The Shanghai Cooperation Organization begins its summit today in Tashkent, but the group appears to be moving away from a military alliance, as it seemed originally intended, toward being a broader regional security body on the OSCE model.
Meanwhile, the Collective Security Treaty Organization appears to be taking over the military cooperation mission -- though without China, of course. The CSTO just carried out some joint exercises involving 450 troops from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Russia, and RT has video -- and some breathless commentary -- from the demo:
The premise: Armed terrorists have equipped a base, where they’re plotting an attack.
The troops’ mission: seek and destroy.
An officer quoted by RT in the report says that the big advance this year over previous exercises was the use of a reconnaissance drone aircraft. And of course, the story has a happy ending: the CSTO beats the terrorists.
Joshua Kucera, a senior correspondent, is Eurasianet's former Turkey/Caucasus editor and has written for the site since 2007.
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