REGIONAL SECURITY MECHANISMS IN CENTRAL ASIA: DEVELOPMENT TRENDS
Abstract
Security regionalization is one of the most striking features of international relations in a world where the formerly clear boundaries of national security are rapidly disappearing. The region is developing into an important factor of universal peace and stability. This, in turn, is largely changing our traditional ideas about the means and methods of national security as a sine qua none of sovereign states’ stability.
Security regionalization is itself a direct outcome of such visible trends in the contemporary world as much more frequent cases of “humanitarian interference” in the internal affairs of states; diminished pertinence of traditional armed conflicts against the background of much more frequent armed conflicts inside states; much higher significance of peacekeeping efforts and the “human security” factor, etc
These trends pushed the idea of regionalism to the forefront, demonstrated to all that the so-called sovereign answer to contemporary challenges is ineffective, and put a “collective (regional) response” to such challenges on the agenda.
It is commonly believed that in the 21st century no state can rely on its own forces alone, which means that “collective strategies, collective structures, and an awareness of collective responsibility have become absolutely indispensable.”1
In this context, the regional mechanisms and institutions of states are treated as effective international legal instruments of peace and security
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The term, as a rule, was used to describe the situation in post-bipolar Europe, from which the enemy image disap-peared together with the U.S.S.R. and the Warsaw Treaty Organization.
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The British Commonwealth of Nations is an alliance of independent sovereign states which emerged from the ru-ins of the British colonial empire. Today, it comprises 49 states.
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Ibidem.
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Turkmenistan is the only Central Asian state which remained outside the EurAsEC. In October 2008, Uzbekistan suspended its EurAsEC membership.
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According to some analysts, this is a sign that China is seeking economic domination in the SCO expanse, while its policies are described as “aggressive and selfish” (A. Lukin, “The Shanghai Cooperation Organization: What Next?”Russia in Global Affairs, No. 2, July-September 2007). There is also the opinion, however, that the SCO’s economic im-portance is an objective trend (see: V. Frolenkov, “Kollektivnoe ekonomicheskoe sotrudnichestvo stran-chlenov ShOS:
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Similar groups have been set up in the European and Caucasian sectors: the Russian-Armenian coalition forces were created in 1996; the Russian-Belarusian, in 1999.
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The joint military exercises of the SCO members involved over 6,500 military and 80 aircraft; they were carried out on two terrains: the testing ground of the 34th motor rifle division in the town of Chebarkul in the Volga-Urals Mili-tary District (the RF) and in Urumqi, the administrative center of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (China).
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The European Union is a regional association of European countries set up in 1993 on the basis of the European Communities, an alliance of three formally independent yet interconnected regional economic organizations: the Europe-an Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) set up in 1951; the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom); and the Euro-pean Economic Community (EEC) set up in 1957.
In 2007, the Central Asian countries were involved in the Development Cooperation and Economic Cooperation Instrument, which replaced TACIS as a result of the reform of external cooperation of the EU Commission and its new Regulation for the period 2007-2013.
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Azerbaijan is an extra-regional member. The dialogue was set up in September 2004 on the initiative of Japan.
In April 2006, President of Uzbekistan Karimov addressed the NATO summit with a suggestion to transform the 6 + 2 Group into the 6 + 3 Group and involve NATO in it.
It is, however, becoming more politically involved. Its latest summit held in Tehran in 2009 discussed, besides economic issues, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and foreign military presence in Afghanistan.
See: J.S. Nye, International Regionalism, Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1968, p. vii.
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