What Is the Value of the CSTO Now?

On February 9, speaking at the Moscow-based Valdai Discussion Club during a conference focused on collective security, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Pankin complained of a lack of interaction between the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

“It is strange,” he said, “that an organization such as NATO does not recognize the CSTO if not as its equal, then as a significant player in the security sphere and thinks that the CSTO is a Russian organization where others simply exist.”

Pankin went on differentiate the CSTO from NATO by virtue of perceived area of claimed responsibility: “The area of responsibility is the CSTO’s own space while the area of responsibility of NATO and NATO allies – since NATO is also a retinue of allies and partners – is global simply because the U.S. area of responsibility is declared as global. That is the difference.”

Two weeks later, with Russian President Vladimir Putin blaming NATO expansion (as well as questioning the reality of Ukranian statehood and suggesting that the state, whose president is Jewish, had been overtaken by Nazis), Russian forces began to invade Ukraine.

The Russian invasion triggered a flurry of activity in NATO countries, contributing to a tightening of the alliance, renewed commitments to Europe’s defense, and overwhelming solidarity. Ukraine is not a member of NATO, though in the past Kyiv had expressed interest in potentially joining. Ukraine’s entire western flank, however, borders the NATO countries of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.

NATO condemned the Russian invasion and pledged to “take additional steps to further strengthen deterrence and defense across the Alliance.” Neighboring states surged financial and military support to Ukraine, taking in refugees while providing humanitarian supplies and weapons but stopping short of making moves that would bring NATO forces into direct conflict with Russian forces. The United States deployed additional troops to Europe, promising to defend every inch of NATO territory. Long-recalcitrant German leaders pledged to bring defense spending up to 2 percent of GDP, something the United States has long pushed its European allies to do. Others followed suit.

Meanwhile, Russia’s CSTO partners – with the glaring exception of Belarus, which served as a staging ground for Russia’s invasion – quietly distanced themselves from the conflict.

In early February, Russian diplomats were complaining that NATO didn’t take the CSTO seriously; by March it was clear there was no reason to do so. The CSTO lacks unity and experience – things NATO has in clear and full measure.

All 30 NATO countries, for example, voted in favor of the United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Russian actions. This illustrated the solidarity of real allies. Of the CSTO’s six members, only Russia and Belarus voted against the measure -- with Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan all abstaining. There is no unity within the CSTO, just economic and political tethers to Moscow that are difficult to escape.

Pankin posited that in the eyes of NATO “the CSTO is a Russian organization where others simply exist.” If anything, the external view of the CSTO is as a Russian organization in which others don’t really matter. That said, the CSTO’s lack of action in regard to Ukraine demonstrates that even within its own club, Russia isn’t able to call the shots. Moscow makes choices without considering what its allies want or would be able to support, and so Russia finds itself relatively friendless and increasingly isolated.

Ahead of the invasion, on February 19, the CSTO’s Secretary-General Stanislav Zas told Reuters that, hypothetically, the organization could deploy peacekeepers to the Donbas region. But in doing so, he also inadvertently reconfirmed the sovereignty of Ukraine and thus outlined why the rest of the member states, save Belarus, will be hesitant to become more deeply involved now that the war is on. (Interestingly, although Zas is Belarusian, he was born in Ukraine in 1964).

“Hypothetically,” Zas said in mid-February, “you can imagine [such a deployment] if there were goodwill from Ukraine – it is after all their territory – if there was a U.N. Security Council mandate, and if it was needed and such a decision was supported by all our governments.”

For the Central Asian wing of the CSTO, the Russian invasion has meant anxiety and economic disaster; further embroilment strikes most regional observers as sheer insanity.

This is an ironic shift from three months ago, when many wondered whether the CSTO had finally emerged as a force worth taking seriously.

The CSTO deployed forces for the very first time in its 20-year existence in January 2022 in response to a request from Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. As dramatic as “Bloody January” was, the CSTO deployment was miniscule. The force comprised of less than 3,000 troops in total that deployed for just two weeks to guard infrastructure; they went home without firing a single bullet.

At the time, regional observers wondered whether Tokayev would owe Putin a “debt” and if Kazakhstan’s oft-mentioned multi-vector foreign policy was finally dead. If anything, the crisis in Ukraine has underscored the opposite: Tokayev clearly does not feel indebted to Putin. When Kazakh activists last month planned a pro-Ukraine rally in Almaty, a city that saw terrible violence in January, Kazakh authorities allowed it to proceed unhindered and unharassed. At the rally, activists called for Kazakhstan to leave the CSTO and the Eurasian Economic Union. While Nur-Sultan may do neither of those things, it is significant that the state has not sought to dampen such sentiments. Instead, Kazakhstan has pushed its own classic approach to world conflict: offering itself as a mediator.

So what is the value of the CSTO? And what is its future? Many have compared the CSTO to NATO over the years, and just months ago Russian officials sought to have the CSTO considered as of the same caliber as NATO. But as an alliance, the CSTO is demonstrably weak. While the Russian invasion of Ukraine has sparked greater discussion about membership in non-NATO European countries, including Finland and Sweden, it has had the opposite effect in the CSTO. In Kazakhstan, activists are now calling for Nur-Sultan to leave the alliance, and it is difficult to imagine Uzbekistan (which joined and left the CSTO twice in the last 30 years) seriously considering a third stint any time soon.