VIRTUAL CSTO: COLLECTIVE DEFENSE OF THE COMMONWEALTH HAS FIASCO

WPS Agency
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
August 25, 2008 Monday
Russia

CSTO exercises are organized regularly but neither the troops of
the CSTO nor the organization itself play a significant role in
the post-Soviet space. A riot happened in Kyrgyzstan in 2005. CSTO
exercises were going on at that time but the troops did not help the
overthrown regime of Askar Akaev. CSTO member sates also manifested a
similar indifference towards the South Ossetian conflict and towards
Russia as the country that parried the aggression.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta wrote that the majority of the CSTO member states
considered the nearest allies of Russia take its harsh actions for
parrying Georgian aggression in South Ossetia in a very cautious and
reserved manner. This conclusion became obvious after the summit of
defense ministers in Yerevan on August 21. All participants of the
summit except for the President of Armenia abstained from open support
of the military operations of Moscow against Georgia. Participants of
the summit discussed a lot of issues (20 issues on the official agenda)
including the plans of a coalition military buildup for the period
until 2010 and improvement of operational and combat training of the
coalition forces of the OSCE. However, bearing in mind the reaction
of the CSTO to the situation in South Ossetia, it is possible to say
that these issues are deprived of practical meaning. Quite recently,
leaders of the CSTO announced plans of formation of peacekeeping units
and their possible participation in operations in the "hot spots"
on the territory of the CIS. Now this is forgotten and the peace
enforcement operation carried out by Russian peacekeepers in South
Ossetia is simply hushed down or posed in the light not beneficial
for Russia among the allies of Russia in the CSTO.

The CSTO includes former Soviet republics (Russia, Armenia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) that already have
different geopolitical interests due to their geographic, economic and
other position in the post-Soviet space. Probably that was why many
CSTO member states did not express their attitude to actions of Moscow
in South Ossetia. Uzbekistan keeps silent. Moscow supported it during
the mutiny in Andizhan in 2005. Tajikistan keeps silent. Russia and
its CSTO allies defended its independence and territorial integrity
at the beginning of the 1990s after breakup of the USSR.

On behalf of the permanent council of the CSTO, General Secretary of
the CSTO, Nicolai Bordyuzha, characterized the actions of Georgia
in a harsh way. However, this organization did not work out any
documents. Along with this, Bordyuzha refers to the fact that the
"evaluation of the entire situation not only in Georgia and South
Ossetia but in foreign policy in genera will be voiced in September at
summits of foreign ministers and chiefs of states of the CSTO." This
is too late, is it not?

This issue might be already inappropriate because the closest allies
of Russia in the CSTO – Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan – did not support
Russia. At a recent meeting with the President of Kazakhstan,
President of Kyrgyzstan, Kurmanbek Bakiev, announced, "conflicts
similar to the conflict between Russia and Georgia should be resolved
purely on the basis of international law and only in a politically
diplomatic way." In turn, President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbaev,
emphasized that "Russian mass media characterized the situation as a
humanitarian catastrophe and the genocide of Ossetian people. The truth
will probably be found out later." Thus, Kyrgyzstan that is the chair
in the CSTO now and Kazakhstan, the best friend of Russia, actually
considered the use of military force against Georgia unjustified saying
that it was necessary to solve the problem at a table of negotiations.

Armenia should be interested in military support of Russia but the
stance of Yerevan was ambiguous too. During the days of fighting
in South Ossetia, the Foreign Ministry of Armenia expressed a hope
that the warring parties would take effort for quickly settling
disputes through dialogue. Yerevan did not condemn the aggression of
Saakashvili against South Ossetia. Only on August 22, President of
Armenia, Serzh Sarkisyan, said at a meeting with defense ministers
of the CSTO member states that tragic events in South Ossetia showed
that such confects should be resolved on the basis of free will of
the population. Otherwise we will inevitably witness ethnic separatism
and neglect of the international humanitarian law norms.

Incidentally, on the eve of the aggression of Georgia against South
Ossetia, servicemen from Armenia participated in NATO exercises
Immediate Response-2008 organized in Georgia scenario of which reminded
dynamic of the hostilities in South Ossetia. Having accomplished
the military exercises in the framework of the CSTO, Armenia starts
joint exercises with NATO countries Cooperative archer/Cooperative
lancer-2008 on its territory at the end of 2008. The scenario
of the exercises will be based on the "actions for reaction to
crises" outlined by NATO. Thus, it may happen someday that NATO will
become the main guarantor of stability in the Caucasus, says Ruben
Tovmasyan, chair of the central committee of the communist party of
Armenia. According to Tovmasyan, "strengthening NATO in Armenia is
strengthening of Turkey in reality." Tovmasyan believes that security
of the country may be guaranteed only in the framework of the CSTO.

Source: . The meeting of the council of defense ministers of the member
states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) took
place in Yerevan on August 21. The Russian delegation was headed by
Senior Deputy Defense Minister, Colonel General Alexander Kolmakov. The
event had to be meaningful because the fourth stage of joint command
staff exercises of the CSTO Rubezh-2008 took place on August 22 at
the training range named after Marshal Bagramyan 40 kilometers to
the west of Yerevan. The fourth stage, the so-called active phase of
the exercises, allowed checking the possibility of joint defensive
operation. The "indicating troops" included armored vehicles, tube
and rocket artillery, army, attack and fighter aviation, air defense
systems, combat engineers and signal units of the armed forces and
border guards of Armenia, the 102nd Russian military base in Gyumri
and an airborne landing unit from Tajikistan. Other CSTO member states
were represented by operational groups of their defense ministries.