Beware of NATO Recognizing Russia’s Sphere of Interests
Ariel Cohen /
In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, former-President Carter National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski has a piece titled “An Agenda for NATO: Toward a Global Security Web” that calls for a treaty between NATO and the Moscow-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) as well as a Joint NATO-Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) council.
CSTO is a military bloc and includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The SCO consists of China, Russia and several Central Asian states, including Iran as a candidate member.
Brzezinski’s proposal echoes then-Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov who told the December 2006 meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States:
The next logical step on the path of reinforcing international security may be to develop a cooperation mechanism between NATO and the CSTO, followed by a clear division of spheres of responsibility. This approach offers the prospect of enabling us to possess a sufficiently reliable and effective leverage for taking joint action in crisis situations in various regions of the world.