A Warsaw Pact Grows in Shanghai

This week the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)will hold its largest joint military exercises to date A few years back the SCO -- comprising China, Russia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan -- put itself on the map after effectively telling the U.S. military to scram from Uzbekistan, where it leased a base after the Twin Towers collapsed to help fight the war in Afghanistan. Last year the SCO raised eyebrows after flirting with accepting Iran, which is currently an observer state, into its ranks. Should the Shanghai club be seen as a threat to U.S. interests in Central Asia? More broadly speaking, is this a serious alliance bent on rivaling NATO, a neo-Warsaw Pact for the post-Cold War era?

Not yet. But that does not make it a benign organization to be brushed aside either. Indeed, the SCO is emerging as a powerful player in a region teeming with terrorists, drug pushers, and oil pipelines. Meanwhile, the orientation of the group's members are increasingly aligning to project a more united front that is, if not hostile to, then outwardly suspicious of U.S. military, economic, geopolitical and -- some might say -- neo-imperialistic interests in the region. Indeed, what began as a sleepy institution in the late 1990s (then called the Shanghai Five) to demilitarize China's western border has morphed into a full-fledged security alliance with bold intentions.

The Shanghai club is retooling its mission statement to include not just regional trade, energy, and development projects but also to expand its counterterrorism operations, intelligence sharing, and even election monitoring. The counterterrorism exercises underway involve more than 6,000 troops from all six members, backed by eighty warplanes and helicoptors. If enlarged to include the group's four observer states -- Mongolia, Iran, Pakistan, and India -- currently under consideration, the SCO would dwarf NATO's size and be home to large amounts of the world's natural gas and nuclear ammo. "It would essentially be an OPEC with bombs," the University of Cambridge's David Wall told the Washington Times last year.

Not surprisingly, the Shanghai group's rise coincides with the United States' waning presence in the region. With the situation in Afghanistan heating up, the U.S. military is scrambling to find more bases after being ejected from Uzbekistan last year. The future of its airbase in Kyrgyzstan remains uncertain, given the Kyrgyz government's requests for a rent hike. Washington is cozying up to Kazakhstan to secure its energy interests there. And reports were circulating last summer that the U.S. may repair its broken relationship with Uzbekistan, which was severed after a mass slaughter of Uzbek protesters and prisoners in Andijan a few years ago (some evidence has emerged suggesting the massacre was not nearly as violent as originally reported).

All of which makes the prospect of Iran's membership into the SCO that much more worrisome. In response, U.S. officials ratcheted up their criticism. "It strikes me as passing strange that one would want to bring into an organization that says it is against terrorism one of the leading terrorist nations in the world: Iran," former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a gathering of defense experts in Singapore last summer.

Iran, growing ever isolated, is hoping to shore up support for its nuclear ambitions among Central Asian states, improve its economic ties with Russia and China, and secure lucrative energy deals with them and India. Given its testy relationship with its Middle Eastern neighbors, Iran is looking eastward for allies and trade partners. In the SCO, Tehran sees a club of likeminded states that could provide it shelter as pressure rises over its uranium-enrichment activities. Allowing Iran into the club would only embolden its theocratic government and remove its feeling of international isolation.

Yet Tehran is not expected to get its wish for full membership into the Shanghai club -- at least not yet. For the moment, neither China nor Russia has indicated any interest in adding more members to the SCO's rosters, particularly ones with unpredictable foreign policies like Iran. Nor would China or Russia want to see the SCO act as a check to their own neo-imperialistic ambitions in a region both consider their "near abroad." Still, just the fact that Iran's flirtations with the SCO are being seriously entertained and not outwardly scoffed at should be raising more hackles in Washington. More likely, experts say, is the SCO will expand the powers of its observer states, and give states like Iran limited voting rights.

Even without Iran, the SCO may pose a potential threat. China and Russia, whose relations have improved in recent years and whose militaries have begun to hold joint exercises, have effectively used the SCO as an instrument to further their own agendas in Central Asia. As their influence in the region grows stronger, the SCO will inevitably rise in stature. For the moment, though no mutual defense clause exists in the SCO -- unlike NATO's Article Five -- that could change as the group evolves and new security threats emerge.

To be sure, it is premature to call the SCO the second coming of the Warsaw Pact. After all, its members are far from a monolithic bunch. But the group's influence is undoubtedly increasing, as is its potential to pose greater havoc for U.S. interests in a region where Washington is already losing clout.

Back in the Cold War era, NATO was often described as a way to keep the Germans down, the Americans in, and the Russians out. The SCO, it might be said, is meant to keep the Russians down, the Chinese in, and the Americans out. Throw the Iranians into that mix, and all bets are off.