USD (Source SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. https://www.sipri.org/databases/ milex. Accessed January 25, 2021)

Under such economic conditions, the size of military expenditure of Kyrgyzstan is restricted. From 2002 to 2019 the rate of military expenditure increased by 2.4% (see Fig. 6.4). Despite the growth, however, the rate of Bishkek’s military expenditure remains the lowest (excluding Tajikistan) compared to other CSTO member-states. These limited resources confirm the assumption that the state would find it difficult to develop military power being able to significantly contribute to the collective security needs of the alliance. Therefore, similarly to Armenia, this Central Asian state could be regarded rather as a recipient of public goods, the collective defense, than as a significant contributor. Thus, the state’s membership in CSTO serves as a tool for providing defense.

Tajikistan Size of the Armed Forces The history of the establishment of Tajikistan’s armed forces is different from the process of militaries construction of the other post-Soviet republics, which was mostly based on the Soviet physical legacy and assets. Moreover, the experience of military construction in Tajikistan was unique in the context of Central Asian region. In most countries in the region the early efforts to develop national militaries were based

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on the units of the former Soviet Turkestan Military District (McDermott, 2013).2 Dushanbe, however, became an independent state for a few months in 1992 before the war broke out (Matveeva, 2009). Of course, as in the Kyrgyz case the lack of sufficient former Soviet military infrastructure complicated the process of building the armed forces. Nevertheless, the process of the national armed forces formation was substantially undermined by the civil war that broke out in the country between the secular forces supporting the elected President Rahmon Nabiev and the opposition backed by the Islamic Renaissance Party (IPR), which refused to accept the election defeat of its candidate, Davlat Khudonazarov. Moreover, the geographical proximity of Tajikistan to Afghanistan played an important role in escalation of the conflict inside the country: the Afghani Mujahidin, that prevailed in war with the Soviet army, became a source for providing weapons for the Tajik Islamic opposition. In 1992 Emomali Rahmon came to power instead of President Nabiev and eventually secular government supported by Russia and Uzbekistan prevailed in the civil war, which finally ended in 1997 (Makienko, 2020: 139). The political split between two political camps divided also the security forces in the country. As a result, as of 1992 there was no regular military force loyal to the central government in Dushanbe. Instead, many clanbased militias and criminal groups appeared on the ground. Moreover, the clashes even erupted between brigades of the Tajik army formed on the basis of progovernment militias. After Rahmon was elected as a President of the republic in 1994, he concentrated his efforts on consolidation of the state and peace (Matveeva, 2009). In this regard, the construction of regular armed forces subordinated to the central government authority played an important role. One of the distinguishing features of the national armed forces formation was the need to incorporate various armed (belligerent) groupings into regular military formations. Indeed, after the civil war the Tajik army integrated warlords with their armed groupings. The tensions within the military and the society still remain great (Peyrouse, 2010). Nevertheless, as noted, the internal instability is

2 At the time of its disbandment in June 1992, the Soviet Turkestan Military District included the territory of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and also Afghanistan until the completion of withdrawal of the Soviet army forces from the country on February 15, 1989.

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not the only security threat faced by the country, because also the neighboring Afghanistan poses a potential threat for security and stability of Tajikistan. Regardless of the constant growth of the country’s population (Population of Tajikistan), the size of the national military forces remains small (see Fig. 6.5). As of 2019 the size of the republic’s military, consisting of the army, air force and paramilitary units, was only 16,3 thousand soldiers. Hence, compared to other militaries of the CSTO countries, the Tajik armed forces are the smallest. As will be discussed below, such restricted military capabilities relate, to a large extent, to the problematic economic situation of the country. According to the 2019 data, the size of the army was 7,300 soldiers and included 3 MR brigades, air assault brigade and SAM regiment. The air force demonstrates also modest capabilities and contains 1,500 soldiers and have one transport and several training aircrafts. Additionally, the state’s air force includes a squadron of attack/transport helicopters, with four attack and 11 transport helicopters. The air defense is based on the medium-range point-defense SAM systems. The paramilitary forces, consisting of 7,500 servicemen, are the biggest component of the national military. These forces are divided into internal troops, National Guard and border guards (Russia and Eurasia, 2020: 209). It seems that the emphasis on the development 18

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Fig. 6.5 Tajikistan’s military (thousands) Source World Bank Database. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.TOTL.P1?locations=AM. Accessed January 26, 2021; Russia and Eurasia [2020])

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of the paramilitary troops (alongside with the army units), which have also tanks and armored vehicles at their disposal, could be explained by the need of the Tajik authorities to cope from time to time with revolts by certain armed forces against the central government. Based on the experience of numerous insurgencies by armed forces, some units are considered as a counterweight to others (Makienko, 2020: 146). Similarly to the previous case studies of Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, relative military power of Tajikistan demonstrates limited value in terms of the ability to contribute to the collective defense of the allies. After reaching independence at the beginning of 1990s, minor progress has been made towards establishing an effective military force capable of meeting the challenges faced by the state (McDermott, 2013). Consequently, the potential for deterioration of internal security, aggression from Afghanistan’s side or some combination of both, made Tajikistan dependent on the assistance of regional security structures such as CSTO and especially Russia.

Size of Military Expenditure After the collapse of the USSR Tajikistan’s economy was in dire straits (Matveeva, 2009). Although after the collapse of the single planned economy, many republics of the former Soviet Union found themselves in a difficult transition period of economic restructuring, Tajikistan represents a special case since it is a country that did not emerge peacefully (Stark & Ahrens, 2012: 11). Consequently, the country experienced the sharpest decline in GDP per capita. While in 1990 the country’s GDP per capita in current US dollars was 497.632 thousand, within seven years it deteriorated to the level of 155.188. Despite the gradual growth (with some fluctuations) of standards of living of the population since 1998, Tajikistan is the poorest country among the countries of the former Soviet Union in general and among the CSTO countries, in particular. Thus, according to the World Bank Data in 2019 Tajikistan’s GDP per capita was 870.788 thousand current US dollars, i.e., 530% and 50% lower than of the economically weak Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, respectively (GDP Per Capita of Tajikistan). It is worth noting that an important component of the Tajik economy is assistance from international organizations such as World Bank, IMF. Getting loans is facilitated by the fact that the republic meets all the criteria of one of the poorest countries in the world (Makienko, 2020:

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136). For instance, over 25 years of cooperation, the World Bank has provided over $1.5 billion in grants, highly concessional credits and trust funds to Tajikistan (25 Years of Partnership 2019). The poor economic conditions pushed many Tajiks away from the country in search for work. Consequently, remittances from Tajiki migrants working in Russia became an important source of the state’s income. According to the Russian Ambassador to Dushanbe Igor Lyakin-Frolov, there in Russia are about 1 million labor migrants from Tajikistan. The total volume of their monetary transfers to Tajikistan in 2018 was equal to 2.5 billion US dollars, which constituted, according to various sources, 35–37% of the republic’s GDP (Lyakin-Frolov, 2019). Despite the fact that the data on Dushanbe’s defense expenditure are not fully available, in such an economic situation it is not surprising that Tajikistan demonstrates the lowest rate of military expenditure among the CSTO member-states (see Fig. 6.6). Although similarly to other postSoviet states of CSTO the size of the Tajik military expenditure has generally increased in the period between 2002 and 2015, the low volume of expenditure for military purposes indicates the inability of the state to financially support the quantitative and qualitative development of the national armed forces capable to meet the multiplicity of threats from home and abroad. Furthermore, such inability created dependence on the Russia-led military alliance. In this regard Tajikistan resembles the case 90.0 78.7

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Fig. 6.6 Tajikistan’s military expenditure in millions constant (2018) USD (Source SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. https://www.sipri.org/databases/ milex. Accessed January 25, 2021)

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study of Armenia and as well as other economically and militarily dependent on Russia allies such as Kyrgyzstan. As Obydenkova and Libman (2019: 193) noted the decision of Armenia to join the Russia-dominated EAEU and CSTO was motivated by Erevan’s desire to maintain and even strengthen the ties to Russia, on which the country relied as the main security provider. The same applied on Tajikistan’s attitude to Russia and the perception of Russia-led CSTO as the regional security provider (Speech of the President of Tajikistan, 2020; Tajikistan as Chairman of the CSTO, 2020).

Belarus Size of the Armed Forces Similar to the discussed below the case study of Kazakhstan, in Soviet Belarus was stockpiled nuclear arsenal, which after the conclusion of the Belovezha Accords remained in the country. The leaders of the independent republic were, however, not interested in either keeping it in its territory or preserving Belarus status as a nuclear state. As Shushkevich (2012: 212) noted in his memoirs, Minsk undertook to completely withdraw both strategic and tactical nuclear weapons from its territory. These obligations were officially formalized by the accession of Belarus to the SART 1 Treaty (1991) on May 20, 1992. As for conventional capabilities, after the collapse of the USSR, Belarus inherited an impressive legacy—more than 1400 military formations of the Belorussian Military District (The 100th Anniversary of the Armed Forces of Belarus 2018). Moreover, as a frontline Soviet republic in a potential armed conflict between NATO and Warsaw Pacts member-states, Belarus obtained state-of-the-art weapons and equipment (Bohdan, 2014: 6). At the time of the collapse of the USSR, the following military formations were deployed at the territory of Belarus: the 28th army, the 7th tank army, the 5th Army Corps, the 103rd Paratrooper Division, the 11th Corps etc. (Neliupšiene˙ & Berži¯unas, : 200). Such an impressive presence of Soviet troops can also be explained by the geographic location of the country bordering eastern Europe and its perception by Moscow during the Cold War as a potentially frontline state on the western borders of the USSR (Piss, 2018: 44). The outstanding forces at the Belarusian territory came under the control of the authorities of the independent Belarusian republic. On March 20,

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1992 the national armed forces were officially established (Paznyak, 2002: 1). According to the Concluding Act of the Negotiation on Personnel Strength of Conventional Armed Forces in Europe of 1992 (CFE-1A Agreement), the states, parties to the Treaty on Conventional Armed forces in Europe (CFE) (1990), have agreed to the limits on the level of military personnel, with the exception of sea-based naval forces, internal security forces, and forces under the UN command. In light of the geopolitical changes that have taken place in the world since the end of the Cold War, the need has arisen for adaptation of the Treaty to include new established states, such as Belarus. On November 19, 1999 Belarus among others signed the Agreement on the Adaptation of the CFE Treaty. In 2007 the country ratified the agreement. Notwithstanding the commitments of Belarus to reduce the size of the armed forces, it managed to establish and maintain relatively large military force in post-Soviet Eurasia and second largest (after Russia) military in CSTO. While as of 2002–2009 the size of Belarus military ranged between 189,8 thousand servicemen and 182,9 thousand, since 2010 a reduction of about 30,000 in the size of the armed forces can be noticed. (see Fig. 6.7). It should be noted, that because internal security forces (part of the paramilitary troops) were excluded from the treaty, the quantitative reductions affected, mainly, army units. As of 2019 the size of the military was 155,4 thousand soldiers. This size is impressive if one takes into account 200 180 160

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Fig. 6.7 Belarus military (thousands) (Source World Bank Database. https:// data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.TOTL.P1?locations=AM. Accessed January 26, 2021; Russia and Eurasia [2020])

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the size of the country’s population, which throughout the entire independence period did not rise above the level of 1994—10,227 million people. As of 2019 the Belarusian population was 9,566,856 million people (Population of Belarus). The main components of the Belarusian military are army, air force and air defense, special operations forces (SOF) command, joint forces and paramilitary troops. The size of the army is 10,700 soldiers. In terms of organizational structure, the army consists of 4 mechanized brigades and combat support units: 2 artillery brigades, 1 engineering brigade and 1 engineering regiment. The army is divided into two operational commands: Western and North-Western (Historical Brief). The Western command is responsible for the defense of the Polish direction. The north-western command is in charge of dealing with threats from Baltic states (Makienko, 2020: 43). Such deployment of the army stems from the traditional Minsk’s perception of the threat. Thus, in August 2020 the Belarusian authoritarian leader Lukasheko claimed that NATO aggressively positioned forces along its borders with Poland and Lithuania (Bellamy, 2020). The state’s air force with 11,750 servicemen is equipped with 70 combat capable aircrafts and 38 helicopters of different types. Additionally, air-launched missiles for different ranges have been at the disposal of the air force of Belarus, that can be fitted to the aircrafts. The air defense component is based on the long-, medium-, short-range and point-defense weapon systems (Russia and Eurasia, 2020: 187–188). In 2002 the Ministry Defense set up two commands of air force and the air defense: Western operational-tactical command (WOTC) and North-Western operational-tactical command (NWOTC) (History of the Belarusian Air Force and Air Defense). The joint forces of 17,000 soldiers consist of 1 short-range ballistic missile brigade (SRBM) supported by 1 artillery brigade, 2 engineering brigades, 1 MRL brigade, 1 brigade of electronic warfare (EW), 1 nuclear, biological, chemical (NBC) defense unit, 1 pontoon bridging regiment and 2 signals brigades. SOF command is the smallest component of the Belarusian army. The size of the SOF command is 5,900 soldiers. Established in June 1995 by the Presidential decree, SOF are comprised of three brigades: (a) 38th independent guards mobile brigade deployed in Brest; (b) 103rd independent guards mobile brigade (deployed in Vitebsk); (c) 5th independent special purpose brigade deployed in Maryina Gorka (The Special Operations Forces).

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As for the paramilitary forces, they are the largest military component of Belarus. Their size is 110,000 soldiers, which is divided into state border troops, militia and internal troops. In this context, the Eastern European country is similar to a case study of Tajikistan, in which the paramilitary component is also the biggest component in the structure of the national armed forces. Similar to Tajikistan, it seems that such organizational structure indicates the concern of the government in Minsk of political instability as has indeed happened since the announcement of the results of the presidential election in August 2020. Such assumption corresponds with the findings of Bohdan (2014: 8), that noted: Unlike the security agencies or police, the army is not Lukashenko’s closest ally. The government values security agencies and internal troops under the Internal Ministry because they are necessary to maintain power. His distrust of the army means that he never uses army units to crush protests.

In the Soviet period Belarus was a strongly militarized territory, in which 1 soldier accrued for 43 residents (Piss, 2018: 44). Notwithstanding the fluctuations in the size of the national military forces in the post-Soviet period, the independent Belarus with relatively low size of population continues to maintain a significant military power. At the same time, one should remember that as of 2019, 87 thousand out of 155,4 thousand servicemen are militia men, which are responsible for providing personnel and social security for citizens within the country and are not designated to deal with military threats. Nonetheless, the Belarusian armed forces are significantly quantitatively superior vis-à-vis the militaries of Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan militaries. In comparison to Kazakhstan, however, the Belarusian military demonstrates a slight inferiority (see discussion below). Consequently, the armed forces of the East European post-Soviet republic could be quantitatively ranked as third-largest after Kazakhstan and Russia.

Size of Military Expenditure In contrast to such countries as Russia and Kazakhstan, Belarus lacks natural resources like gas and oil (Yarashevich, 2014: 593). Nevertheless, on the eve of the Soviet Union collapse Belarus had one of the better managed regional economies in the USSR, with the technologically advanced industrial capacities. This was reflected, inter alia, in an

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unusually high share of export-oriented enterprises. Thus, while in other Soviet republics and socialist states such share usually did not exceed 60%, in Soviet Belarus about 80% of its industrial production was exported to other Soviet republics and even foreign countries (Ioffe, 2004: 88). However, amid the economic crisis of the early 1990s, the export potential of the Belarusian industry declined sharply (Makienko, 2020: 35). Consequently, during this period the state’s GDP per capita decreased. While in 1990 it was 2,124.841 thousand in current US dollar, in 1999 it was already 1,210.612 thousand (GDP Per Capita of Belarus). In the conditions of a deep economic crisis in the first half of the 90s, maintaining a significant military potential inherited from the Soviet military was financially unmanageable for the republic (Porotnikov, 2020: 19). As a result, in the 1990s the armed forces of Belarus experienced large-scale quantitative reductions and degradation of capabilities (Makienko, 2020: 38). Although over the years the economic situation of the country has improved, the national armed forces were always allocated modest financial resources. Thus, following the entry of the former Warsaw Pact member-countries, Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic into NATO in 1999, Lukashenko, who was concerned about the expansion of the alliance close to the borders of the country, initiated a strengthening of the combat potential of the Belarusian military during 2000–2003. At the same time, due to the scarce resources Belarus could not afford to purchase new weapons systems (Sozykin, 2017: 289–290). As a solution the state began to modernize old Soviet equipment such as tanks and infantry fighting vehicles (IFV) (Makienko, 2020: 38). Additionally, with the Russian help some parts of the defense system were modernized (Sozykin, 2017: 290). Nevertheless, despite the efforts to modernize the aging weapon systems and equipment, permanent lack of financial resources caused the degradation of qualitative military capabilities. Thus, according to Makienko (2020: 43) whereas formally Minsk has 1,276 tanks in service, in practice only 446 tanks (mainly old Soviet T-72B and T-72B3) are in good condition. Moreover, procurement of new weapons systems remains limited, mainly in the field of air force and air defense equipment. For example, in 2019 Belarus purchased 4 heavy fighters Su-30SM from Russia (Porotnikov, 2020: 27). Therefore, the financial difficulties are a constraint on the development of the armed forces. In the absence of sufficient resources, the inability to upgrade the capabilities of the military also stems from the need to support the relatively large size

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of armed forces (including paramilitary component). Furthermore, it is worth noting that the Belarusian military forces are mainly deployed in the western parts of the country. Although such a deployment of the army is supposed to support the readiness against threats from the west, it cannot be ignored that maintaining the military deployment from Soviet days also lies in the lack of budget (Bohdan, 2014: 9). As noted by Piss (2018: 46) most of the resources are spent on retaining the current status of the state’s military, instead of innovation and increasing capabilities. In the period between 2002 and 2019 the size of Belarus military expenditure did not increase constantly. (see Fig. 6.8). Such dynamic is derived from the high instability of the Belarusian economy (Porotnikov, 2020: 27). Furthermore, due to the sensitivity of the Lukashenko’s regime to its political survival, it is likely that parts of the state’s military expenditure are directed to the needs of the paramilitary forces essential in order to preserve the dictatorial regime. It should be noted that on December 19, 2019, the Security Council in Minsk approved a new plan for the defense of Belarus and the Concept for the construction and development of the armed forces until 2030. According to the documents, it is planned to systematically increase expenditure on defense for the qualitative development of the potential of the Armed Forces. Thus, over ten years, defense expenses should grow to 1.5% of the state’s GDP (Lukashenko Approves New Defense Plan of Belarus, 2019). 800 660

700 600 485

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Fig. 6.8 Belarus military expenditure in millions current USD (Source SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex. Accessed January 25, 2021)

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At the same time, due to the economic difficulties caused by the Covid19 pandemic and economic sanctions imposed by the West, an increase in military expenditure, especially in the coming years, seems difficult. In light of the above, calculating the military power of Belarus only by numbers, the state is supposed to be significantly contributive to the collective defense needs of CSTO in general and in the Western flank on the military alliance, in particular (Piss, 2018: 47). Nevertheless, the scarce military expenditure caused the degradation of qualitative military potential of Minsk, thereby making its capability to defend against potential enemy limited. Therefore, the inability to provide financial resources to upgrade its military capabilities made Belarus dependent on the provision of public good, i.e., the collective defense by CSTO in general and Russia, as a leading and most powerful part of JGF-EER, in particular.

Kazakhstan Size of the National Military In contrast to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the Kazakhstan’s territory many Soviet military formations, infrastructure and 3% of the USSR’s defense industry have remained (Eaton, 2001: 99). First of all, as noted in the previous chapter, the Soviet legacy did not include only conventional assets. In Kazakhstan large quantities of the Soviet nuclear arsenal were stockpiled. Since the state, however, was not interested in maintaining nuclear capabilities, it joined on May 19, 1992 the Lisbon Protocol to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) 1 (1991) between the United States and the Soviet, according to which Alma Ata undertook to carry out “the elimination of all kinds of nuclear weapons, including strategic offensive arms, located on its territory, over a period of seven years in accordance with the START Treaty.” The conventional assets were also significant. As of 1991 in the territory of the republic many Soviet forces were deployed, such as, for example: the 32nd army, the 40th army, consisting of several divisions, including aviation corps, a division of strategic bombers, air defense corps, early missile detection division, various reconnaissance units etc. (Dubovtsev, 2018: 12–13). Moreover, the state inherited large quantities of Soviet weapons systems (Khrolenko, 2018). There is no doubt, that the abovementioned forces were a good organizational and infrastructural potential for the establishment of large

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national military forces. Indeed, the initial basis for the construction of Kazakhstan’s national armed forces became the former Soviet troops of the Turkestan Military District (mainly the unites of the 32nd army) that passed under the jurisdiction of the Kazakhstani government in 1992 (Makienko, 2020: 96). In his speech in December 1992, devoted to the military issues, President Nazarbayev noted: We are a sovereign, independent state, and security issues should be the cornerstone in the general structure of the formation of internal and external politics. Therefore, we need a small, but modern army, equipped with the most modern weapons, highly mobile, trained, prepared to act in all conditions in the interests of protection of our sovereignty. (cited in Dubovtsev, 2018: 16)

In the period between 2002 and 2005, the size of the military has even grown from 94,5 thousand soldiers in 2002 to 103 thousand in 2005. It should be noted, however, that similar to Belarus, Kazakhstan joined the CFE-1A Agreement and according to its provisions since 2011 reduced the size of its military by about 10,000 soldiers (see Fig. 6.9). It is worth noting, however, that in contrast to the other member-states of the military alliance (except from Russia and Belarus), the Kazakh army is relatively large. The quantitative asymmetry in favor of Kazakhstan is 120 100

94.5

100.3 99

101 81

80

81

81

80.5 80.5 70.5 70.5 70.5 70.5 70.5 70.5

71

71

70.5

60 40 20 0 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Fig. 6.9 Kazakhstan’s military (thousands) (Source World Bank Database. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.TOTL.P1?locations=AM. Accessed January 26, 2021; Russia and Eurasia [2020])

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particularly noticeable in the context of the Central Asian region. To such quantitative advantage contributed, in large part, the trend of demographic growth of the state population: since 2001, there has been a steady increase in the size of the population from 14,858,335 million people to 18,513,930 (Population of Kazakhstan). It should be noted that throughout the 1990s, the process of the military construction in Kazakhstan enjoyed a lack of sharp security challenges, such as a civil war or an Islamic terrorism, as was the case in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Nevertheless, towards the end of the 1990s, with the strengthening of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, the potential for an Islamic terrorism threat to be transferred from the neighboring countries to the territory of Kazakhstan arose. In December 1999 the Kazakh President estimated that the presence of armed conflicts on the territory of neighboring states and the potential danger of their transfer to Kazakhstan is the main security challenge in the coming years (Dubovtsev, 2018: 36). This threat did materialize in a series of terrorist attacks in Western Kazakhstan in 2011, 2012 and 2016 (Makienko, 2020: 89–90). According to Kairat Khakipbaev from the General Prosecutor’s Office, during these years nine terrorist attacks were committed in the country (Sputnik, 2019). In terms of organizational structure, since the state has access to the Caspian Sea, its military in addition to the army, air force, air defense and paramilitary troops also includes the navy forces. According to the Military Balance Report (Russia and Eurasia, 2020: 190–191), in 2019 the army numbered 20,000 soldiers and consisted of 1 tank brigade, 3 mechanized brigades, 4 air assault brigades and 7 combat support units: 3 artillery brigades, one surface-to-surface missile (SSM) unit and 3 combat engineering brigades. Army units are deployed in 4 regional commands: “Astana” (refers to the north-central regions of the country, including the capital Nur-Sultan), “East,” “West” and “South” (Makienko, 2020: 101). The size of the naval forces was 3,000 servicemen that were equipped with 13 patrol and coastal crafts. The coastal defense included one naval infantry brigade. The air force, consisting of 12,000 soldiers (including air defense) with the 110 combat capable aircraft fleet, 66 helicopters and 2 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The air defense based on the SAM short-, medium- and long-range systems. As for paramilitary component, its size is 31,500 soldiers serving in National Guard, state security service, border service and coast guard.

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Throughout the post-Soviet period Kazakhstan managed to construct a relatively large and capable army. Upon the rise of the terrorist threat, Kazakhstan made adjustments in the military organization, emphasizing the mobility of the military forces. Thus, for example, air assault brigades were established, which could be deployed and used in a short time in any part of the country (Dubovtsev, 2018: 166). In terms of the size of the national military, the almost 79 thousand armed forces constitute a significant contribution to the accumulated military power of the alliance. Such military power obviously makes the state a valuable and important ally in case of aggression against the alliance’s members. It could be assumed, that without Kazakhstan’s contribution, the CSTO defense in the Central Asian flank would be, to a large extent, undermined. Therefore, a possession of such substantial quantitative military capabilities distinguishes the state from other, weaker CSTO members, such as Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia.

Size of Military Expenditure Kazakhstan represents the largest economy in the Central Asian region and is ranked as the second-largest economy in the whole post-Soviet space after Russia (Vinokurov, 2018: 16). As in other Soviet republics, however, the Kazakh economy and trade were part of the Soviet command economy system. At the time of its collapse the newly independent country lacked competitive industrial capabilities and was dependent on imports of consumer goods and equipment from Russia and other republics. Similarly to other republics of the former Soviet Union, upon independence declaration Kazakhstan experienced economic difficulties: hyperinflation, abrupt industrial recessions, and food crises (Cohen, 2008: 18–19). As of 1991–1999, GDP per capita has been steadily declining to approximately 25% (GDP per capita of Kazakhstan). Aggravation of economic conditions negatively affected its efforts to establish national armed forces. During this period, the issues of financial and logistical support of the troops acquired particular urgency (Dubovtsev, 2018: 16). A severe economic crisis, however, caused cuts in military expenditure. As a consequence, these forced measures led to the reduction and disbandment of the troops inherited from the Soviet Union. Thus, for instance the following military formations were reduced and disbanded: the 40th army, air force corps, air defense corps (Makienko, 2020: 96). According to McDermott (2009: 3), due to budget deficits Kazakhstan could only

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acquire the equipment from Russia’s compensation in exchange for using military testing areas in Kazakhstan, such as Sary Shagan site for the development and testing of anti-missile weapons. Without a doubt, such changes in the initial post-Soviet period caused to the quantitative and qualitative degradation of Kazakhstan’s military power. Nevertheless, since the 2000s, the country’s economic situation begins to show a positive trend. This trend is associated primarily with changes in the energy market. Back to Soviet times, Kazakhstan was perceived as the de facto strategic petroleum reserve of the Soviet Union (Cohen, 2008: 13). Accordingly, export of oil and oil products became an important source of the state’s income. In this regard Vinokurov (2018: 16) found the structural similarity of the Kazakh and Russian economies, i.e., that both demonstrate the dominant role of oil and oil products exports. As for Kazakhstan, the share of oil industry in the country’s export was estimated in 2018 and 2019 at 61.9 and 58%, respectively (the Share of Oil in Kazakhstan’s Esports Structure 2020). Moreover, in light of the slowdown in the development of Russia’s oil and gas producing, Kazakhstan became the largest energy producer in the Caspian basin (Cohen, 2008: 13). Consequently, since 2002 the state’s GDP per capita has risen six fold and poverty incidence has fallen sharply (Overview of Kazakhstan). According to the Multi-Dimensional Review of Kazakhstan (2016) conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Kazakhstan’s economic growth performance since 2000 has been significant, averaging almost 8% per annum in real terms and leading to job creation and progress in the well-being of its citizens. Given the structure of Kazakhstan’s economy, the ability of Nur-Sultan to allocate financial resources for military depends, to a large extent, on the oil exports scope. Accordingly, while throughout the 1990s, the defense expenditure level was low, from the 2000s onwards, as a result of an improved economic performance, an increase (with fluctuations) in the size of defense expenditure can be identified (McDermott, 2009: 3). Thus, while in 2002 the size of the state’s military expenditure was 391 million constant (2018) US dollars, in 2019 it was already 1863 million constant (2018) US dollars, thereby increasing by approximately 476% (see Fig. 6.10). Accordingly, the rate of the state’s expenditure for the military purposes, which since 2010 ranged between 0.9 and 1.1%. in terms of the military expenditure’s share out of the GDP (see Fig. 6.13), was more than doubled in 2019 compared to 2002. Compared to the

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2000

1863 1672 1666 1714

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1171

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Fig. 6.10 Kazakhstan’s military expenditure in millions constant (2018) USD (Source SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. https://www.sipri.org/databases/ milex. Accessed January 25, 2021)

period of 1990s—beginning of 2000s (as well as in comparison to other CSTO allies, except from Russia), such rate of the military expenditure seems to be impressive. In sum, the economic capabilities of the republic made it possible to maintain the third-largest military among the CSTO member-states and to allocate significant funds to qualitatively strengthen the combat capabilities of the armed forces (Khrolenko, 2020). Thus, for example, an increase in the financial resources at the beginning of the twenty-first century allowed Kazakhstan to develop and modernize its air force and make it the strongest in Central Asia (Makienko, 2020: 104). Moreover, the Kazakh air force has a quantitative superiority over the air forces of the allied Armenia and Belarus. In other words, Kazakhstan has relatively successfully managed to convert its large latent economic power into military might.

Russia Size of the Armed Forces For post-Cold War Russia, the dissolution of the Soviet Union has had serious consequences. The state was required not only to carry out economic reforms and internal political changes, but also to reform its military. First of all, Russia needed to redeploy and also dismantle nuclear warheads located in the already independent Belarus, Kazakhstan and

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Ukraine. Additionally, during this time the Russian military underwent a series of size cuts. According to the Ministry of Defense of Russia, from 1989 to 1997 the personnel of the army was decreased by more than 1 million 100 thousand servicemen (The Russian Land Force’s History). Nevertheless, the armed forces faced not only severe quantitative reductions. Since during the Cold War the military was mainly preoccupied with the threats from the West, many units and military assets were deployed beyond the western borders of RF, in countries such as Ukraine, Belarus and others. In this respect, not less challenging was the need to relocate military formations returning from the former Soviet republics and the East European states of the disbanded Warsaw Pact, such as East Germany (Russia Military Power, 2017: 9). Consequently, once these states have become independent political entities, the Russian military left many military assets at their territory. Thus, according to Lambeth (1995: 88) only about half of the combat aircraft of the Soviet air force remained within the boundaries of RF. The state’s military also lost four of every five repair facilities for armored fighting vehicles, thus causing situation in which only 20% of the tanks inherited by Russia remained serviceable by 1994. Moreover, the Russian military decline in 1990s was also preconditioned by the state of disrepair of the military at the end of the Soviet period (Dick, 1998). The quantitative and qualitative degradation of Moscow’s armed forces was foremost reflected in the poor performance of the Russian forces in the first round of war in Chechnya (1994–1996). The dismal state of the army, however, began to change from the 2000s. Upon coming to power of Vladimir Putin in 2000, more attention has begun to be drawn to the development of the national armed forces. Consequently, in contrast to the sharp fluctuations in its size throughout the 1990s, between 2002 and 2019, the Russian military maintained (except of 2013 and 2014) a more or less constant size of about 1.45 million soldiers. (see Fig. 6.11). Such large size of the military is a consequence of the size of Russia’s population which as of 2019 was 144,373,535 million people (Population of Russia). The state also invested more in development of military’s qualitative capabilities. In terms of organizational structure, the Russian armed forces are divided into: strategic deterrent forces, strategic rocket forces (SRF), long-range aviation command, space command, aerospace defense command, army, navy, naval aviation, naval infantry (marines), coastal missile and artillery forces, aerospace forces, airborne forces, SOF, railway

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1.6 1.5

1.45 1.45 1.45

1.5 1.4

1.48 1.48

1.5

1.49 1.45 1.45 1.45 1.45

1.4

1.4 1.37

1.36 1.36

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1.29 1.26

1.3 1.2 1.2 1.1 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Fig. 6.11 Russia’s millitary (millions) (Source World Bank Database. https:// data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.TOTL.P1?locations=AM. Accessed January 26, 2021; Russia and Eurasia [2020])

forces and paramilitary troops. As of 2019 the size of strategic deterrent forces was 80,000 servicemen, which are based on the platforms of 10 strategic nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines (SSBN). As of September 2020, Russia’s nuclear arsenal included 1,447 warheads (New START Treaty Aggregate Numbers, 2020). Strategic rocket forces with a total number of 50,000 soldiers organized in 3 rocket armies and 12 divisions. Furthermore, to the strategic component of Russia’s military can be assigned long-range aviation command, space command and aerospace defense command. Army numbered 280,000 soldiers and consisted from 8 SF (Spetsnaz in Russian) brigades, 1 SF regiment, 2 reconnaissance brigades, 2 tank divisions, 2 tank brigades, 6 MR divisions, 13 MR brigades, 11 SRBM/ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCM) and various units of combat support. The size of navy was 150,000 servicemen and it is equipped with 10 SSBN and 39 tactical submarines of various types, 13 destroyers, 33 surface combatants and 118 patrol and coastal combatants. Naval aviation includes 31,000 soldiers equipped with 217 combat capable aircrafts 198 helicopters. Naval infantry which comprised of 35,000 soldiers organized in 4 SF units, 11 combat diver unites, 1 reconnaissance brigade, 3 MR brigades, 1 MR regiments, 6 naval infantry brigades, 1 naval infantry regiments, 1 SRBM/GLCM brigade, and several combat support and air defense unites. Coastal missile and artillery forces with a total strength of 2,000 contain 5 brigades and

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1 regiment of anti-ship missiles (AShM). Railway forces consisting of 29,000 soldiers include 10 transportation brigades. Aerospace forces comprised of 165,000 servicemen are equipped with 1,183 combat capable aircrafts, about 822 helicopters and UAV. The air defense is based on long-, medium-, short-range, point-defense SAM systems and laser system (Peresvet ). The size of airborne forces was 45,000 soldiers divided into 1 SF brigade, 5 airborne formations and 3 air assault brigades. SOF included only 1,000 organized in 2 units. Territorially the Russian military is divided into 4 districts, which beyond the ground forces and airborne unites, includes navy and air force formations. Thus, the Western military district (headquarters (HQ) in St Petersburg) includes the Northern fleet, the Baltic Fleet and the 6th air force & air defense army; the Central military district (HQ in Yekaterinburg) consists of the 14th air force & air defense army; the Southern military district (HQ Rostov-on-Don) includes the Black Sea Fleet, the Caspian Sea Flotilla and the 4th air force & air defense army; the Eastern military district (HQ in Khabarovsk) comprised of the Pacific Fleet and the 11th air force & air defense army. As for paramilitary troops, their size is 554,000 servicemen. They consisted of border guard service, federal guard service, federal security service special purpose and National Guard (Russia and Eurasia, 2020: 194–208). Such impressive military capabilities make Russia undoubtedly the most significant contributor to the collective defense of the alliance that in the absence thereof the CSTO defense system would be substantially impaired.

Size of Military Expenditure The disintegration of the Soviet Union had also dire consequences for the Russian economy. The severing of economic ties with the former Soviet republics has become destructive for the Russian industry. As a result, the economic situation in the country began to deteriorate. Since 1991 the GDP per capita has started to dive from 3,490.453 thousand current US$ to 1,330.757 thousand current US$ (GDP per Capita of Russia). The economic crisis has sharply reduced the rate of Russia’s military expenditure. The economic recession has severely limited the ability of the Russian government to maintain the armed forces (Miller, 2005: 3). Lack of sufficient funding affected the combat capability of the military, as was reflected by numerous failures during the Chechen campaigns. In one of his speeches in Duma, the lower house of the RF Parliament

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the then Minister of Defense, Pavel Grachev, described the state of the army as dismal. He noted that no army in the world is as a wretched state as Russia’s (Lambeth, 1995: 88). Initiatives to upgrade military capabilities, however, failed during this period due to lack of budget (Bogdanov, 2018). According to Miller (2005: 12) throughout 1990s the rate of the Russian military expenditure continued to decline and in the late 1990s was less than 10 percent of the level of the late 1980s. As the former Interior Minister of Russia, General Kulikov concluded in March 1999: …the ship of military reform in Russia has crashed into the rocks of economic realities. (cited in Konovalov & Oznobischev, 1999: 32)

The rise of oil prices in the early 2000s helped, however, to improve the country’s economy, which is largely based on the export of raw materials. Consequently, the state was able to allocate more resources to military’s needs. As pointed out by de Maas (2011: 5), in the 90s, under President Yeltsin, the reforms scope was limited mainly to reducing the size of the army and reconstructions of various types of troops. In the first decade of the millennium, in course of the presidency of Putin, was paved the way for massive rearmament programs. Moreover, after having learned the lessons of the Russian–Georgian conflict in August 2008, that exposed a number of shortcomings in the Russian military, President Medvedev decided to further accelerate the modernization program. Pursuant to the State Armament Program (SAP, GPV—Gosudarstvennaya Programma Vooruzheniy in Russian) approved in December 2010, the main goal was to increase the share of modern weapons and military equipment in the Russian troops by 2020 up to 70% (Fedorov, 2013: 41). Indeed, in the post-war period there was an increase in military expenditure (see Fig. 6.12). There was also an increase in share of military expenditure out of GDP (see Fig. 6.13). At the same time the implementation of this plan has encountered significant difficulties stemming from the worsening economic situation as a result of the Western sanctions against Russia and the fall in oil prices in the markets (Bogdanov, 2018). Thus, for instance, while in 2010 the crude oil price was 77.38 US dollars per barrel, in 2017 the price plunged to 52.51 US dollars per barrel (Average Annual OPEC Crude Oil Price). Consequently, military expenditure has dropped significantly in 2017–2019 (see Figs. 6.12 and 6.13). In December 2017 President Putin signed the new SAP 2018–2027 designated to further

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90000 79007

80000

73694 68378

70000 60836 60000 50000 40000 30000

27874

29227 30549

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20000 10000 0 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Fig. 6.12 Russia’s military expenditure in millions constant (2018) USD (Source SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. https://www.sipri.org/databases/ milex. Accessed January 25, 2021)

Member-State Russia Armenia Belarus Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 3,6% 4,3% 1,3% 1% 1,6% n/a

3,4% 3,9% 1,2% 0,9% 1,4% n/a

3,7% 3,8% 1,2% 1% 1,6% n/a

3,8% 4% 1,3% 1,1% 1,6% n/a

4,1% 3,9% 1,3% 1% 1,7% n/a

4,9% 4,2% 1,3% 1,1% 1,8% n/a

5,5% 4,1% 1,3% 0,9% 1,7% n/a

4,2% 3,8% 1,2% 0,9% 1,6% n/a

3,7% 4,9% 1,2% 0,9% 1,6% n/a

3,9% 4,9% 1,2% 1,1% 1,5% n/a

Fig. 6.13 CSTO states military expenditure (% of GDP) (Source SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex. Accessed January 25, 2021)

modernize the armed forces. Nevertheless, in light of the ongoing difficult economic situation the perspective of this perennial program is also unclear. Notwithstanding such challenges, RF managed to rebuild the military from the crisis of the 1990s. Favorable market conditions in the oil and gas market made it possible to allocate financial resources for modernization of the armed forces. The significant rates of military expenditure indicated a clear advantage of Russia in terms of economic resources vis-à-vis other post-Soviet states. The same applied to power relations within CSTO, in which Moscow benefits from quantitative and qualitative superiority over other member-states. Accordingly, the Russian

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relative power vis-à-vis its allies positioned it as the most important player in the military alliance providing key military capabilities to the accumulated military power of the alliance. It should be noted that while the military capabilities of Belarus and Kazakhstan make them important components of the alliance defense in the Western and Central Asian flanks respectively, the contribution of Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the collective defense of the alliance is limited. As will be demonstrated later, however, regardless of such power asymmetries among the smaller members of the alliance, they all rely on the most powerful Russia, as the main provider of collective defense and not less important as a source for weapons equipment and training of their national troops. In Chapter 7 we will discuss the implications of such Russian dominance for the pattern of cooperation within CSTO.

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CHAPTER 7

The Effect and Effectiveness of CSTO

This chapter is focused on the examination of the de-facto performance of the members within the military alliance. In other words, we intend to explore the practical cooperation pattern adopted by the CSTO in view of a specific cooperation problem. Accordingly, we commence the discussion with examining the CSTO-members’ effectiveness in the field of the intra-alliance relations, security management. Subsequently, we explain the findings: Which specific problematic social situations are reflected in the CSTO cooperation pattern. Finally, we conclude our discussion with revising the effect of the military alliance on the security of its respective member-states and address the question of whether such regional security organization as CSTO can be considered as security-enhancing.

Effectiveness Similarly to other Post-Soviet Eurasian organizations which were established after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, also CSTO is characterized by heterogeneity in terms of economic capabilities, domestic political arrangements and cultural-religious features. As we already demonstrated, all six member-states of the military alliance have different economic capabilities with the clear advantage of Russia. Regarding the political heterogeneity, although all members are non-democratic, they demonstrate significant diversity in terms of domestic political arrangements. The © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 I. Davidzon, Regional Security Governance in Post-Soviet Eurasia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82886-8_7

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same applied to the cultural-religious differences of the states: while three states are Christian (Russia and Belarus are Orthodox Christian states and Armenia is Old Orthodox Christian one), in the other three Central-Asian states Islam is a dominant religion. The different political and cultural-religious identities, that the new independent republics cultivated, generated different interests. In fact, as in the case studies of CIS and EAEU, the heterogeneity of the CSTO members generated multi-vector foreign and security policies. Additionally, the different geostrategic location of the allies (in East Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia) created a kind of “geopolitical pluralism,” which also, to a large extent, preconditioned the emergence of different security interests and, not less important, challenges. Furthermore, we argue that similarly to CIS and EAEU, CSTO is characterized by the same built-in tension between independence sensitivity of the allies and the need to maintain a certain level of security ties, mainly with Russia. In this respect, the multi-vector policies of the CSTO members, which reflect the cooperation problem of the alliance, can be regarded as a consequence of their sensitivity of national independence. As noted in Chapter 5, the CSTO institutional design provided the mechanism for overcoming the abovementioned internal cooperation problem. Since we assume, however, that there is a difference between the de-jure adopted institutional design and the de-facto performance of the allies within CSTO, we perceive the cooperation pattern adopted by the CSTO member-states as the practical rules of a game relating to specific cooperation problem in view of diverse (and even conflictual) interests and preferences of the CSTO members. To explore this issue, we commence our discussion with examining the effectiveness of CSTO and refer to the following questions: What is the effectiveness of the CSTO member-states? Are and to what extent allies able to overcome their internal disagreements and to cooperatively respond to the interests and needs of other allies? Does the military alliance effectively serve the Russia’s security interests in the new, post-Cold War wave of East– West confrontation? For the purposes of the examination, we address such important issues from the point of view of the individual members as: (a) Armenia–Azerbaijani conflict; (b) NATO expansion and American military presence; (c) allies’ (un)support of Russia’s military activity.

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Armenia–Azerbaijani Conflict As of its earliest days as an independent state, Armenia’s protracted conflict with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region shaped, to a great extent, its foreign and security policy. Over the years, Armenia perceived the security of this internationally unrecognized republic as an integral part of its own security. The military doctrine of the Republic of Armenia (2007) determined the status of the state as the guarantor ensuring the security of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh. Additionally, according to the Chapter IV of the Doctrine, one the main goals of Yerevan is: prevention and neutralization of threats to the military security of the Republic of Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic through the development and implementation of short-term and medium-term operational defense programs and plans.

Pursuant to the National Security Strategy of the Republic of Armenia (2007): Immediate military threat against the Republic of Armenia is the militant policy of Azerbaijan conducted in relation to the problem of NagornoKarabakh, namely: the desire to solve it by achieving military superiority over Armenia.

Furthermore, as noted in the previous chapter, in light of the close Azerbaijani–Turkish relations, Armenia treated “the strategic alliance of the Republic of Turkey and Azerbaijan Republic” as a threat on the national security (Military Doctrine of the Republic of Armenia, 2007: Chapter I). Under such circumstances and due to the power asymmetry vis-à-vis its enemies, Armenia perceived CSTO as one of the factors, which should reduce threats to the national security. For instance, in the meeting with the then candidate for the CSTO Secretary General post, Stanislav Zas, Armenia’s Prime Minister Pashinyan declared: CSTO is one of the key elements of Armenia’s security system and we are interested in the effective activity of CSTO. The activity of the structure in our region must contribute to the preservation of balance and peace in our region. (CSTO Important Element of Armenia’s Security System, 2019)

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Such perception of the military alliance is also expressed in official documents. Thus, the National Security Strategy of Armenia provided: … CSTO membership is one of the components of ensuring security Armenia, which is achieved through multilateral relations between the participating states. (National Security Strategy of the Republic of Armenia, 2007: Chapter IV)

In view of the hostile relations with Baku, Yerevan would expect to get support and if necessary, assistance from the CSTO allies. As noted, according to Article 4 of CST (1992) in the case of armed attack menacing to safety, stability, territorial integrity and sovereignty to any of the member, all the other CSTO members shall immediately provide the attacked ally with the necessary help, including military one. Nevertheless, despite the declared commitment, in line with their multi-vector policies, the CSTO states pursue interests which are inconsistent with the needs and interests of Yerevan. For Armenia located in the problematic geostrategic environment, which seeks a security umbrella to be provided by CSTO, the failure of the alliance to act as a consolidated military bloc has significant repercussions. The Armenian President Sargsyan directly referred to the failure of the alliance members to side with the Armenian side of the conflict at the CSTO CSC meeting in Moscow in 2015: Every time when the armed forces of Azerbaijan use small arms of all calibers, mortars and artillery installations against the Republic of Armenia, they shoot at Astana, Dushanbe and Bishkek, at Moscow and Minsk. Let me remind you that we have a corresponding article in the Charter. (Mghdesyan, 2016)

Nevertheless, the inability of the allies to cooperatively respond to Yerevan’s security needs was especially evident in course of several rounds of fighting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani troops in NagornoKarabakh. Thus, as noted by Sargsyan, following the April 2016 clashes with the Azerbaijani military, Yerevan was interested to include into the CSTO statement on Karabakh some provisions pointing at Baku’s unwillingness to implement previous agreements. Nevertheless, such draft resolution did not receive the support of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus (Mghdesyan, 2016). Furthermore, during the armed clashes in

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December 2016 between the Armenian and Azerbaijani forces, the Armenian government was frustrated with the fact, that other CSTO members did not condemn Baku’s military aggression against its troops, let alone provide active military support (Shirinyan, 2017). According to Shirinyan (2019: 18), the lack of cohesion within CSTO was one of the triggers for Azerbaijan to try to resolve the territorial conflict by force. Armenia’s critical position regarding CSTO was also introduced by the current Prime Minister, Pashinyan in May 2019 as he mentioned the commitment of the CSTO member-states to “act in accordance with the Charter of the organization” (CSTO Important Element of Armenia’s Security System, 2019). During the skirmishes in Nagorno-Karabakh in July 2020, the Armenian government hoped for the support of its allies. On July 13, 2020, the Armenian ambassador in Moscow Toganyan noted: …we believe that the organization must necessarily express its position, because we are in fact talking about an attack on a CSTO member state, on that section of the border that has nothing to do with the conflict. (Armenia Is Waiting for the CSTO Reaction, 2020)

The same conduct of Armenia’s allies was even more illustrative during the large-scale hostilities in Autumn 2020. Despite the difficult situation in which the Armenia’s forces found themselves, CSTO refrained from interfering in the conflict so as to support Armenia. On September 28, 2020 the CSTO Secretary General Zas issued a non-binding statement in which he “repeatedly encouraged the Parties to seek the settlement of conflict situation exclusively by peaceful means” (On the Situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, 2020). Similar statements have been made by the Foreign Ministries of Belarus (The Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, 2020) and Kyrgyzstan (Position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan, 2020). Several days later Zas stated that CSTO will help Armenia in the conflict with Azerbaijan in the event of an attack on Armenian territory, thereby implying the disputable status of Nagorno-Karabakh (CSTO Secretary General on Assistance to Armenia, 2020). Subsequently Putin referred as well to the alliance nonintervention in the conflict claiming that the fighting did not take place at the territory under Armenia’s sovereignty (Interview of the President of Russia with Rossiya TV Channel, 2020). It is worth noting that even the declaration of a ceasefire on November 6 was the result of a tripartite agreement between Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan which provided

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the deployment of the Russian PF, without any involvement of CSTO or its multilateral PF (Mukhin, 2020). Furthermore, despite the appeal of Armenia in May 2021 to CSTO regarding the new border clashes with Azerbaijani troops, the alliance again failed to coordinate the positions of the member-states regarding the issue (Kuchera, 2021). The inability of the CSTO member-states to overcome internal disagreement and to formulate a consolidated support position is, to some extent, due to the fact that the majority of the regional alliance holds friendly relations with Yerevan’s principal enemy-Azerbaijan (Huseynov, 2020: 20). Furthermore, two CSTO states, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are members of another regional organization, the Turkey-led Turkic Council, which also includes, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.1 The membership in such organization seems to entail incompatibility with the politicalmilitary commitments of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan vis-à-vis Armenia. Thus, for instance, during the recent informal summit of the Turkic Council the member-states commended “the liberation of territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan from military occupation and welcoming the end of the Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict” (Turkistan Declaration, 2021). Additionally, Nur-Sultan extended the bilateral cooperation with Ankara and according to the report in the Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah (Kazakh Envoy Highlights Special Relations with Turkey, 2020) signed in September 2018 the “Military Cooperation Agreement” and the “Mutual Protection Agreement for the Classified Information in the Military Field” with the Turkish government. Additionally, in 2016 Kazakhstan together with Russia conducted trilateral military exercise with the Azerbaijani armed forces (Klein, 2019). Belarus, striving to reduce Russia’s monopoly as a gas and oil supplier, began to develop ties with Azerbaijan to ensure an alternative source of resources supply. Following the economic cooperation, both countries developed also security ties and the Belarusian weapon industries supplied weapon to the Azerbaijani military. Despite the criticism voiced in Armenia, Lukashenko did not change his position stating (Gronsky, 2019: 444): Our independence and our sovereignty, unfortunately, today are dependent on energy supplies - we have such an economy… You [Azerbaijan] just 1 The Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States (Turkic Council) is a regional intergovernmental organization, which was established in 2009 for the purpose of strengthening the cooperation among Turkic speaking countries.

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protected us and saved our independence and sovereignty. Whatever they say to me about our relations with Azerbaijan, including in CSTO, in other structures, you are the country that in difficult times gave us its shoulder. So, we must help you too.

During the Armenian–Azerbaijani hostilities in April 2016, the Belarusian government declared its commitment to the inviolability of international borders and territorial integrity, actually supported Azerbaijan, which claims restoration of its sovereignty over all the territories that belonged to the former Soviet Azerbaijani republic. Such official declaration drew sharp criticism from Yerevan. Moreover, in April 2016 Belarus approved a new military doctrine, which does not include an explicit option of sending forces to areas outside Belarus (Military Doctrine of the Republic of Belarus, 2016). On April 4, 2016 the state’s Defense Minister, Andrei Ravkov, commenting the state’s new military doctrine, among other things, said that “Belarus will never participate in hostilities abroad” (Daneiko, 2016). Such statement sent a clear message to Armenia, that Belarusian troops would not be participating in operations of CSTO in Caucasus, thereby further undermining the reliability of CSTO as a defense provider (Bohdan & Isaev, 2016: 19–20). The new doctrine caused an irritation among the CSTO allies, especially in Armenia. In this respect, on April 15, 2016 Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Shavarsh Kocharyan stated: The new military doctrine of Belarus raises concerns of Armenia as a member of CSTO. This doctrine is a problem not only for Armenia, but also for CSTO. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia on Belarus Military Doctrine, 2016)

Even Russia, Armenia’s closest ally, for years refrained to openly side with Armenia in its territorial conflict with Azerbaijan. As a dominant player in the region, it is important for Russia to maintain friendly relations with both conflicting parties. In fact, notwithstanding its commitments to Armenia’s defense within the framework of CSTO, Moscow considers Azerbaijan as a strategic partner (Isachenko, 2020: 3). Furthermore, as part of such policy, and despite the frustration of Yerevan, Russia sells weapon to both belligerent sides. For instance, at the end of the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh in April 2016, the Russian Prime Minister

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Medvedev said that Russia would continue to sell arms to both Azerbaijan and Armenia (Medvedev Explained the Supply of Weapons to Armenia and Azerbaijan, 2016). In response, Armenia’s Prime Minister Abrahamyan criticized such Russian position noting that: Russia is our strategic partner, and our people find it painful that Russia sells weapons to aggressor Azerbaijan.

Similarly, President Sargsyan decried the Russian–Azerbaijani military ties claiming: Russia is our strategic partner; we have a strategic agreement with Russia. At the same time, we also always openly say that we are against the sale of weapons by Russia to Azerbaijan. (Zholkver, 2016)

Indeed, Armenia considers Russia as a strategic important ally and both countries maintain strategic relationship. There is a significant Russian military presence at the territory of the republic aiming at strengthening its defense: 102nd military base of the southern military district of the Russian armed forces, which was established in the city of Gyumri and includes ground as well as air forces (Matter of Survival, 2020). Along with the 5th army corps of the Armenian military, the 102nd military base of Russia is included in JGF-CR (Makienko, 2020: 28). Additionally, the Russian border troops assist in protection of the borders with Iran and Turkey. They are deployed in four areas: Gyumri, Armavir, Artashat, Meghri and Erevan international airport (Makienko, 2020: 28). In view of the foregoing, Armenia seems to be frustrated from the lack of consolidated support of the allies. It should be noted, however, that such conduct of the allies is not unusual: Erevan also demonstrates shallow effectiveness regarding security interests of the CSTO partners. For example, due to its predominantly preoccupation with the Azerbaijani security threat, it is hardly possible that Armenia would militarily support the Central Asian CSTO members in case of invasion of terrorist organizations from Afghanistan. Not less importantly, in light of the military and political dominance of Moscow in the region and given the inability of the allies to cooperatively respond to Armenia’s security interests and needs, the multilateral framework of cooperation, i.e., CSTO seems to be outweighed by the bilateral basis of the Russian–Armenia military relations. Therefore, CSTO could be regarded as a ceremonial aspect of

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Armenian–Russian relations with more weight being given to bilateral military cooperation, i.e., JCF-CR. (Shirinyan, 2017). It is worth noting, however, that in this regard Armenia in not an exception. As pointed out by Dubovtsev (2018: 160), military cooperation with RF is of particular importance for other CSTO member-states as well.

NATO Expansion and American Military Presence The concern of NATO eastward expansion and American military presence in post-Soviet Eurasia is mostly associated with Russia and Belarus, which are geographically located in close proximity to NATO states. Such concern arose as early as at the end of the Soviet era and were discussed several times in meetings between the Americans and the Soviets. In a number of these meetings, Moscow has received security assurances against NATO expansion. For instance, during the meeting between the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the United States. Secretary of State James Baker, the American senior representative ruled out the possibility of expansion of the North Atlantic alliance to the east: We understand the need for assurances to the countries in the East. If we maintain the presence in Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east. (Memorandum of Conversation, 1990)

It should be noted, however, that immediately after the end of the Cold War NATO was not perceived by Moscow as a threat. In 1991 Russia joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. In 1997 the EuroAtlantic Partnership Council was established, which as a dialog forum brought together the NATO members and partner countries in the EuroAtlantic area. Subsequently, in 1994 Moscow joined the Partnership for Peace program (PfP) and at the end of 1990s even deployed peacekeepers in Balkans to support the NATO-led operation. Furthermore, in May 1997 NATO and Russian Federation signed in Paris the “Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security,” which provided the formal framework for bilateral relations. After the start of the USled operation against Al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, the Russia–NATO cooperation even further intensified with the establishment in 2002 of NATO–Russia Council (NRC) as the consultation forum (Relations with Russia, 2020).

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As Klaus von Beyme (2016: 43–44) wrote, however, Russia’s security concept has changed over the years from a NATO-oriented concept to a rejection of western institutions. While in 1990s Russia was ready “to learn” from NATO, in the middle of the first decade of the 2000s Russia adopted the perception of NATO as a threat. Such change in Russia–NATO relations can be, to a large extent, associated with the expansion of the North Atlantic alliance to the east. From the end of the 90s Russia faced a phenomena that Trenin (2009: 72) called the “growing NATOization” of the European security architecture with former members of the Warsaw Pact as well as former Soviet republics joining NATO. In 1999 the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined the alliance and in 2004 they were followed by Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia (NATO Member Countries, 2020). Additionally, the plans of Bush’s administration to deploy antimissile systems in Czech Republic and Poland caused outrage in Moscow. Russia’s aggressive actions against Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 and the rapprochement of these countries with NATO were another contribution to the deterioration of Russia–NATO relations. Russia’s position on NATO and the Western military presence is vividly reflected in the following Putin’s statement: Now, as you know, there is no Soviet Union, there is no Warsaw Pact, that is, the military pact that was created in response to the creation of NATO, but NATO not only exists, but is also developing. At the time of its creation, the alliance included 12 states, now there are already 29… Today we are obliged to proceed from the assumption that the expansion of NATO, the development of its military infrastructure near the Russian borders is one of the potential threats to the security of our country. (Putin Called NATO Expansion a Potential Threat, 2019)

Similar critic was expressed by the former Prime Minister, Medvedev, which declared: We are a large country, we are a nuclear country, and the desire to poke NATO bases in our immediate surroundings cannot evoke positive emotions in us. (Medvedev on Readiness to Respond to the Deployment of NATO Bases Near Russia, 2019)

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Furthermore, NATO threat is also reflected in the Military Doctrine of RF (2014) and in Russia’s National Security Strategy ratified in 2015, which stipulated as follows: Building up the military potential of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and endowing it with global functions, implemented in violation of international law, intensifying the military activities of the bloc countries, further expanding the alliance, and bringing its military infrastructure closer to Russian borders pose a threat to the national security. (National Security Strategy of Russian Federation, 2015: Chapter II)

Thus, for Russia guided by this threat perception, the most important task in relations with the former Soviet republics is to counteract in respect of the spread of foreign—primarily American—influence (Trenin, 2009: 15). In this regard, as already mentioned in Chapter 1, Russia perceives CSTO encompassing the member-states in three different parts of post-Soviet Eurasia, Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia as an instrument for preventing the entrance of NATO and US military presence in its historical backyard—post-Soviet Eurasia. As noted in Chapter 5, to address such concern de-jure the allies are obliged to conduct consultations with other CSTO members prior to deployment of foreign troops and/or infrastructure. This fear found de-facto understanding in Kyrgyzstan, which as abovementioned, in 2014 closed the American airbase at Manas Airport. Moreover, the Russian concern about NATO’s expansion was shared also by Belarus. The bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO countries in 1990s, as well as the expansion of the military alliance to the east, caused concern in Minsk (Porotnikov, 2020: 12). The state’s military doctrine of 2002 was written, inter alia, to address the NATO intervention in the former Yugoslavia and the alliance’s eastward enlargement in Central and Eastern Europe (Sivitsky, 2020). The same threat appeared in the new version of the national military doctrine approved in 2016: Expansion (creation) in the European region of military-political alliances, which do not include the Republic of Belarus, or their assignment of global functions. (Military Doctrine of the Republic of Belarus, 2016: Chapter 4)

Therefore, the military cooperation with Moscow was seen as a security guarantee for the republic, located in proximity to the NATO’s memberstates—Poland and the Baltic countries. As for Russia, from its point of

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view, Belarus became an important “buffer” state, contributing to defense of Russia’s western strategic direction, particularly regarding the Kaliningrad exclave (Sivitsky, 2020). Based on the shared security interest, both countries established in 1999 the joint group of forces, which as abovementioned, was later transformed to JGF-EER within CSTO. Currently, this military formation consists of all ground and SF units of the Belarusian military as well as the 1st tank Army of the Russian Western military district. The unified air defense system of JGF-EER provided Russia with early warning of threats from the west. This allowed Belarus to use for defense of its territory not only the limited capabilities of the national air force and air defense, but also the Russian air force capabilities (Makienko, 2020: 51). It should be noted that recently the Belarusian leader, Lukashenko, asked Russia to support the Belarusian air force with Russian aircraft. According to Lukashenko, such step is necessary in view of the regularly approaching aircraft of the North Atlantic alliance to the borders of the republic (Ermolov, 2021). It seems, however, that other CSTO members did not perceive negatively cooperation with western institutions such as the US-led NATO. Despite the fact that at the declarative level the CSTO states expressed concern about NATO’s eastward enlargement, in practice, they are interested in maintaining and even tightening the relations with the alliance and its members (Declaration of the Moscow Session of the CSC of CSTO, 2008). Although such states as, for example, Armenia and Kazakhstan do not strive to join the Western alliance thereby crossing a “red line” from Moscow’s view, they cultivate relations with the West, in general and with NATO, in particular. Notwithstanding its dependence on Russia in political, military and economic fields, Erevan conducts independent multi-vector policy, that one of the layers thereof is development of relations with NATO as well as the bilateral defense cooperation with NATO states. Accordingly, in view of the complicated geo-strategic situation Armenia manages the policy of complementarity which is designated to elevate its strategic significance to the West, without jeopardizing its value as Russia’s only reliable ally in the Caucasian region (Giragosian, 2014: 3). Thus, the state acted to develop relations with NATO as well as to deepen bilateral cooperation with individual NATO members (Shirinyan, 2019: 23). In 1994 Armenia joined the NATO’s PfP program. Since 2002 it takes part in the PfP Planning and Review Process (PARP) helping the Armenian military to develop the ability to work with NATO forces on operations. Moreover, Armenia contributes forces to

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NATO peacekeeping operations: since 2004 the Armenian unites began to participate in NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR) and since 2014 the state supported the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan (Relations with Armenia, 2020). Moreover, in July 2018 Prime Minister Pashinyan attended the NATO summit in Brussels (Goble, 2018). In course of the final declaration of the summit, the heads of the NATO member-states expressed commitment to “the territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty of Armenia” (Brussels Summit Declaration, 2018). Additionally, Erevan maintains bilateral security relations with the United States, Germany, Greece and Poland. Washington, for instance, helps the country to implement defense reforms and to strengthen military capabilities by military training, education and provision of defense weapons and equipment (Shirinyan, 2019: 23). The same applies to the conduct of Kazakhstan. In 2002 it became a first country in the Central Asian region to get access to PARP (McDermott, 2012: 5). The participation in PARP helped to develop the interoperability between unites of the Kazakh military and those of NATO forces. In December 2007 Kazakhstan’s PfP Training Centre (KAZCENT) was accredited by the alliance as a Partnership Training and Education Centre. Since 2006, in cooperation with NATO allies, Nur-Sultan has hosted annual military exercises called “Steppe Eagle” (Relations with Kazakhstan, 2019). Moreover, the desire to conduct joint exercises with NATO countries to share experience in planning, conducting and comprehensive support of anti-terrorist and peacekeeping operations is incorporated in the military doctrine of Kazakhstan (2017: 3.3.3). Beyond the ties with NATO, Kazakhstan has also developed bilateral ties with the United States and other members of the North Atlantic alliance. As the Kazakh Foreign Minister Tleuberdi declared, Nur-Sultan and Washington have an expended strategic partnership, including in security field, and the US government demonstrates “consistent support” of Kazakhstan’s independence and sovereignty” (Cooperation Between Kazakhstan and the United States, 2020). According to the Kazakh political scientist Satpayev (2020), the relations with Washington were perceived by Kazakh decision-makers as an additional guarantor of its sovereignty, especially after the withdrawal of nuclear weapons. In this respect, Kazakhstan’s multi-vector policy could be also based on the interest of to some extent decreasing the dependence on Russia. Nevertheless, from Moscow’s perspective a development of politicalmilitary cooperation between its CSTO allies and Western partners seems

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incompatible. First of all, such conduct of Armenia and Kazakhstan, reflects a contradiction between developing partnership with NATO, which defined Russia’s actions as “aggressive” and constituting “a threat to Euro-Atlantic security” (NATO Foreign Ministerial Statement, 2021) and a membership in Russia-led military alliance. Moreover, the Armenia’s and Kazakhstan’s policies regarding cooperation with NATO and its member-states contradicts the Russian strategic interest of preventing entrance of NATO and the USA, in particular, in Russia’s “near abroad.” Consequently, NATO’s cooperation with the former Soviet republics increased in Moscow the fears of encirclement (Einkreisungsängste) (von Beyme, 2016: 78).

Allies (Un)Support of Russia’s Political-Military Activity Putin’s rise to power in the early 2000s marked a change in RF foreign policy. In contrast to Yeltsin’s period, Russia began to pursue a more active policy in the international arena. The outcome of this policy was Russia’s participation in two armed conflicts in post-Soviet Eurasia, which entailed significant changes in the territorial status quo in the South Caucasus region and in Ukraine. During the five-day hostilities in August 2008 the Russian military managed to repulse the Georgian forces out of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and advanced until 40 kilometers of Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi. In the same month Russia recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Few years later, in March 2014, following the change of power in Kyiv, that in the course thereof President Yanukovych has escaped to Russia and the West-oriented political forces established a new Ukrainian government, Russia annexed Ukrainian Crimea. Furthermore, the Russian government started to provide active military and economic support to separatists’ forces in East Ukraine, which established the self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk regions (DPR—Donetsk People’s Republic and LPR—Luhansk People’s Republic). It is worth noting that the Russian–Georgian and Russia–Ukrainian conflicts in general and the Moscow’s consequent decisions regarding Crimea, East Ukraine, South Ossetia and Abkhazia in particular have been linked to Russia’s fears of encirclement by NATO. During the conflict, Americans launched the operation “Assured Delivery” and supported Tbilisi with relief supplies from the United States. Military base in

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Germany, Ramstein. Russia interpreted the American support of Georgia as an attempt to expand NATO’s presence in Georgia, which in 2003 declared its intention to be integrated in the North Atlantic alliance (von Beyme, 2016: 77). Similarly, as stated by Putin, Russia’s decision to annex Crimea is also linked to the threat of Ukraine joining NATO: When military infrastructure [of NATO] approaches our borders, we must respond. (Putin on the Decision on Crimea 2014)

Similar position was voiced by the Russian leader in Fox News interview in July 2018. Speaking of possible entry of either Ukraine or Georgia to NATO Putin said: For us, well, it’s a direct and immediate threat for our national security…moving this NATO infrastructure towards our borders would be a threat, and…the reaction would be extremely negative. (Pappas, 2018)

Additionally, Kyiv’s close cooperation with NATO and the recent approval by Ukraine’s President Zelensky of the National Security Strategy, pursuant to which a membership in NATO is one of the main goals of the state, contributed to Russia’s fear from NATO’s enlargement (Decree of the President of Ukraine, 2021). At the same time, in course of the Russian–Georgian war CSTO showed only partial effectiveness. On the one hand, the CSTO members demonstrated a consolidated position condemning Georgia for aggression and supporting Russia’s actions. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the requests of Moscow CSTO for political support for its decisions on recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the allies refused to provide such support. The allies only issued a brief statement which they supported Russia’s active role in promoting peace and cooperation in the region and advocated for lasting security for South Ossetia and Abkhazia (Declaration of the Moscow Session of the CSC of CSTO, 2008). In these circumstances, the then President of Russia, Medvedev, had no choice but to issue a laconic diplomatic message stating that “all CSTO members will determine their positions independently, guided by their national interests” (Dmitry Medvedev: Russia Is Ready to Defend Its Interests More Rigidly, 2008). The position of the countries against the recognition of the independence of the republics was preserved in the post-war period, implying,

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inter alia, the adherence to the principle of territorial integrity of Georgia, supported by the Western states and the UN. One of the recent examples of such support is the NATO’s General Secretary, Stoltenberg, call on Russia to end the recognition of the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (NATO Urged Russia to End Recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, 2021). In this regard, such attitude of the CSTO states to the Russian political-military activity could also be seen as reluctance to be involved in the Moscow’s confrontation with the West. After the end of hostilities, Minsk refused to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, although this issue was repeatedly discussed between Putin and Lukashenko (Makienko, 2020: 52–53). Moreover, after the war Minsk strived to strengthen the economic relations with Tbilisi reiterating its position regarding unrecognition of both breakaway republics (Gamtsemlidze, 2015). Armenia explained its position by implications of such step on the status of the disputed area of Nagorno-Karabakh (Armenia did not recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, 2011). Furthermore, similarly to other Central Asia members of CSTO, Kyrgyzstan does not recognizethe independence of the separatist entities (Makienko, 2020: 129).2 The same applied to the issue of Crimea. None of the CSTO memberstates have recognized the annexation of Crimea by Russia. For instance, Kazakhstan has not recognized Crimea as a Russian territory, although the Kazakhstani President Tokayev refused to define accession of the peninsula to Russia as annexation (Apuleev, 2019). Lukashenko explained his refusal to recognize the Russian Crimea arguing that Belarus is one of the signatories of the Budapest Memorandum, which ensures, among other things, the territorial integrity of Ukraine (Lukashenko Explained Why He Did Not Recognize Crimea as Russian, 2019).3 He even disrespected Russia’s justifications of this action. In an interview few months after Russia’s takeover of Crimea he said: 2 Currently the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is recognized by the following countries which have no relation to post-Soviet Eurasia: Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru and Syria. 3 The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances is an international agreement

signed on December 5, 1994. Pursuant to the document RG, the USA and the Great Britain, inter alia, reaffirmed the commitments vis-à-vis Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan to respect their independence and sovereignty at the existing borders of three former Soviet republics in exchange for their commitment to eliminate all nuclear arsenals from their territories.

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Many say that Crimea once incorrectly belonged to Ukraine, that this is a primordially Russian territory, and so on. This is a wrong approach. Well, then let’s go back to the times of the Mongol-Tatar yoke… Then it will be necessary to give Kazakhstan, Mongolia or someone else practically the entire territory of Russia, Western Europe, Eastern Europe. (Anikina, 2014)

At the same time, according to the analysis of the CSTO countries voting in the UN General Assembly on anti-Russian resolutions regarding the status of Crimea and the actions of RF in the peninsula in the years 2014–2019 conducted by Makienko (2020: 159), Armenia and Belarus consistently opposed such resolutions. With respect to Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, they have mostly abstained or been absent from voting. Obviously, the allies’ lack of support is causing dissatisfaction in Moscow. For instance, in December 2018 the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia called the decision of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan to abstain from voting on the issue of the militarization of Crimea as annoying (Akhmet, 2018). Consequently, speaking during the session of the CSTO’s CSC in November 2019 in Bishkek, Putin called on “to expand the member-states’ foreign policy coordination on important matters of international and regional security, to develop joint political and diplomatic initiatives” (Press Release on Russia’s CSTO Chairmanship, 2019). In view of the foregoing, the CSTO member-states demonstrate very low effectiveness. As the abovementioned examples showed, in contrast to the commitments provided in CST and the CSTO Charter regarding the collective defense and coordination of foreign policies, the member-states have a difficulty to overcome their internal disagreements and to cooperatively respond to the interests and needs of the allies in these important spheres.

Discussing the CSTO Cooperation Pattern The low effectiveness of the allies indicates that the de jure agreed upon by the CSTO states consultation mechanism did not contribute in reality to overcoming internal disagreements among them. This funding is supported by Bohdan and Isaev’s (2016: 19) following conclusion:

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…as in the case with almost all other post-Soviet international organizations and initiatives, status and actual function (or rather disfunction) of this organization cast doubt on its capability to coordinate and, hence, influence its members’ policies.

The low effectiveness of the military alliance indicates the propensity of the members to defection from cooperation, thereby obtaining immediate pay offs, whether economic, political or security gains such as holding and strengthening the relations with NATO, Turkey and Azerbaijan. Therefore, the tendency to defect from cooperation is resulting from different and sometimes conflicting interests and goals pursued by the CSTO member. Accordingly, the diversity of interests of the memberstates created a cooperation problem signifying the social situation of Collaboration. Guided by striving to preserve political sovereignty in the field of security and international relations, the members regard the cooperation in the multilateral security institution as suboptimal. In other words, the six post-Soviet member-states of the military alliance prioritize national interests, incorporated in their multi-vector policies, over commitments to the allies. Thus, an immediate payoff, i.e., achievement of policy objectives is preferred over a long-term benefit from cooperation. Consequently, the cooperation in CSTO is resulting in a shallow integration, in which states are not ready to forfeit their sovereignty and delegate some of their national powers to a central independent body of the alliance, such as secretariat. The shallow integration of the allies manifest itself, for instance, in the state’s preference not to forfeit control over national units contributed to the CSTO collective forces, thereby preserving sovereignty on decisions regarding deployment and use of the armed forces according to national interests. One should recall that all the members of the military alliance are predominantly non-democratic and autocratic. While they are heterogeneous in terms in which their polity is organized, they all share the sensitivity in respect of their political independence and are concerned about interference in their domestic affairs. As Allison (2008: 186) stated referring to the Central Asian countries: The pride of place held by sovereignty in the thinking of Central Asian leaders is not merely a feature of the search for national identity. It also characterizes their approach to political power more generally, which helps explain their disinclination to cooperate deeply on a regional basis…

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In essence these leaderships maintain centralized state institutions and focus on political control rather than political negotiation… Presidents, who are unwilling to share domestic political power with other actors through a more pluralistic system, or even subject themselves to parliamentary scrutiny, seen no more ready to share power internationally through pooling some elements of their jealously guarded state sovereignty.

It should be noted that these conclusions are true not only for the Central Asian states, but also for other CSTO members such as Belarus and Russia, whose leaders, Lukashenko and Putin, have established centralized autocratic regimes and harshly suppressed opposition forces. As to Armenia, the protest movement of 2018 started transition of the country to liberalization by granting opposition political groups significantly more freedom to act. It seems, however, that this development inside the Caucasian country had by now no effect on the pattern of cooperation among the autocratic CSTO allies. Moreover, the abovementioned implies that the non-democratic political regimes of the states affect also the effectiveness of the regional military alliance. According to the common assumption in scholarly literature, in contrast to democracies, non-democratic states are more prone not to respect their commitments (Obydenkova & Libman, 2019: 25). According to Fearon (1994: 581) such difference is derived from characteristics of two types of regime. In democracies a foreign policy is made by leaders on behalf of voters who can punish them if they violate commitments. On the other hand, in non-democracies a foreign policy is made by leaders, which are not constrained by the domestic public opinion, political opposition and mass media. The cooperation in multilateral institution is, however, relies on the ability of the respective members to respect undertaken commitments and responsiveness to interests, preferences and needs of each other. Consequently, a low readiness to respect commitments affects the readiness to cooperate. According to Obydenkova and Libman (2019: 25), such correlation is especially evident in situations in which costs of cooperation are quite high. For example, if a regional organization imposes restrictions on the ability of members to conduct independent foreign policy, the willingness of partners to cooperate will decrease. Such features of cooperation seem to characterize also other case studies of non-western regional organizations such as BRICS group composed by the five major emerging countries—Brazil, Russia, India,

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China and South Africa. As former US President Barak Obama (2020: 339) pointed out: For the BRICS, responsible foreign policy meant tending to one’s own affairs. They abided by the established rules only insofar as their own interests advanced, out of necessity rather than conviction, and they appeared happy to violate them when they thought they could get away with it. If they assisted another country, they preferred to do so on bilateral basis, expecting some benefit in return.

Indeed, the cooperation in CSTO is influenced by bilaterality rather than by multilateral basis of intra-alliance relations. Moreover, while the bilateral cooperation focuses on issues regional security, the multilateral cooperation concentrates on issues which are less costly for non-democratic regimes in terms of commitments restricting their sovereignty, such as training and weapons procurement (Obydenkova & Libman, 2019: 25). Providing regional security is based on bilateral agreements between Russia and Armenia (JGF-CR) and Russia and Belarus (JCF-EER). CSTO members do not share common security threats. Under these conditions, each of the CSTO member-states strives to independently determine its own hierarchy of threats and security challenges, which may, to a large extent, differ from the hierarchy chosen by other states (Zakharov, 2010). Since the allies demonstrate low effectiveness and propensity to defect from cooperation, the solution was to establish separate regional armed groups designated to meet the defense needs of specific members of CSTO. The creation of different security regions caused CSTO, similarly to other institutions of regional cooperation in post-Soviet Eurasia, to be characterized by geographical scattering. Therefore, the bilateral agreements assured the cooperation of the states. Russia, as a dominant regional player was interested in such bilateral cooperation as it serves as an additional mean for influence in these parts of post-Soviet Eurasia and allowed military presence of Russian armed forces in Armenia and Belarus. Moreover, as abovementioned, Russia shares Belarusian concerns from NATO eastward enlargement. As for Erevan and Minsk, the military cooperation with such powerful state in the region constitutes an essential contribution to their defense. Both regional armed formations were incorporated into the collective defense system of the military alliance. It should be noted that although CRDF is a multilateral formation including military forces of Russia Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, it can

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be also regarded as a regional armed formation whose establishment followed the same logic of addressing the alliance’s low effectiveness and defection inclination of its member-states (Agreement on the Collective Rapid Deployment Force of the Central Asian Collective Security Region, 2006). Given the Belarusian military doctrine, which does not include an explicit option of sending the national forces abroad and preoccupation of the relative weak Armenian military with the Azerbaijani threat, it seems unlikely that both countries would allocate forces for participation in defense of the Central Asian allies. At the same time, Russian and three Central Asian allies share a comment perception of threats, such as terrorism and narcotrafficking, emanating from Afghanistan. Furthermore, in view of the relative weakness of Tajikistani and Kyrgyz armed forces Russia act as the primary guarantor of security and stability in this part of the region (Szálkai, 2020). It can be assumed that in light of the plans of the United States and other NATO countries to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021 which potentially would cause to further deterioration of the security situation in the country, such role of Russia will become even more significant (Gibbons-Neff et al., 2021). Accordingly, for Russia the CSTO offered a platform to promote its international standing as a security manager in Central Asia (Allison, 2008: 193). As for Central Asia countries, such military support shall be deemed a key component of their national defense. Consequently, all five CSTO members assign more value to cooperation with Russia rather than with each other. Their motivation to cooperate with Russia within CSTO is also derived from an interest to acquire modern weapons at reduced prices or even without consideration and to obtain military training and education for national armed forces. Thus, the former General Secretary of the alliance, Nikolay Bordyuzha, noted that for instance in 2014 the CSTO countries purchased from Russia under a preferential agreement, i.e., with a large discount, weapons and military equipment for more than 650 million US dollars (Bordyuzha: CSTO Countries Bought Weapons at Discounted Prices, 2015). Furthermore, Russia supplied its CSTO partners, Armenia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, new Su-30SM aircraft not at export prices but at domestic Russian prices (Safronov, 2019). In 2016, Russia provided Armenia with two concessional loans for the purchase of weapons in the amount of 300 million US dollars (Makienko, 2020: 18). In 2019 after the completion of the joint exercise “Indestructible Brotherhood” of the CSTO member countries in Tajikistan, Moscow donated to Dushanbe a radar station

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for monitoring of airspace and modernized armored reconnaissance and patrol vehicles BRDM-2M (Russia Donated Weapons to Tajikistan for 320 Million Rubles, 2019). In the same year, Russia donated to Tajikistan air defense systems (Russia Donated Air Defense Systems for 9 Million US Dollars, 2019). As to Moscow, it deems such cooperation as another means to create and deepen one-sided dependencies on it and as the instrument to project its influence in post-Soviet Eurasia (Klein, 2019: 24). For example, in 2013 RF agreed to provide military assistance to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the amount of 1.1 billion US dollars and 200 million US dollars, respectively. One of the goals of such Russian assistance was to increase its regional influence, thereby preventing the entrance of NATO and American military presence in the region (Safronov et al., 2013). Therefore, by providing material assistance to the armed forces of the Central Asian allies or supplying weapons at reduced prices to other CSTO partners, Moscow strives to preserve the Russia-dominated security governance in post-Soviet Eurasia. The possibility of weapons procurement at discounted prices could be also regarded as an expression of free riding by the five CSTO members: thus, each state benefits the cooperative multilateral framework of the alliance, without fulfilling the formal obligations, be it coordination of foreign policy, cooperative responding to Russia’s concerns about NATO enlargement etc. In other words, they seek to maximize economic benefits with minimal political commitments (Zakharov, 2010). Such strategy can last as long as other member-states, first of all Russia, continue to sustain the cooperation within the alliance. The potential solution for such problem could be a strategy of increasing a shadow of future, according to which immediate pay offs of defection will be offset by long-run pay offs of cooperation. Such strategy could be reasonable from Russia’s point of view, which may use its economic-military support and substantially contribution to the defense of the allies as leverage vi-a-vis its partners that prone to defect from cooperation. Nevertheless, it seems that despite the problems of low effectiveness and free riding, Russia is not interested to increase a shadow of future by, for example, a threat to withdraw its military support or deny military-economic the benefits of cooperation. Such strategy, however, could potentially jeopardize the very existence of CSTO, and therefore Russia seems to avoid friction with allies whenever possible. Such position was presented by Bordyuzha which stated the following:

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There is nothing strange here. We do not have a stick system as in NATO, where disobedience is followed by pressure, absolutely shameless. We do not have that. All our countries vote on the basis of their national interests, and this is normal. We are not dramatizing the situation. Of course, it would be great if they said “yes” or “no” together, but there is an agreement between the heads of state not to put pressure on each other in such matters. (Khimshiashvili, 2015)

Effect Examination of the CSTO effect on security of its members seems to be a challenging task. So far, the military alliance has not been involved in any crisis or armed conflict endangering the security and territorial integrity of any of its members. Thus, there is no empirical case that can be used to examine the question of whether the military alliance of six former Soviet republics enhances their national security. Furthermore, the gaps between the de-jure adopted institutional design and the de-facto performance demonstrates a weak (if any) effect of the alliance on the allies’ security. Without a doubt, the regional armed groups are supposed to enhance the security of the states, especially in Central Asia, which faces serious threats from unstable Afghanistan. The existence of these military formations, however, demonstrates rather the low effect of CSTO. These formations, based on bilateral agreements, indicate that interdependence among the allies, the most important premise for fruitful cooperation, is not significant. In other words, multilateralism is not regarded as an essential vector of intra-alliance cooperation. In each security region Russia and relevant CSTO members cooperate in the security field without involvement of the allies outside the bilateral agreement. Although such kind of cooperation deepens the one-sided dependencies of the states on Russia, it has no effect on development of multilateral dependencies. Additionally, in view of different interests of the states and in particular to each region’s security challenges, it seems difficult to forecast whether, for instance, the security arrangement suitable for challenges in the Western flank of CSTO could enhance, if necessary, the security of the states in Central Asia. It is worth noting that in December 2020 at the meeting of CSC, Putin called the situation in the CSTO space as “turbulent.” According to him, this was a result of the continuous political crisis since August 2020 in Belarus, the internal political instability in Kyrgyzstan following the parliamentary elections in October 2020 and

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Nagorno-Karabakh war in Autumn 2020 (Meeting of the Collective Security Council of CSTO, 2020). Nevertheless, so far, in view of these recent examples, we did not observe any contribution by the allies either to external or internal security of the relevant member-states. It should be noted that sometimes the CSTO’s possible contribution to the allies’ security is affected by adherence of the members to the principle of non-interference in their domestic affairs. In this regard, reference should be made to the border dispute between two members of the military alliance—Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. One of the recent manifestations of the ongoing border conflict between the two states was in May 2020 when during one of the clashes, the border troops of Tajikistan opened mortar fire in the direction of the Kyrgyz border guards and citizens of Kyrgyzstan. Afterwards, the CSTO General Secretary, Zas, urged allies to enter into a dialogue, refrain from the use of force as much as possible. The same declaration was issued by the Russian Foreign Minister, Lavrov. In the response, however, the Tajikistani Foreign Ministry issued the statement in which called the border dispute “internal affairs of states” which should be resolved on a bilateral basis, without interference of third parties (Mishchenko, 2020). Consequently, during the last military clashes on the Kyrgyz–Tajiki border in May 2021, given the abovementioned position of the Tajiki government, the CSTO’s General Secretary only said that “the CSTO is closely monitoring and studying the situation on the Tajik–Kyrgyz border” (cited in Umarov, 2021). It is also worth noting that the Russia’s aggression against Georgia and especially against Ukraine influenced the allies’ perception of Moscow as a security provider, thereby causing negative implication for the CSTOs ability to enhance the members’ security. The Ukrainian events showed the illusory nature of guarantees to respect independence and territorial integrity of the states given by RF (Porotnikov, 2020: 13). Additionally, the statements of Russian politicians did not help to reduce concerns among the Russia’s CSTO partners. Thus, for instance, in August 2014, a few months after the annexation of Crimea, Putin called the president of Kazakhstan, Nazarbayev, “a wise leader” because “he did a unique thing. He created a state on a territory where there was never a state. The Kazakhs did not have statehood.” It is needless to say that in view of the events in Ukraine, the Putin’s statements caused a resonance in Kazakhstan (Kalikulov, 2014). At the practical level, taking into account the warfighting pattern of the Russian forces in Ukraine, that heavily relayed on hybrid warfare tactics, the Kazakhstani government updated

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its military doctrine incorporating methods of such warfare as one of the threats to its national security (Military Doctrine of Kazakhstan, 2017: Chapter 2). Additionally, at the end of 2015 Nur-Sultan decided to strengthen its western border with Russia, deploying additional forces there (Makienko, 2020: 104). The Russian actions in Ukraine caused discomfort also in Minsk. In December 2019 Lukashenko discussing the possibility of the “Ukrainian scenario” stated: If Russia, well, suddenly, as some of us say, and even here, tries to violate our sovereignty, you know how not only the world community will react. (Krivosheev, 2019)

Therefore, as a result of the violation of Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty, a situation arose in which the countries began to fear their most important ally (Yakonchuk, 2019: 9). This dynamic has a potential in future to undermine the Moscow’s relations with the allies, which as abovementioned, have demonstrated sensitivity to their independence from Russia and opposed its attempts to intervene in their domestic affairs. Hence, potentially by its ongoing violation of the Ukrainian sovereignty or any aggressive policy regarding any other state in the region, Moscow may jeopardize the fragile cooperation within CSTO. At the same time, such implications of the Russian military activity may present an opportunity for the West to influence the political and military behavior of RF in post-Soviet Eurasia. Accordingly, the European countries and the USA, through the relations with several CSTO states, may manipulate Russia’s membership in the military alliance as a restraint factor to its aggressive behavior and actions.

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CHAPTER 8

Regional Security Governance in Post-Soviet Eurasia—Summary and Conclusions

This chapter is a concluding discussion on the main findings of the book. Our discussion proceeds as follows: First, we review the emergence of CIS, EAEU and CSTO representing different realms of regional governance in post-Soviet Eurasia and summarize our main findings regarding specific drivers for their establishment and features of cooperation within them; Secondly, we consider the cooperation pattern of the allies within CSTO and draw conclusions on the implications of the cooperation on the functioning of security governance in post-Soviet Eurasia. Finally, we discuss possible directions for conducting further research on the topic in the future. Our international system could be regarded as a system of regions (Katzenstein, 2005). Different regions, consisting of states with different interests and preferences, may have different features of regional governance, embedded in regional organizations. Following the logic of the rational choice theory of institutionalism, the diversity of states’ interests and preferences creates cooperation problems. Therefore, the specific form of cooperation within regional alliance reflects a functional response to common action problem confronted members of organization relating to interests and preferences of allies. In other words, an institution should provide a mechanism to overcome the cooperation problem. Accordingly, cooperation problems are essential for understanding of institutional features and pattern of cooperation. The interests and preferences of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 I. Davidzon, Regional Security Governance in Post-Soviet Eurasia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82886-8_8

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member-states of organizations, however, are not exogenous, but are shaped within the particular historical concept. Power distribution among states as well as their domestic political regimes may also play significant role in states’ preferences and subsequently in defining the cooperation pattern. The dissolution of the Soviet Union, one of the two superpowers of the Cold War period, marked the disruption of the geostrategic reality that existed since the end of the World War II. The factual defeat of the Moscow-led communist bloc caused fundamental transformations in the international arena in general and in East Europe, in particular. Moscow ceased to be a patron of its communist satellites-countries in socialist camp. These changes, however, were more substantial for the republics that were part of the USSR. The worsening of the social-economic condition in the USSR has led to the deterioration of the internal political stability within the state. Over the time, the control of the central communist government in Moscow over 15 republics that made up the Soviet state began to weaken whereas the demands of the republics for independence have become louder. The disintegration in 1991 of a single big country, however, meant for the countries not only reaching national independence. Not less important consequence of this historical process was the destruction of the preexisting political, security, economic ties among the former Soviet republics, which were characterized by the dominance of the old political center-Russia. Such ties destruction led to the significant complications for all spheres of life of the new established countries. Thus, at the transition stage the states were in a situation where new national economic, political and security systems did not effectively function, and the old economic relations were undermined. Accordingly, one can say that the dilemma between the considerations of preserving independence from Russia and the need, to certain extent, maintain the relations that developed during the Soviet period, arose already before and immediately after the USSR dissolution. Nevertheless, it should be noted that not all former Soviet republics have faced such dilemma: after independence proclamations the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, developed pro-western orientation striving to lessen dependence on Russia and to be integrated in the western regional projects—EU and NATO. It is worth noting, that such pro-western development path of the Baltic states had not only political complications for relations with RF and the West, but also influenced researchers’ efforts to define the region after the disappearance of the

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research topic of the Soviet Union as one geographical area. Therefore, for the purpose of the study of examination of the regional security governance of the former Soviet republics we adopted a concept of Eurasia referring specifically to the post-Soviet space concept of post-Soviet Eurasia geographically referring to the former twelve Soviet republics, without the three Baltic states. The dilemma between independence preservation and the need to maintain inter-state relations affected the development of the regional governance in post-Soviet Eurasia. In this respect CSTO does not demonstrate any “deviation” from CIS and EAEU, whose development has been affected by the same built-in tension. Notwithstanding the geopolitical shifts associated with the USSR outbreak, Moscow remained the most powerful state in the region in terms of political, military and economic power and continued to play a leading role in multilateral relations among the republics of the former Soviet Union. Therefore, a cooperation with Russia was perceived as valuable from the point of view of the states in post-Soviet Eurasia. At the same time, despite a clear interest to maintain beneficial relation with Moscow, the countries of the former USSR were not interested to take part in regional organizations with deep integration, thereby taking a risk of loss of some of their national powers to the organizations’ bodies dominated by powerful actor and consequently interference of Moscow in their internal affairs. Consequently, as noted, such tension between the interest to cooperate with Russia-led regional organizations and the reluctance to develop too close relations with them will have significant implications on the establishment of the post-Soviet Eurasian regional governance, in general and on the economy and security of the participating countries, in particular. In this respect, the CIS could be regarded as the first attempt to find a “formula” that will address the abovementioned tension between the dynamic of “civilized divorce,” the countries’ sensitivity to national independence and the need to cooperate through the Moscow-dominated cooperative structures. It is not surprising that such dilemma would affect in the subsequent years future efforts to establish in post-Soviet Eurasia regional governance in different realms. Although in contrast to CIS a smaller number of members in EAEU and CSTO have supposed to facilitate cooperation among their respective members, their sensitivity to independence also affected the inter-state dynamic within these organizations, thereby preventing deepening of interstate cooperation. As

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previously discussed, in the founding treaties of these regional organizations, in addition to striving to develop economic and military ties, such principles as strict respect of independence, respect for the national interests of the member-states, the priority of the states’ national legislation over decisions of multilateral institution, non-interference into the affairs falling within the national jurisdiction of the members are maintained. Consequently, such “formula” became a specific feature of the postSoviet Eurasian regional governance. As we already noted in Chapter 5, such particular feature corresponds with the findings regarding other non-western originations. Moreover, the comparison between CSTO and EAEU contributed to the understanding that the effect of the endogenous causal factors relating to the specific region could not be necessarily restricted to a specific realm of regional governance (or organization), such as security, but may shape regional organizations in other realms as well. The same historically rooted factors may influence interests and preferences of member-states participating in different economic, political, security institutions in a specific region. According to the abovementioned insights, such western military alliance as NATO, successful as it may be, which was established in the different, post-World War II historical context and is based on democratic values, cannot be a benchmark for analysis of the regional security institution in post-Soviet Eurasia. In this regard this book could be regarded as further contribution to the study of the non-western security regional governance. The uniqueness of the security governance in post-Soviet Eurasia, however, also lies in the fact that in contrast to the process of creation of the western military alliance, in which the allies strived to closer and deeper cooperation, the CSTO represent an opposite model, according to which the previously deeply integrated republics of the Soviet Union, had to maintain certain levels of security ties, on the one hand but were reluctant to develop closer and deeper level of cooperation, on the other hand. Moreover, also the differences in domestic political regimes of the members of the alliances play important role. Such features reflected not only the differences in the patterns of cooperation in each military alliance, but also influenced the relations among the most powerful members of NATO and CSTO, the USA and Russia and their allies. In the case of the North Atlantic alliance, its mainly democratic members share with Washington (the most significant provider of the collective defense, assuring the “nuclear umbrella”) the common liberal

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and democratic value base. Consequently, having sometimes disagreements regarding the way of cooperation, they are all interested in closer cooperation within NATO, which reflects common action problem of Cooperation. As to the post-Soviet Eurasian military alliance, although at the end of the Soviet era the democratization wave in the East European countries gave rise to the hope that countries of the former Soviet Union will follow suit, these expectations were not fulfilled (Fukuyama, 2019: 11). The six CSTO member-states demonstrate rather a political diversity, representing various forms in which their non-democratic domestic political regimes are organized. Therefore, lacking any ideational common base, the CSTO cooperation pattern is based on self-interests of the member-states. The diverse political and cultural-religious identities of the CSTO partners contributed to the emergence of different interests incorporated in the national multi-vector policies, thereby creating cooperation problem of Collaboration. Such problematic social situation is characterized by propensity of the allies to defect from cooperation within the alliance in order to obtain immediate pay offs reflected in their multi-vector policies. As a result, the adherence of the CSTO states to the multi-vector policies resulted in the low degree of the alliance’s effectiveness and conflict of interests among the allies. Moreover, the non-democratic members of the military alliance, sharing the sensitivity to their political independence and concern from interference in their domestic affairs, perceive multilateral cooperation, which may restrict their ability to conduct independent foreign and security policy, as suboptimal. Consequently, the CSTO states prefer to take part in a multilateral cooperation as long as it concerns issues that are less costly in terms of commitments restricting national sovereignty: weapons procurement from Russia based on preferential terms, education of military personal in the Russian military academies, joint trainings of units of the CSTO states etc. As to issues related to cooperation in the field of collective defense, such cooperation is characterized rather by bilaterality. The security arrangements between Russia and other five allies caused the practical division of CSTO into three separated security regions—East Europe (Russia–Belarus), Caucasus (Russia–Armenia) and Central Asia (Russia– Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan). In the case of other CSTO allies, the bilaterality is designated to preserve national power to set its own hierarchy of security threats and challenges, which may differ from the

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threat perceptions of the partners in other geographical areas. Therefore, such division seems not to be just a functional solution aiming to increase the fighting efficiency of the military alliance, but to a large extent, a necessity caused by the tendency of the member-states to prioritize their national interests over commitments to the allies, or in other words the allies’ inclination to defect from the multilateral cooperation. Thus, the inclination to defect from cooperation, deriving from different and sometimes conflicting interests and goals pursued by the CSTO member-states, generated in the field of collective defense the states’ onesided dependencies on Russia in each security region, without neither involvement of the allies from other regions nor demonstrating reliable commitments to provide, if necessary, military assistance to the states outside the specific security region. Such characteristic of regional security governance in post-Soviet Eurasia corresponds also with the insights of Buzan and Wæver (2012: 398) which treated the post-Soviet space as the regional security complex (RSC) “centered on a great power”— Russia. For Moscow, bilateral cooperation serves as an additional tool for preserving its regional dominance and prevention of entrance of western actors into the region. Furthermore, it should be noted that although Russia is interested in preserving of CSTO as one of the means for consolidation of post-Soviet Eurasia around its leadership, its unilateral conduct sometimes similar to other allies, as for instance was in the case of the sale of weapons to Armenia’s enemy, Azerbaijan, undermines the value of the multilateral cooperation therein. In this respect, as noted by Buzan and Wæver (2012: 411): Russia is in the same situation as the USA is in the Americas, not wanting to give up its unilateralism and therefore finding it hard to sell “multilateralism.”

Accordingly, the conduct of the former Soviet republics reveals the gaps between the de-jure adopted institutional design of CSTO and the defacto performance within it. Such inconsistency also indicates that while the formal institutional design tries, to some large, to emulate the features of cooperation among the NATO states, in practice the member-states conduct demonstrates the specific features of intra-alliance relations determined by the unique post-Soviet reality. In this regard, this regional security institution could be viewed as an institutionalized facade for pursuing and realization of the countries’ self-interests, in which the five

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allies are rather interested in maintenance of certain level of relationship with Russia then among themselves. Nevertheless, from Russia’s point of view the CSTO member-states performance and capabilities affect the reliability of the alliance as an instrument in its confrontation with the West. At the time of writing this book the world is observing the escalation of tensions between Russia and the West concerning the concentration of the Russian troops close to the border with Ukraine. The NATO’s General Secretary, Stoltenberg, defined Russia’s considerable military build-up as “unjustified, unexplained, and deeply concerning” (NATO Secretary General and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Discuss Russia’s Military Build-Up, 2021). Moreover, in Brussels summit of NATO in June 2021 (Brussels Summit Communiqué, 2021) the allies defined Russia’s aggressive actions as a threat to Euro-Atlantic security: Russia’s growing multi-domain military build-up, more assertive posture, novel military capabilities, and provocative activities, including near NATO borders, as well as its large-scale no-notice and snap exercises, the continued military build-up in Crimea, the deployment of modern dualcapable missiles in Kaliningrad, military integration with Belarus, and repeated violations of NATO Allied airspace, increasingly threaten the security of the Euro-Atlantic area and contribute to instability along NATO borders and beyond.

Given such tensions with the West, in his annual speech in April 2021 to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Parliament, Putin compared the situation in which his country found itself with the plot of Kipling’s “Jungle Book” stating that around Russia “is like around Shere Khan, all sorts of hyenas gather” (Message from Vladimir Putin to the Federal Assembly, 2021). Nevertheless, due to the objective military weakness of the CSTO member-states and low effectiveness of the alliance, this security organization could not be regarded as a post-Cold War version of WPO, which after the deterioration of relations after the end of World War II served the Soviet Union as antithesis to the US-led NATO. Furthermore, as noted by Gorenburg (2020): …because of the weakness of their military forces and in some cases because of political dysfunction and internal weakness, the other member states of the CSTO are of limited value to Russia as military allies. (Gorenburg, 2020)

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In sum, although CSTO provides Russia with multilateral platform influence projections on and military presence in the respective states, the allies insistence to conduct independent multi-vector policies and concern from Moscow’s possible interference in their internal affairs, does not allow a transformation of this regional security institution into Russia’s tool in its confrontation with the West. Thus, paraphrasing the famous statement of the Cold War period ascribed to Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, according to which NATO served three main political functions, namely to “Keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down!” (Wallander, 2000: 711), the CSTO represents only one function: Keep the Russians in, but not too close!

Possible Directions for Further Research We hope that our examination of regional security governance in post-Soviet Eurasia presents an opportunity for conducting further research works on the topic. The last Nagorno-Karabakh war draw the world’s attention to the emerging Russian–Turkish competition over influence in Caucasus and Central Asia. While in course of our discussion we referred to the issue of entrance of foreign actors in post-Soviet Eurasia, more researches in this regard should be made. For example, the increasing influence of Turkey could potentially undermine Russia’s leading role in the region and consequently affect the interests of some Central Asian CSTO allies to predominantly maintain the security ties with Moscow. Therefore, it would be useful to explore possible effect of Turkey’s intrusion in the region on the Russian dominance in post-Soviet Eurasia. What are the possible implications of the emerging Russia– Turkey competition on the Russia-led economic and security regional organizations, i.e., EAEU and CSTO? Furthermore, our book was, mainly, devoted to the study of the regional security governance in post-Soviet Eurasia. While we focused on the examination of the CSTO, as an example of the post-Soviet institutionalized arrangement, we argue that more researches, including comparative ones, regarding other regional organizations acting in postSoviet Eurasia would be beneficial. For instance, what is the difference between Russia-led regional organizations and GUAM in terms of institutional features, internal action problems of the respective members and consequently their effectiveness?

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Last but not the least. Despite the fact that our study of the postSoviet military alliance contributes to the understanding of the pattern of cooperation in the non-western military alliance, our findings are not exhaustive. More researches, especially from comparative perspective, are needed to be conducted. Such studies would enrich our knowledge regarding similarities and differences among non-western regional security in different parts of the world in terms of institutional design, cooperation patterns, effectiveness and effect, thereby further contributing to the shift of scholarly research attention from Eurocentrism trends in the study of regional security governance and alliances.

References Buzan, B., & Wæver, O. (2012). Regions and powers. The structure of international security. Cambridge University Press. Brussels summit communiqué. (2021, June 15). NATO. https://www.nato.int/ cps/en/natohq/news_185000.htm. Accessed 20 June 2021. Fukuyama, F. (2019). Identität. Wie der Verlust der Würde Unsere Demokratie Gefährdet. Hoffmann und Campe. Gorenburg, D. (2020, May 27). Russia and collective security: Why CSTO is no match for Warsaw pact. Russia Matters. https://www.russiamatters.org/ana lysis/russia-and-collective-security-why-csto-no-match-warsaw-pact. Accessed 21 April 2021. Katzenstein, P. (2005). A world of regions: Asia and Europe in the American imperium. Cornell University Press. Message from Vladimir Putin to the Federal Assembly. (2021, April 21). RIA Novosti. https://ria.ru/20210421/obraschenie-1729207067.html. Accessed 21 April 2021. NATO Secretary General and Ukrainian Foreign Minister discuss Russia’s military build-up. (2021, April 13). NATO. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/nat ohq/news_183008.htm. Accessed 21 April 2021. Wallander, C. A. (2000). Institutional assets and adaptability: NATO after the Cold War. International Organization, 54(4), 705–736.

Index

A Abiyev, Safar, 78 Abkhazia, 166–168 Acharya, Amitav, 4, 5, 90, 105 Agreement on the Adaptation, 130 Akayev, Askar, 121 Aksakov, Konstantin Sergeyevich, 40 Aliyev, Heydar, 117 Aliyev, Ilham, 51 Allison, Roy, 170, 173 Alma-Ata, 58, 74, 135 Al Qaeda, 161 American military presence, 154, 161, 174 Andijan, 84 Armavir, 160 Armenia, 2, 20, 38, 43, 44, 50, 53, 54, 59, 61, 62, 64, 66, 75–79, 81, 82, 97, 109, 115–119, 121, 124, 127, 129, 132, 138, 140, 145, 146, 154–161, 164–166, 168, 169, 171–173, 190. See also Erevan; military

Armenia-Azerbaijani conflict, 154, 155 Artashat, 160 Ashkhabad, 44 Assurance, 27, 32 Atambayev, Almazbek, 96 Australia, 63 AvtoVAZ, 56 Azerbaijan, 38, 44, 48, 50, 51, 53, 54, 75–78, 115–119, 155–160, 170, 190. See also Baku Azerbaijani-Turkish relations, 155 B Baker, James, 161 Bakiyev, Kurmanbek, 93, 121 Baku, 53, 75, 78, 117, 156, 157 balancing, 14, 52, 53 Baltic Fleet, 143 Baltic republics (states), 6, 39 Baltic Sea area, 38 bandwagoning , 14 Barnett, Michael, 21–23 Batken events, 122

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 I. Davidzon, Regional Security Governance in Post-Soviet Eurasia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82886-8

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196

INDEX

Batumi, 1 behavioral theories, 38 Belarus, 2, 20, 38, 43, 44, 49–51, 54–59, 61, 62, 64, 66, 74–77, 79, 81, 82, 92, 94, 98, 99, 109, 118, 119, 129–132, 133–136, 140, 141, 145, 146, 154, 156–159, 161, 163, 164, 168, 169, 171–173, 175, 191. See also Belorussian Military District; military; Minsk; North-Western operational-tactical command (NWOTC); Western operational-tactical command (WOTC) Belorussian Military District, 129 Belovezha Accords, 2, 44, 49, 129 Belovezhskaya Pushcha, 2 Bishkek, 62, 96, 120, 121, 123, 124, 156, 169 Black Sea Fleet, 52, 143 Bohdan, S., 129, 132, 134, 159, 169 Bordyuzha, Nikolay, 99, 173, 174 Brazil, 171 Brest, 131 BRICS group, 171 Brussels, 165, 191 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 39, 51 Budapest Memorandum, 168 Bulgaria, 162 burden-sharing, 31, 115 Bush, George, 162

C Canada, 3, 63 Caspian Sea Flotilla, 143 Catholic and Greek-Catholic movements, 50 Caucus area, 38 Center-2019, 92 Central Asia, 75, 76, 81, 82, 121, 123, 140, 154, 163, 168, 173, 175,

189, 192. See also Central Asian republics Central Asian republics, 50 CFE-1A Agreement, 130 Chan, Steve, 18, 19 Chatham House, 55 China, 41, 63, 96, 172 Christianity, 50. See also Catholic and Greek-Catholic movements; Christian Orthodox Christian Orthodox, 41, 50 Cohen, Saul, 39 Cold War, 3, 6, 15, 16, 31, 39, 111, 129, 130, 141, 161, 186, 192. See also new Cold War; West-East ideological confrontation Collaboration, 26, 27, 29, 30, 170, 189 collective defense, 8, 14, 16, 17, 19, 28, 30, 31, 76, 78, 80–82, 93, 95, 104, 105, 109, 112, 113, 118, 120, 123, 124, 127, 135, 143, 146, 169, 172, 188–190 Collective Rapid Deployment Forces of the Central Asian region (CRDF), 80, 83, 172 Collective Rapid Reaction Forces (CRRF), 80, 81, 83, 84 Collective Security Council (CSC), 77, 80, 83, 84, 96–98, 103, 156, 164, 167, 169, 175, 176 Collective Security Treaty (CST), 6, 76–79, 89, 93–96, 104 Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), 2–8, 17, 20, 21, 24, 28, 38, 42, 54, 73, 79–85, 89–100, 102–105, 109–115, 118–120, 123, 124, 126–130, 135, 138, 140, 143, 145, 146, 153–161, 163–165, 167–177, 185, 187–192 effect, 3, 8, 98, 153, 175, 188

INDEX

effectiveness, 3, 6, 8, 17, 90, 94, 153, 154, 160, 167, 169, 172, 189, 191 “holding-together” cooperation, 7 color revolutions, 83 Commitment problem, 27 Committee of Secretaries of Security Councils (CSSC), 83, 97, 98, 103 Common Economic Space (CES), 45, 46, 58, 59 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Alma-Ata Declaration, 44, 47, 48 Charter, 45, 47, 49, 75 “civilized divorce”, 45, 49, 187 Council of Heads of Government, 47 Council of Heads of States, 46 Economic Union Treaty, 46–48 heterogeneity, 50, 51, 154 Joint Armed Forces (JAF), 75 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), 1 constructivism, 21, 24 cooperation, 2–4, 6–8, 15, 17–21, 23–32, 38, 44–59, 61–64, 66, 73–79, 85, 89, 90, 92, 93, 95, 97–99, 101, 102, 105, 113, 114, 128, 146, 153, 154, 158, 160, 161, 163–167, 170–175, 177, 185–190, 193 Council of Defense Ministers (CDM), 75, 77, 80, 83, 97, 103 Council of Foreign Affairs Ministers (CFAM), 77, 83, 92, 97, 98, 103 Crimea, 30, 52, 113, 166–169, 176, 191 annexation, 30, 52, 168, 176 Customs Union (CU), 56, 58, 59 Czech Republic, 133, 162 D Daily Sabah, 158

197

delegation, 101, 102 Democratic Union Party (PYD), 113 Deutsch, Karl W., 3, 23 pluralistic security community, 23 Distribution problem, 27 Dodon, Igor, 52 Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), 166 Donetsk region, 166. See also Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Dugin, Alexander, 40, 41 Duma, 49, 143 Dushanbe, 80, 125, 128, 156, 173

E Eagle Defender, 113 East Germany, 141 East-West confrontation, 154 Echelon-2020, 83 economic realm, 37 Enforcement , 27 Erevan, 49, 53, 75, 81, 116–119, 129, 160, 164, 165, 172 Estonia, 6, 38, 44, 114, 162, 186 Eurasia, 5, 7, 39–42, 61–63, 116, 117, 121, 122, 126, 130, 131, 136, 137, 142, 143, 187 Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), 60 Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC), 56, 57, 59 Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), 3, 37, 38, 54, 55, 58–65, 66, 102, 103, 129, 154, 185, 187, 188, 192. See also economic realm; Intergovernmental Council Eurasianism, 40–42 “pragmatic” Eurasianism, 42 Eurasia, post-Soviet Eurasia, 2, 3, 7, 20, 37, 38, 42, 48, 53–55, 62, 73, 75, 79, 94, 99, 105, 109, 130, 161,

198

INDEX

163, 166, 168, 172, 174, 177, 185, 187, 188, 190, 192 Euro-Atlantic area, 161, 191 Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, 161 Eurocentric approach, 4 Europe, 1, 16, 23, 38–42, 53, 65, 94, 114, 129, 130, 154, 163, 169, 186, 189 Central, 1, 42, 53, 163 Eastern, 1, 23, 129, 163, 169 European Council, 1 European Union (EU), 6, 39, 45, 48, 51, 52, 63, 64, 66 Association agreement, 48, 52

F Fearon, James D., 171 Federal Assembly, 1, 191 Freedom House, 20, 50. See also Freedom in the World; Global Freedom Status Freedom in the World, 20, 51

G game-theoretic language, 26 Gaubatz, Kurt Taylor, 19 Gazprom, 62 geopolitical pluralism, 51, 154 Georgia, 1, 38, 39, 44, 50, 54, 76–78, 118, 162, 166–168, 176. See also Tbilisi Germany, 17, 30, 112, 114, 161, 165, 167 Berlin, 112 Global Freedom Status, 50 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 1, 43, 44, 161 failed coup attempt, 1, 44 “Perestroika”, 1

Gosudarstvenny Komitet po Chrezvychaynomu Polozhéniyu (GKChP), 43, 44 Gowa, Joanne, 15, 18 Grachev, Pavel, 144 Greece, 165 Gyumri, 160

H “Hanabad”, 84 Hopf, Ted, 21, 22, 24 Hungary, 133, 162 hybrid wars, 83

I ideational (critical) theories of geography, 4, 38, 40, 41, 189 Indestructible Brotherhood, 83, 173 India, 41, 42, 171 Intergovernmental Council, 60, 65 intergovernmentalism, 100 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 123, 127 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), 165 Iran, 119, 160 Tehran, 119 Islamic movements Islamic people, 40, 41 Shia, 50 Sunna, 50 Islamic Renaissance Party (IPR), 125 Islamists, 75–77, 121 by Islamic opposition, 75 Ismay, Hastings Lionel, 192 Izvestia, 65

J Jeenbekov, Sooronbay, 121 Johnston, Iain, 4, 90, 105

INDEX

Joint Group of Forces of Caucasus Region (JGF-CR), 81, 82, 160, 172 Joint Group of Forces of East European Region (JCF-EER), 82, 172 Joint Staff (JF), 80 K Kacowicz, Arie, 2 Kaliningrad, 164, 191 Kant airbase, 121 Kant, Emmanuel, 18, 80 Perpetual Peace, 18 Karimov, Islam, 77, 84 Kazakhstan, 2, 6, 20, 38, 41–44, 51, 54–59, 61–63, 65, 66, 74–77, 79, 80, 92, 99, 109, 118, 119, 123, 125, 129, 132, 135–140, 145, 146, 156, 158, 164–166, 168, 169, 172, 173, 176, 177, 189. See also Alma-Ata; military; Nur-Sultan Kazakhstan’s PfP Training Centre (KAZCENT), 165 Keaney, John, 5 Keohane, Robert, 15, 24, 25 Khabarovsk, 143 Khakipbaev, Kairat, 137 Khomyakov, Aleksey Stepanovich, 40 Khudonazarov, Davlat, 125 Kipling, Rudyard, 191 Kireyevsky, Ivan Vasilyevich, 40 Kocharyan, Shavarsh, 159 Koremenos, Barbara, 8, 25–29, 90, 91, 101, 102. See also Commitment problem; Distribution problem; Enforcement; Uncertainty about Behavior; Uncertainty about Preferences; Uncertainty about the State of the World Kosovo Force (KFOR), 165 Kravchuk, Leonid, 2 Kuchma, Leonid, 53

199

Kulikov, Anatoly, 144 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), 113 Kyrgyzstan (Kyrgyz republic), 2, 20, 38, 41, 43, 44, 50, 51, 54–56, 59, 61–64, 75–77, 79, 80, 83–85, 92, 93, 96, 109, 120–125, 127, 129, 132, 135, 137, 138, 145, 146, 156–158, 163, 168, 169, 172, 174–176, 189. See also Bishkek L Lai, Brain, 2, 20 Laruelle, Marlene, 40, 41, 62, 63 Latvia, 6, 38, 44, 114, 162, 186 Lavrov, Sergei, 92, 176 liberal theory, 17, 24 domestic politics, 17, 23 Libman, Alexander, 3, 4, 20, 38–40, 42, 45, 46, 48–50, 54, 56, 58, 59, 61, 62, 65, 66, 74, 99, 101, 129, 171, 172 Lipson, Charles, 8, 25, 91, 101 Lisbon Protocol to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) 1, 135 Liska, George, 14 Lithuania, 6, 38, 114, 131, 162, 186 London, 55 Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), 166 Luhansk region, 166. See also Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) Lukashenko, Alexander, 58, 64, 66, 94, 132–134, 158, 164, 168, 171, 177 Lyakin-Frolov, Igor, 128 M Makienko, Konstantin V., 5, 75, 115, 116, 118, 119, 121, 125, 127, 131, 133, 136–138, 140, 160, 164, 168, 169, 173, 177

200

INDEX

Manas airport, 96, 163 Martin, Lisa, 25–27, 29, 90 Maryina Gorka, 131 materialist theories, 38–40 McDermott, Roger, 120–122, 125, 127, 138, 139, 165 Mearsheimer, John, 14–16, 39, 110–113 Medvedev, Dmitry, 58, 93, 144, 160, 162, 167 Meghri, 160 military, 3, 5, 7, 8, 15–18, 23, 24, 28, 30, 31, 50, 53, 62, 74–84, 92, 96, 97, 99, 102, 104, 109, 110, 112–146, 154–167, 172–177, 187–192 military alliance, 2, 3, 6–8, 14–23, 25, 26, 28–32, 73, 79, 80, 83, 85, 89, 91, 93–95, 99, 102, 103, 105, 109, 112–114, 128, 135, 136, 146, 153, 154, 156, 163, 166, 170–172, 175, 177, 188–190, 193 Military Balance Report, 116, 137 Military Committee, 80 Miller, Steven, 74, 143, 144 Minsk, 58, 64, 94, 129, 131–135, 156, 163, 168, 172, 177 Mirziyoyev, Shavkat, 92 Moldova, 38, 43, 44, 48, 50–52, 54, 76, 78 Chisinau, 51 Moldavian Parliament, 52 Moravcsik, Andrew, 17, 19 Morgenthau, Hans, 14 Moscow, 1, 5–7, 30, 43, 48, 49, 52, 53, 62, 63, 75, 79, 80, 84, 94, 98, 112, 115, 129, 141, 145, 156, 157, 159–169, 173, 174, 176, 177, 186, 187, 190, 192 Mujahidin, 111, 125

multi-vector policies, 7, 28, 29, 53, 84, 85, 99, 105, 154, 156, 164, 165, 170, 189, 192

N Nabiev, Rahmon, 125 Nagorno-Karabakh, 53, 75, 78, 115–119, 155–157, 159, 168, 176, 192 Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Republic, 53 NATO enlargement, 174 NATO expansion, 154, 161, 162. See also NATO enlargement NATO-Russia Council (NRC), 161 NATO Treaty, 23 NATO-Turkey relations, 113 Nazarbayev, Nursultan, 6, 55, 65, 136, 176 the “near abroad”, 6 neorealism, 13–17, 21 neorealistic theory, 13, 19 neorealists, 13, 15, 16, 18, 24, 28, 32 new Cold War, 3 Nolte, Detlef, 2, 31, 54 non-Western military alliances, 5 non-western security regional governance, 4, 188 North Atlantic Cooperation Council, 161 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 3–6, 16, 17, 19, 23, 30, 31, 39, 52, 92, 105, 113–115, 129, 131, 133, 161–168, 170, 172–175, 186, 188–192. See also burden-sharing; Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council; NATO expansion; NATO-Russia Council; NATO Treaty; North Atlantic Cooperation Council; Partnership for Peace program (PfP); Planning and Review Process (PARP)

INDEX

North-Western operational-tactical command (NWOTC), 131 nuclear successor states, 74 Nur-Sultan, 63, 137, 139, 158, 165, 177 Nye, Joseph, 110, 111, 113 O Obama, Barak, 172 Obydenkova, Anastassia, 3, 20, 48, 50, 54, 56, 58, 59, 61, 62, 65, 66, 74, 101, 129, 171, 172 Operation “Assured Delivery”, 166 Organization for Democracy and Economic Development (GUAM), 78, 192 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 139 Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), 42 P Pacific Fleet, 143 Pakistan, 41, 42 “Parade of sovereignties”, 43 Parliamentary Assembly (PA), 84, 92 Partnership for Peace program (PfP), 161, 164 Pashinyan, Nikol, 155, 157, 165 Peacekeeping forces (PF), 80, 82–84, 93, 104, 158 Planning and Review Process (PARP), 164, 165 Poland, 30, 113, 114, 131, 133, 162, 163, 165 pooling, 101, 102, 171 Post-Soviet Eurasian regional security governance (model), 7, 91, 187, 188 power, 3, 5, 6, 14–17, 20, 21, 27, 31, 32, 39, 51, 54, 60, 93, 97, 100,

201

103, 109–115, 118–120, 122, 124, 125, 127, 132, 135, 138–141, 145, 146, 155, 166, 170, 171, 186, 187, 189, 190 outcome-oriented approach, 110 resources-oriented approach, 111 Press-Barnathan, Galia, 2 Prikhodko, Sergey, 50 Prisoner’s Dilemma, 26, 27 Putin, Vladimir, 1, 20, 141, 191 R Rahmon, Emomali, 20, 125 Ramstein, 167 rational choice theory, 7, 24, 26, 28, 31, 90, 91, 185. See also game-theoretic language; Rational Design of International Institution (RDII) Rational Design of International Institution (RDII), 91 Ravkov, Andrei, 159 regional security governance, 2, 4, 6, 38, 42, 45, 73, 79, 109, 185, 187, 190, 192, 193. See also non-western security regional governance; Post-Soviet Eurasian regional security governance (model) Reiter, Dan, 2, 20 Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, 43 Risse, Thomas, 24 Rogun hydroelectric power station, 85 Romania, 162 Rostov-on-Don, 143 Rubezh, 83 Russia, 3, 5–7, 20, 30, 38–41, 44, 45, 48–56, 58, 59, 61–66, 75–82, 92–94, 96, 99, 102, 109, 110, 112–114, 116–123, 125–133, 135–138, 140–146, 153, 154, 157–169, 171–175, 177, 186–192. See also military; Moscow; the “near abroad”;

202

INDEX

Russian Federation (RF); Russian foreign policy; Russian Parliament; Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR); Sonderweg Russia-NATO relations, 162 fears of encirclement, 166 Russian Federation (RF), 2, 5, 64, 75, 77, 141, 143, 145, 161, 163, 166, 169, 174, 176, 177, 186 Russian foreign policy, 5, 6 Russian-Georgian conflict, 144, 166 Russian Parliament, 1, 92, 191 Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), 43 Russian-Ukrainian conflict, 166

S Samarin, Yuri Fyodorovich, 40 Sargsyan, Serz, 156, 160 Sary Shagan, 139 Satpayev, Dosım, 165 security management, 17, 19, 76, 78, 94, 95, 105, 153 Serbia, 92, 93 Sevastopol, 52 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), 41, 42, 92 Shaposhnikov, Evgeniy, 75 Shevardnadze, Eduard, 78 Shushkevich, Stanislav, 2, 44, 49, 129 Siverson, Randolph, 19 Slavic people, 40 slavophiles, 40 Slovakia, 162 Slovenia, 162 Snegur, Mircea, 51 Snidal, Duncan, 8, 24–27, 90, 91, 101, 103 Snyder, Glenn, 14–16 Sonderweg , 40 South Africa, 172

South Ossetia, 166–168 Soviet empire, 1, 6, 37 Soviet Union, 1, 2, 6, 15, 23, 37–39, 43–45, 47, 48, 73–75, 111, 115, 118, 120, 127, 132, 135, 138–140, 143, 153, 162, 186–189, 191 dissolution, 2, 37, 44, 115, 118, 135, 140, 153, 186 former Soviet republics, 1, 2, 6, 44, 45, 118, 143, 187 Soviet past, 6, 47 State Armament Program (SAP), 144 State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP), 43 “Steppe Eagle”, 165 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), 74, 120, 124, 128, 134, 140, 145 Stoltenberg, Jens, 168, 191 St Petersburg, 143 Suasion, 27, 31, 32 supranationalism, 100 Supreme Soviet, 49 T Tajik Islamic opposition, 125 Tajikistan, 2, 20, 38, 41, 43, 44, 51, 54–57, 75–77, 79, 80, 85, 92, 109, 123–129, 132, 135, 137, 138, 145, 146, 169, 172–174, 176, 189. See also Dushanbe; military Taliban, 96, 137, 161 Tashkent, 77, 84, 85, 92 Tashkent agreement, 115, 121 Tatar people, 40 Tbilisi, 77, 166, 168 Ter-Petrosyan, Levon, 115 Tleuberdi, Mukhtar, 165 Toganyan, Vardan, 157 Tokayev, Kassym-Jomart, 168 Treaty on Conventional Armed forces in Europe (CFE), 130. See also

INDEX

Agreement on the Adaptation; CFE-1A Agreement Trenin, Dmitri, 162, 163 Trubetzkoy, Nikolai Sergeyevich, 40 Trump, Donald, 31, 115 Turkestan Military District, 125, 136 Turkey, 3, 96, 113, 117–119, 155, 158, 160, 170, 192 Ankara, 113, 158 Turkic Council, 158 Turkic people, 40 Turkmenistan, 38, 43, 44, 48, 51, 54, 76, 125. See also Ashkhabad Tusk, Donald, 1 U Ukraine, 30, 38, 43, 44, 48, 50–54, 63, 74–76, 78, 83, 99, 113, 141, 162, 166–169, 176, 177, 191 “European Choice”, 52 Kyiv, 48, 52, 167 Uncertainty about Behavior, 27 Uncertainty about Preferences , 27 Uncertainty about the State of the World, 28 UN Charter, 76, 95 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), 6, 38, 43, 44, 50, 73, 127, 129, 132, 135, 186, 187. See also Soviet empire; Soviet Union United States (US), 3, 15, 16, 31, 62, 96, 112, 115, 118, 123, 127, 128, 133, 135, 139, 144, 161, 163, 165, 166, 172–174 Uzbekistan, 38, 41, 43, 44, 51, 54–56, 75–78, 84, 85, 91, 92, 94, 125, 158. See also Tashkent Uzbekistani-Tajiki friction, 85 V Verkhovna Rada, 52

203

Vinokurov, Evgeny, 3, 40, 42, 56–60, 62, 63, 65, 118, 123, 138, 139 Vitebsk, 131 Volodin, Viacheslav, 92 von Beyme, Klaus, 40, 162, 166, 167 Vulin, Aleksandar, 92

W Wales Summit, 30 Walt, Stephen, 14, 15 Waltz, Kenneth, 13, 14, 111, 112 Warsaw Pact Organization (WPO), 80, 191 West-East ideological confrontation, 16 Western operational-tactical command (WOTC), 131 World Bank, 62, 112, 117, 122, 123, 126–128, 130, 136, 142 World Trade Organization (WTO), 56, 58 World War II, 4, 23, 186, 191

Y Yanayev, Gennady, 43 Yanukovych, Viktor, 166 Yekaterinburg, 143 Yeltsin, Boris, 2, 48, 144, 166 Yugoslavia, 163 Yurgens, Igor, 4, 77, 78, 84

Z Zakharova, Maria, 64 Zas, Stanislav, 83, 92, 98, 155, 157, 176 Zatulin, Konstantin, 49 Zelensky, Volodymyr, 167 Zürn, Michael, 25–27, 29