Vladimir Putin’s upcoming visit to the Kyrgyz capital could become a turning point for the largest Eurasian association, which is preparing for a radical transformation of its role on the continent.
SCO Is Not NATO — But It Could Become Something Similar
Vladimir Putin will travel to Bishkek to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, which will take place in the Kyrgyz capital from August 30 to September 1. The landmark 25th-anniversary summit will bring together the leaders of the organisation’s member states, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In addition to the main sessions, the Russian president has a number of important bilateral meetings scheduled on the sidelines of the summit.
The summit is significant in its own right because it highlights the progress made by the 27 countries involved in the project to build a common Eurasian space without the participation of Western institutions. The organisation’s charter emphasises its primarily economic objectives and provides its members with three basic elements: security, clear rules of interaction and a platform for negotiations.
For now, defence cooperation remains limited to military exercises and counterterrorism efforts. However, SCO countries regularly conduct joint Peace Mission counterterrorism drills. While these exercises were once focused on local operations against militants, recent drills — including exercises held in Iran and Belarus — have involved large-scale scenarios for military cooperation, including coordination between ground forces, aviation and air-defence units.
The SCO has also established the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), headquartered in Tashkent. There have been periodic moves toward coordinating activities between the SCO and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), whose members include Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. This makes it possible to build a common security architecture across Eurasia without formally changing the SCO’s status.
The organisation does not yet require its members to automatically enter a war on behalf of another member, as NATO does. That could potentially change, however, as the world becomes increasingly polarised — particularly if India leaves the QUAD, where it cooperates with the United States, Japan and Australia, and China faces direct aggression from the United States.
SCO to Create Universal Security Centre on Interpol Model
The main document expected to emerge from the upcoming summit will be the Bishkek Declaration. The agenda also includes an important initiative to update the SCO Charter, which has not been amended since 2002.
The need for reform stems from the organisation’s dramatic expansion over the past 25 years. What began as a regional border-focused grouping of six countries has grown into a major Global South structure with 10 permanent members following the accession of India, Pakistan, Iran and Belarus.
Instead of relying on a collection of separate committees, the SCO is moving toward the creation of cross-cutting supranational bodies. The most important of these will be a Universal Security Centre, which is intended to reform and expand the functions of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure.
Security is now being viewed much more broadly than through the traditional lens of counterterrorism. The concept encompasses environmental sustainability, energy and food security, digital infrastructure, transport connectivity, resistance to sanctions and sustainable development. In effect, the SCO is moving away from the largely declarative analytical approach of previous years and giving its main security body a mandate for direct operational coordination among security and law-enforcement agencies.
The organisation’s legal framework will also provide for the creation of an SCO Anti-Drug Centre in Dushanbe. At the same time, legal procedures are being launched to establish the SCO’s own Development Bank, which would finance infrastructure projects without relying on Western financial institutions.
A Network of Eurasian Alliances Is Taking Shape
The Eurasian Economic Union remains the Eurasian Economic Union, while the Commonwealth of Independent States, the CSTO, ASEAN and other organisations retain their own mandates and rules. At the same time, a network of connections is gradually emerging between them — covering transport, energy, finance, digital infrastructure, humanitarian cooperation and political and diplomatic ties.
The SCO is therefore being positioned to gradually transform Eurasia into an increasingly interconnected and secure economic system.
