Short Fix: There is an emerging military alliance in continental Asia. The two dominant members (so far) are Russia and China...which is to say that the dominant state is China. This emerging alliance includes Iran -- peripherally at the moment, but than is likely to change for reasons discussed below.
The SCO website introduces itself:
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an intergovernmental international organization founded in Shanghai on 15 June 2001 by six countries, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Its member states cover an area of over 30 million km2, or about three fifths of Eurasia, with a population of 1.455 billion, about a quarter of the world's total.Its working languages are Chinese and Russian.
Ni hao? Kak je la? And I'm sure that is transliterated atrociously.
The rest of the article reads like a run-down of a regional UN...or of NATO.
And I'd lean toward assuming this was a civilian association, except when I read articles like today's
China, Russia Conduct Military Exercises.
Oh, forgot the best part, given recent animus betwixt the Bushies and the Mullahs:
[China and Russia] are the dominant countries in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes four former Soviet republics in Central Asia and added Iran, India and Pakistan this year as observers. Representatives from the organization's countries have been invited to watch the exercises.
Why am I hearing about this now?
This
link to Yahoooooo! explains in full:
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia - Russian navy ships and long-range bombers headed Wednesday to a Chinese peninsula jutting into the Yellow Sea for the first-ever joint military exercises between the two nations.
Moscow and Beijing will stage a mock intervention to stabilize an imaginary country riven by ethnic strife. But they insist the "Peace Mission 2005" exercises -- which were to start Thursday and include some 10,000 troops from land, sea and air forces -- aren't aimed at a third country.
Two major world powers with the capability to project power into smaller neighbors are honing their skills to do so, at no small expense, but not at any country in particular.
So...how about a region in general, say, Central Asia?
At a July summit, the organization called on Washington to set a date for the withdrawal from Central Asia, where its forces have been deployed since after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to help support operations in neighboring Afghanistan.
The United States had said it would withdraw from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan once combat operations in Afghanistan were finished. Last month, however, Uzbekistan ordered U.S. troops to leave the country within 180 days.
This empasse was defused; the Uzbeks later recanted (I suspect it was a shakedown for more money), but they are one of the SCO's founding members.
There is a counter-argument that the Chinese are using the exercise to test-drive Russian merchandise, on account the Tupolev series of bombers includes a specialty plane -- a carrier-killer...and you know who likes their carriers.
We do.
There's quite a lot of dismissal coming out of Washington, which at the moment is highly focused on its don't-call-it-a-war in Iraq. Russia's cool. China's cool. Whatever they do together, hey. It's cool.
Or...not.
Sean L. Yom's "Power Politics in Central Asia : The Future of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is worth a peek.
Yom's conclusions assume a pivotal and continuing role for American involvement in Central Asia:
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and by extension the economic and political evolution of Central Asia, reflects three different dynamics - Sino-Russian relations, the new US presence, and the continued threat of Islamist violence. Moscow and Beijing wish to expand and strengthen the group in order to control the course of the region's political and economic evolution; their attempts have been bolstered by the shared, perceived threat of Islamist violence and terrorism. The new US presence, however, has underscored the SCO's weakness by drawing the Central Asian states away from Moscow and Beijing, who themselves are continuing a tight relationship with each other despite the diplomatic detente of Russia to the West. How the SCO and its member countries navigate these conflicting trajectories is a litmus test for the geopolitical direction of Central Asia.
The key variable for the future of the SCO is the form and function of the US presence after the Afghanistan conflict winds down: the Sino-Russian relationship will continue to be strong, and the persistent threat of radical Islam, however inflated and manipulated in the public imagination by authoritarian leaders, will compel the Central Asian states to maintain friendly relations with Russia and China. Yet if the US intends to keep a long-term military presence in the region and plainly indicates to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan that its forces are willing to engage violent Islamist groups that threaten the region's security, then Russia and China might find themselves unneeded and perhaps unwanted in a region they long considered their exclusive zone of influence. Accordingly, both Russia and China will intensify their attempts to maintain strong economic, political, and military relations with their smaller SCO neighbors. The US, being the fulcrum upon which the economic and political future of the region swings, must still decide how much it is willing to expend in Central Asia.
This interpretation might have legs, but it requires something that just hasn't been demonstrated: a correlation between continued U.S. military presence in Islamic countries and growing appreciation for American influence. The evidence for such in Afghanistan is ambivalent; the evidence out of Iraq is utterly contrary. The recently-rescinded eviction notice from the Uzbeks completes the hat trick; American eminence in Central Asia is hardly
fait accompli, and may prove too expensive to maintain in competition with the SCO powers, as well as from other influentials in the region, namely Pakistan, Turkey and Iran.
Another take on SCO, this time from Michael Weinstein reports that the short-term advantage accorded to the United States in this latest iteration of The Great Game may be up:
Realizing that Washington and Brussels would prefer pro-Western market-oriented regimes to the authoritarian, clan-based and crony systems currently in place in the region, Central Asian leaders began to perceive that multi-directionality might be a luxury too expensive to afford, and moved towards casting their lots with Moscow and Beijing through the S.C.O., paving the way for the alliance to act for the first time with political effect. The key figure in the shift was Uzbek President Islam Karimov, who had faced Western censure for his violent suppression of an Islamist rebellion against his regime in the city of Andijan May 13-14, 2005.
[snip]
With the Sino-Russian declaration setting its theme, the report issued at the end of the S.C.O. summit and signed by all participants included a clause rejecting attempts at "monopolizing or dominating international affairs" and insisting on "non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states."
[snip]
Satisfying Beijing's interests, the S.C.O. also became the first regional bloc to oppose the bid by Japan, Brazil, Germany and India to enlarge the United Nations Security Council's permanent membership. Calling for consensus on U.N. reforms after careful consultation, the S.C.O. declaration rejected deadlines for those reforms and early voting on draft proposals.
Which is interesting, given what was offered -- and accepted -- by India right afterward!
Despite the slap at New Delhi, India, along with Pakistan and Iran, sought and was granted observer status in the S.C.O., an acknowledgment of the organization's growing geostrategic importance. Joining Mongolia, the three new observers see the S.C.O. as a permanent presence that will increasingly affect their security and economic interests.
The subtext (in my opinion) is that China will never tolerate Japan having a permanent seat on the Security Council, but isn't hostile to an Indian bid for same, under separate cover, and may in fact come forward to sponsor India in future, if persuasive arguments are rendered. India becoming a full member of SCO, for starters.
Three permanent seats in the hands of SCO members would be a formidable check to the current trio of America, France and Britain. Thwarting Japan and Germany while elevating India and Brazil would make excellent sense to the Chinese.
Enter the Indians
A person might wonder what India's up to, if the geopolitical focus of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Central Asia, its chief concern undue American influence?
You guys are a well-educated clientele, so I'm sure you know the answer:
Duh! It's all that sweet, tasty oil!
Martin Walker in the "World Peace Herald" shares with us that India and China are in the midst of a good old-fashioned bidding war.
The auction deadline for bids for the Canadian company PetroKazakhstan closed Monday, but at the same time a new Great Game began, as China and India opened a bidding war for one of the most valuable stakes in Central Asia's energy market.
With a market value of close to $3.5 billion and analysts talking a sale price close to $4 billion, PetroKazakhstan is a hot commercial property, claiming on the company website to be the "largest supplier of refined products in Kazakhstan."
For Kazakhstan, which is trying to push away from the Russians a notch or two, getting the Americans involved on a huge pipeline project has been a start, but the latest auction poses more lasting choices.
China's investments come with no political baggage. China was happy to welcome Uzbek President Islam Karimov in the wake of the shootings that suppressed the Andijan riots, and to announce a $600 million investment in Uzbek oil prospecting. American interest in the region, by contrast, comes with President George W Bush's policy of promoting democracy throughout the region. India, although proud of its title as the world's largest democracy, has demonstrated no great urge to support democratic movements elsewhere in the region, particularly when its energy supplies are at stake.
The big question for India is whether it is prepared to pay the high entry fee to become a major player in Central Asian energy, which would require eventually investing in building pipelines. The choices are grim and hugely expensive. The shorter route would go through some of the toughest mountains in the world, the Pamirs, the Hindu Kush and even the Himalayas and still face the longer-term political challenge of getting through Afghan and Pakistani territory to India. The longer route would go through Iran, which would offend India's American friends, and still face transshipment by tanker or a further pipeline across Pakistan.
Which brings us to why Iran's part of the act
Win, lose or draw, Iran, India and Pakistan have already drawn up plans for a gas pipeline consortium. And Iran is the Asian pipeline hub, an accident of geography and decades of development of its own oilfields...
per the India Daily
India to join a [pipeline] consortium
At the end of the two-day Indo-Iran Joint Working Group on the pipeline, New Delhi made a climb down from its earlier position that it would take delivery of gas at Indian borders and said it would go to the Cabinet for an approval for joining the project consortium once the three countries decide on the project framework by end of 2005.
The official said in all probability two pipelines would be laid, as a single 56-inch line would not be enough to meet the energy demand in India and Pakistan.
What I'm thinking
I'm not seeing much of anybody helping the Bushies invade Iran.
In fact, I'm seeing a lot of countries building a continent together, whether we like it or not.
And some of them are countries that will sell arms to Iran, things like the
Tupolev Tu-22M, the
Su-37 Flanker -- almost as good as the Raptor and ten times cheaper, and the
SS-N-22 "Sunburn" naval cruise missile, three times faster than the American Harpoon cruise missile (which ain't slow).