Source: Standart News
Moscow is forging three rising alliances which are about to shake the very basics of the current EU-US hegemony. The three upcoming giants you should watch out for are the Eurasian Economic Union/EEU/, Russia’s new „best friends forever” alliance with China based on the new Power of Siberia pipeline and their increasingly joint efforts to strengthen the Shanghai Co-operation Organization.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is juggling several balls to rebuild Russia’s old Tsarist splendeour – and not the Soviet Union, as often portrayed by the Western media-. This new empire is by no ways Socialist, just on the contrary: in a very capitalist manner Moscow as a center of the EEU would use the rich resources of the satellite states through strengthened economic ties in the common market, yet without an outspokenly common political system.
SCO: THE EAST’S NATO?
Before we start discussing the Eurasian Union, which will be the main topic of this article, we have to touch upon a few other initiatives through which Putin is trying to create a new strong Eastern empire. The most important is the Shanghai Co-operation Organization /SCO/ which is well worth our attention: as an Eurasian political, economic and military organisation which was founded in 2001 by the leaders of China, Kazahstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, it is the scene of some of the most significant developments on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. The potential significance of the organization is highlighted by the fact that Iran, India and Pakistan are among its potential member candidates. In fact, they may be able to join SCO in the near future, even as early as the end of this year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. Note that the launch of the Eurasian Union is also scheduled for January 1, 2015.
Though the group has thus far been more about talk than action, Russia’s interest in SCO’s enlargement is relatively obvious in the wake of the collapse of its relations with the West. This seems to outweight Moscow’s previous concerns that the organization would act as the stalking horse for Chinese expansion into Central Asia. India’s and Pakistan’s membership would highlight two important developments: first that China and Asia are leaving mutual suspicion against each other behind their backs and perhaps even more importantly that military conflict in the region of the SCO will become less likely.
One of the original purposes of the SCO was namely to serve as a counterbalance to NATO and in particular to avoid conflicts that would allow the United States to intervene in areas bordering both Russia and China. As it was also apparent in the annual summit convened in Dushanbe this September, security issues are at the top of the SCO agenda with terrorism being its major security concern. Anti-terrorism is, not coincidentally, also a huge point of emphasis for China. Afghanistan is another focal point for the SCO, as from all the countries bordering Afghanistan, only one (Turkmenistan) is not an SCO member or observer state (and Afghanistan is an SCO observer itself). Thus, should Afghanistan’s security fall apart in the post-NATO era, the SCO would be on the frontlines of the disaster. According to a Russian observer, the United States is deliberately using the aggravation of the situation in Afghanistan to prevent the enlargement of the SCO. According to the same commentator, the current Hong Kong protests are also saving the same purpose.
The USA has indeed reasons to be worried about the SCO: although not a member state, the former President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has used his speeches at the SCO to make verbal attacks against Washington. The idea of Russia, China and potentially India and Iran in a military union freaked out Washington to such an extent, that the United States applied for observer status in the SCO – but was rejected in 2006.
On the other hand, Russia is not even making a secret of the fact that it is aiming to create a new post- US world order. In November 2005 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated that the “Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is working to establish a rational and just world order” and that “The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation provides us with a unique opportunity to take part in the process of forming a fundamentally new model of geoolitical integration”. The eventual goal of SCO is to replace NATO as the main military alliance of the East.
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