CSTO Threats and Challenges
At the end of last year, at the international scientific and practical conference held at the Moscow State Linguistic University on the theme “Threats and Challenges to CSTO Member States through the Eyes of Students”, an exchange of views took place on the complex challenges, risks and security threats facing the States members of the Organization of the Treaty on collective security (CSTO).Undergraduate and graduate students had a unique opportunity to talk about their concerns about ensuring international and national security with competent specialists from the CSTO, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, and high-ranking diplomats from the permanent representatives of Armenia and Russia to the CSTO A.G. Badalyan and V.L. Vasiliev, President of the International Center for Geopolitical Analysis, Colonel-General L. G. Ivashov, representatives of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, the Embassy of Kyrgyzstan in the Russian Federation, Rossotrudnichestvo, the Russian Council on International Affairs.
CSTO PRIORITIES AT THE PRESENT STAGE
During the lively discussion, participants discussed the sources and causes of threats, suggested possible ways to neutralize them. In the detailed report on the activities of the CSTO in confronting the threats and challenges of our time, the Assistant Secretary General of the CSTO, Major General V.I. Nikishin informed the audience about the decision of the CSTO Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs in April 2014 to suspend attempts to establish a dialogue with NATO while developing interaction with the OSCE. The priority is marked by a course on strengthening cooperation with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), and in a bilateral format - with the PRC. It noted the need to develop cooperation with international organizations of developing countries, recommended the development of relations with Iran, whose influence in the region is indisputable.
In the area of responding to challenges and threats to security, the collective efforts of the CSTO member states are focused on countering drug trafficking, international terrorism and extremism, illegal migration and trafficking in persons, criminal activities in information networks, etc.
The students showed interest in the activities of the CSTO to improve the mechanisms for forecasting and analyzing the development of the military-political situation in the collective security regions, on the periphery of the Organization’s area of responsibility and in the geopolitical sites in the world. To this end, they are ready to participate in the created CSTO Analytical Association, within the framework of which an exchange of analytical and predictive information between the leading political science centers and institutions of the Organization's member states is organized.
Students welcomed the creation of the CSTO University League, whose main task is the consolidation of intellectual forces in the interests of the successful development of cooperation between the CSTO member states. The result of its activities should be a comprehensive scientific and methodological support for the development of the Eurasian community in economics, science and technology, the legal framework and philosophy of human life.
SIGNS OF WORLD WAR
A bright report was made by the professor of Moscow State Linguistic University, doctor historical Sciences, Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov. In the section “On the world situation”, as a characteristic of the current situation, he referred to the opinion of Stephen Frank Cohen, an American historian: “The civil war in Ukraine, caused by the illegal change of power in Kiev ... is already developing into a proxy war between the United States and Russia. What seemed inconceivable becomes imaginable. This is a real war between NATO led by the US and post-Soviet Russia. "
The signs of World War Leonid Ivashov attributed the process of destruction of Islamic civilization (in the Middle East); the process of destruction of the Orthodox Slavic civilization (first in the Balkans, now in Ukraine); Washington's transfer of a big war to Europe; attempts to demonize Russia and the buildup of NATO military power at its borders, as well as the deployment by the Americans of a Fast Global Strike Force and a missile defense system and their focus on Russia.
The causes of the war are determined by a combination of the following factors: the decline of the US geopolitical role; the crisis of Western values and development models; making China the economic leader of the world; the restoration of the Eurasian geopolitical center and Russia's entry into the world arena as a political leader; the military weakness of Russia and the CSTO, the absence of a military alliance within the framework of the SCO; start the process of forming a new world. Professor Ivashov spoke about his vision of the balance of forces on the world stage (for details, see his interview with “NVO” in the issue for 28.11.14).
The speaker introduced the participants of the conference with the concept of geopolitical operations, the objectives of which are the same as those of military-strategic operations - mastering states and space. However, the means in this case are more diverse, and military force is usually secondary here. The forces of information-psychological influence act on the direction of the main strike, their goal is to change or weaken a certain type of consciousness. The key objects of a geopolitical operation are the system of spiritual and moral values of the state; political and ideological system of the state; ruling elite and control system; state financial system, as well as foreign and domestic policy.
CONFRONTATION OF THE WESTERN-CENTRAL MODEL OF THE WORLD
A lively discussion was aroused by the project proposed by Leonid Ivashov under the code name "Geopolitical" matryoshka "of the 21st century." The project considers geopolitical formations, the interaction and transformation of which are designed to have a decisive influence on the formation of a new world order. The central figure of this structure is the Eurasian Union of the post-Soviet states, which is transformed into a union of peoples in order to restore the Eurasian cultural and civilizational space. Then comes the SCO as a Euro-Asian alliance - a coalition of anti-Western states, transforming into a union of continental civilizations, based on the Eastern scale of values, its own finances and a system of collective security. And finally, BRICS is a union of non-Western civilizations as a response to the systemic crisis of the West-centric world order, a way out of the historical impasse, and as the basis for the development of humanity in the 21st century. The world, living the highest values.
Not all participants were ready to unconditionally accept the proposed scheme. In particular, doubts have arisen about the willingness of some countries - members of the SCO and BRICS to move towards closer alliance relations, which will inevitably require them to transform their own political attitudes and established traditional political and economic ties, including with the countries of the Western world.
MILITARY ASPECTS OF COOPERATION
First Deputy Head of the Main Directorate of International Military Cooperation of the Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation, Major General A.A. Khshimovsky familiarized the conference participants with the military aspects of the CSTO cooperation in confronting the challenges and threats of our time. Among the priority areas of military cooperation, he noted the following:
- improvement of the regulatory legal framework that determines the strategic priorities of the CSTO activities;
- approximation of the laws of the CSTO member states;
- rendering by the CSTO member states mutual assistance in developing the armed forces and equipping them with modern weapons and military equipment;
- improvement and development of the Collective Forces of the CSTO;
- development of joint military systems;
- development of the CSTO Peacekeeping Forces;
- implementation of joint activities of operational and combat training;
- improvement of the comprehensive support of the activities of the forces and means of the collective security system;
- cooperation in the military-technical and military-economic fields;
- training military personnel in joint programs;
- coordination of the activities of the CSTO member states in the field of military cooperation with other states and international organizations.
The speaker also focused on the main tasks of the regional groupings of troops (forces), the specifics of improving the CORF and the CSTO Peacekeeping Forces, and military-technical cooperation.
COLOR REVOLUTIONS AS A THREAT
Anastasia Galitsyna, a student at the Institute of Law, Economics and Information Management, and Aleksey Vladytsky, a graduate student at the Institute of International Relations and Socio-Political Sciences, in their speeches focused on the threats associated with attempts to forcibly overthrow the government in individual CSTO states.
In the modern information society, while maintaining the challenges, risks, hazards and threats (PSIU) associated with the use of military force, an important means of influencing the state chosen as the object of aggression (the target state), are increasingly becoming technologies for controlling world outlook and world view its people in order to establish full control and transfer to external control. The main idea of information wars for space is to impose a programmable image of the world on a potential adversary, thereby subordinating the entire system of its management. Informational influences can change the main geopolitical potential of a state — the national mentality, culture, and moral state of people.
Taking into account the peculiarities of applying the technologies of worldview management, the speakers drew attention to several main reasons that may cause color revolutions:
- problems in the socio-economic sphere: corruption, the unacceptable deep gap between the poor and the rich, the lack of social elevators, barriers to education and quality health care, the formation of enclaves of immigrants who do not want to go for cultural adaptation in their host society, activities subversive pseudo-religious and separatist groups;
- omissions in the domestic and foreign policy of countries, in particular in educational work with young people, which is used by the adversary for recoding the mentality of the population, educating them in a nationalistic, often Russophobic spirit;
- the desire of the US and NATO to seize the initiative in working with the intelligentsia, the business community and, above all, with the youth of the CSTO countries in order to promote their values.
In order to organize a systemic response to the threats of color revolutions, it is proposed to form a special program based on the principles of offensiveness and preventiveness. The program should also include such important areas as cooperation in the political sphere, joint research and development, the exchange of information on achievements in this field, the unification of the legislative and regulatory framework, the holding of joint activities on a regular basis and the development of common approaches aimed at countering color revolutions.
The speeches of a number of students contained an analysis of the threats associated with drug smuggling, uncontrolled migration and organized crime. Issues of interaction between the CSTO, the UN and the OSCE, prospects for relations with NATO were thoroughly covered. There was a common opinion that the presence of the political will of the participating countries towards unity, mutual trust and support will help to turn the CSTO into an effective tool to counter color revolutions in the post-Soviet space.
CONCLUSIONS FOR THE CSTO
The discussion held at the conference showed the paramount importance of deep integration within the framework of both the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the civil society of each of the allies to successfully confront the challenges of our time. In this context, the role of military and civilian departments and organizations within the framework of a consolidated community of member states, cooperation in the formation of a common information field of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and control over channels of subversive penetration into the country need serious rethinking. news and ideological space, the struggle for initiative in the confrontation of ideas.
In each of these areas, an important role is played by the youth of the CSTO countries as the most receptive to the whole new part of society. The conference participants were unanimous in their opinion on the need for targeted motivation of young people and students to work out innovative solutions aimed at strengthening and consolidating the CSTO. This task can be facilitated by the wide participation of universities in the CSTO University League, as well as the involvement of university research centers in the work of the CSTO Analytical Association. In practice, young people should be convinced of the seriousness and relevance of these initiatives.
Ultimately, the stability of the CSTO to the impact of the whole range of challenges, risks, hazards and threats depends crucially on the quality of managing the areas of collective activity of people in each of the participating States and the availability of pre-agreed joint counteraction plans, as well as on the agreed legal framework political union for action against a diverse spectrum of modern threats.
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