The CSTO: Serving Russia’s Interests Since 1992

Limping out of the refuse of the erstwhile Warsaw Pact, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) stands as Moscow’s milquetoast alternative to NATO – a grouping of mutual security assurances between Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Much as the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) stands as a pale imitation of the European Union, the CSTO – five of whom comprise the EEU, with Tajikistan as a potential candidate moving forward – exists as a watered-down version of the security arrangement originally promised.

For years, the CSTO has served more as a talk-shop than anything approaching the security conglomerate NATO represents. Indeed, the CSTO has foregone notable involvement in any of the international skirmishes involving member-states – ignoring Russia-Georgia fighting in 2008, avoiding the intermittent Armenia-Azerbaijan clashes by way of Nagorno-Karabakh. Considering Russia’s continued denial of military involvement in Ukraine, there’s even less likelihood of the CSTO’s participation than in the prior examples.

In 2010, the CSTO saw what little legitimacy it retained slip away; as Kyrgyzstan roiled with internal riots and ethnic purges of local Uzbek populations, the CSTO sat on its hands, unwilling to offer materiel or logistics to a member-state. In the five years since, the CSTO has done little to engender either confidence or reform. (It certainly didn’t help when CSTO Secretary-General Nikolai Bordyuzha illustrated a bit of ignorance on the topic of security arrangements, claiming NATO membership is required for EU membership.)

Nonetheless, the CSTO retains a form of relevance – namely, in the external military bases nominally belonging to the CSTO but manned through Russian supply. As such, the grouping lives on, albeit far more in name than in function. And it was that name that brought the leaders of the respective member-states to Dushanbe for the most recent CSTO summit.

Few surprises emerged from the summit – no new bases, no new arrangements, no new reasons to believe the CSTO may see an injection of vitality it’s long done without. Instead, the summit comprised more of the same rhetoric, more of the same inaction, and more of the same impotency that’s wracked the organization since its inception. Those hoping the current economic maelstrom – and Russia’s continued foreign forays – would spur a reevaluation of the CSTO’s organizing principles will come away disappointed. Nonetheless, even in this inaction, it’s worth sifting through some of the realities and commentary that came from the summit.

Threat Inflation

Unsurprisingly, much of the rhetoric centered on the bogeyman that’s apparently rattled regional leadership for the past year: ISIS. Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon has helped lead the charge in inflating the threat ISIS poses to the region. Rahmon’s unwavering focus on ISIS – which he termed the “plague of the new century” – is perhaps unsurprising. Tajikistan maintains a porous border with Afghanistan and also presents the weakest state-security apparatus of any state in Central Asia, outside perhaps Kyrgyzstan. But Rahmon also carries ulterior, if predictable, motives for blowing ISIS’s threat well beyond any real proportion. The group has provided a ready excuse in Rahmon’s campaign to crush the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), the lone, veritable opposition Tajikistan has maintained since the end of its civil war.

Over the past year, Rahmon has directed the full weight of state pressure against the IRPT, the sole major Islamic party in Tajikistan. Dushanbe banned the party outright, removing its status as an outlet for Islamic opposition in Tajikistan. Rahmon has also taken the repression a step further: Not only have IRPT properties been repeatedly raided, but the party’s leadership, those who’ve not bent to Dushanbe’s will, have chosen exile. Tajikistan, even as recently as 2014, could boast the only multi-party governing structure in Central Asia, excluding Kyrgyzstan. A year later, however, Tajikistan has joined the ranks of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan as a de facto one-party state, helmed by a nepotistic strong-man more interested in power and fortune than in nationwide prosperity.

In this campaign to crush any form of internal dissent, Rahmon has begun fanning the opposition he seeks to destroy. Not only has the head of Tajikistan’s special forces absconded to join ISIS, but the country’s deputy defense minister, General Abduhalim Nazarzoda, recently led a mutinous assault on Dushanbe’s forces, taking several dozen soldiers with him. Dozens have died in the weeks since Nazarzoda’s turn. The general’s assault remains shrouded in mystery: Was his move an attempted coup? Or was Nazarzoda, a former member of the opposition, attempting to avoid impending arrest?

For Dushanbe’s purposes, Nazarzoda’s reasoning may not actually matter. Despite scant evidence of Islamist leanings, Rahmon quickly claimed Nazarzoda was leading a force that “pursued the same goals as Islamic State.” (To be fair, Rahmon is not the lone CSTO leader to point to localized violence as evidence of ISIS involvement; Kyrgyzstan attempted to label a firefight in Bishkek a few months ago as an ISIS assault, without any evidence to support the claim.) Predictably, this theme – any opposition is acting in support of ISIS; any Islamic connection implies a link to external extremists – found a ready audience during the CSTO summit.

“The specter of emergencies and security threats in the region is not diminishing, and could even grow,” Rahmon told his colleagues. Russian President Vladimir Putin picked up this theme, saying, “The risk of terrorist and extremist organizations making incursions into countries neighboring Afghanistan has increased. Moreover, this threat is made worse by the fact that along with the organizations known to be active in Afghanistan, the so-called Islamic State too has increased its influence.” Repeating the message, he added, “The real threat of terrorist and extremist groups infiltrating the countries neighboring Afghanistan is rising.”

Putin further noted that, due to ISIS’s apparent surge in “influence,” Russia was willing to aid Tajikistan. Details of Russia’s proposed support remain scant, but Kommersant quoted an unnamed CSTO official in noting that a potential external excursion – a CSTO contingent sent to Afghanistan, presumably – could be in the cards. The proposal is unfeasible for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the dearth of successful unified CSTO operations to date. In addition, the UN is unlikely to sanction CSTO action in Afghanistan.

A more likely scenario would see Russia ramping up its military aid to Tajikistan directly, which, in the end, is seemingly all that the CSTO has proven good for. Russian officials have been eager to cite ISIS as an excuse for increasing military support throughout the region for the past year. The recent attacks in Tajikistan are but the latest in a string of events, either real or imagined, Moscow has capitalized on to expand its influence. All the while, the CSTO, as an organizing body, continues to degrade. The organization exists, true – but you’d be forgiven for thinking it is little more than a vehicle for Russian expansionism, directed to combat threats that exist largely in the minds and rhetoric of Moscow.