The Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Russian led military bloc

 

Part one: History and identity of the Collective Security Treaty Organization

Flag of the CSTO

The CSTO is usually (if even discussed) described as either Russia’s attempt at making an alternative to NATO, or as a successor to the Warsaw Pact. I would argue the CSTO is much more accurately described as a successor to the Soviet Union, as part of the web of cooperation that eased the transition from empire to a patchwork of independent semi-failed states. Much like the rest of this cooperation, it serves to ensure states remain in the Russian sphere. Russia has a term for the former USSR, that being "the near abroad", implicitly stating that this region is more important for their foreign policy than any other, and that they consider themselves validated in acting in that space. 

Directly after the fall of the Soviet Union there was an agreement among the majority of the successor states to form the CIS, the Confederacy of Independent States. In the early 90s the militaries of the majority of states in the former Soviet Union were also organized into the United Armed Forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which started falling away as the states organized their own separate militaries. Before they had gained operational independence from each other, however, the Collective Security Treaty was signed by nine countries, promising mutual defense now that the defensive guarantees of the USSR were gone. This treaty was made into a full alliance in 2002, which is the CSTO we have today.

Currently the CSTO has six member states: Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. It is one of the world’s rare explicitly military alliances, and is one of the largest ones that do not involve at least one NATO member state. The alliance is very obviously dominated by Russia, evident by looking at a map, hearing the names of the countries or by looking at the numbers. Russia stands for 75% of both the GDP and population of the alliance, and 90% of the military expenditure even in peacetime. Russia is similarly the greatest contributor to every single shared project, with the notable number two being Armenia.

The CSTO, much like NATO, has a mutual defense clause in its articles, and one equally as binding. This, CSTOs article four, is the alliance’s most important document. The involved nations receive a security guarantee from one of the world’s greatest militaries, and the whole world can see that these five allies of Russia are off limit. In addition to the mutual defense clause, there are a number of secondary agreements to deepen military cooperation. The CSTO has an agreement that states all weapons imports from Russia to the members will be sold at equal price to what the Russian military buys it for, and they consequently almost entirely rely on Russian arms.

Three sub-organizations of the CSTO provide for ease of military cooperation. The largest is the yet to be used Collective Rapid Reaction Force (KSOR), which is meant to lead combat missions with soldiers from all member states. The second is the CSTO peacekeeping force, which may be deployed anywhere within the CSTO at the request of the host nation and the consent of the others, or be deployed anywhere in the world with approval from the UN. The second option has never happened. The third is the CSTO airwing, which is meant to transport troops for the alliance’s weaker members that lack air capacity. The majority of personnel and equipment in all three of the branches of the collective security system are from Russia.

Part two: The internal struggles and strife of the CSTO

CSTO member states colored in green with internationally recognized borders

The inability of Russia and the CSTO to keep the organization together showed itself early on, when Georgia and Azerbaijan declined to re-sign the treaty in 1999 and therefore dropped out of the alliance. These two countries have had drastically different paths since, but they both show a complete and violent departure from the Russian sphere.

Georgia, after its independence from the USSR in 1991 had time for one democratic election before disintegration. The civil war in 1992 started with a military coup against the elected president, and the disloyal colonels gained Russian support. Russia ensured during the course of 1992-1993 both that Georgian democracy would be replaced with a pro-Russian military government and that the breakaway states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia gained de facto independence. Having both a puppet state in Georgia proper and in two breakaway regions proved difficult, and the government of Georgia was wildly unpopular throughout the entirety of the 90s. The rose revolution in 2003 ended the rule of the Russian backed regime, and sent Georgia on a path of democratization and western alignment. The conflict between Russia and Georgia culminated in their war in 2008, and despite winning the war, all hope for Russia of reintegrating Georgia proper into their sphere is now gone.

Azerbaijan’s part in the story of Russian failure in the Caucasus runs parallel with that of Armenia. During the Nagorno Karabakh war of 1991-1994 Russia did not pick a side, and failed to cement a peace agreement until Armenia forced it through near complete tactical victory. Armenia attempted in the wake of the war to get closer to Russia to ensure support in case the war restarted, and they did this by helping the CSTO at every turn. Despite being by population the smallest ally, Armenia has consistently been the second biggest contributor in peacekeeping of the alliance, both internally and in the UN. Azerbaijan, on the other hand, sought out other friends. They found this in Turkey, and in 2010 they signed a bilateral defense agreement as binding as the mutual defense clauses of NATO or the CSTO. In 2020 the war did restart, and Azerbaijan won handily. The CSTO council argued they did not have to help, as the war happened on de jure Azerbaijani soil and not on Armenian sovereign land, thus not being a threat to Armenian sovereignty. This explanation is of course not accepted in Armenia, where the inaction is seen as a betrayal. 

In 2012 Uzbekistan left the alliance for the second and last time, and with this shook the geopolitics of Central Asia. Uzbekistan is, as Azerbaijan, building ties with Turkey, and an openly opposed Uzbekistan terrified the states of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan is far larger and more powerful than the two others, and all three of them have disputes over water rights and border demarcation. If Uzbekistan gets the impression that Russia is not a guarantor of the security of the two smaller states to its east, they might go as far as to start a war. The two states to the east see this, and instead of cooperating with each other they fight border skirmishes and demand each other be suspended from the CSTO. Each year the skirmishes have gotten deadlier, lasted longer and escalation has been carried out from higher up in the command chain. In other words, two of Russia’s current allies are at a very real risk of war.

Russia is not a peaceful nation itself, and in Ukraine it saw the extent of which its allies would come to its aid in its imperial projects. Not a single soldier from another nation in the CSTO have arrived to help Russia, nor have any weapons or money.  In Armenia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan the calls to leave the CSTO are among the primary demands of the political opposition. The two allies without a significant call to leave are demanding each other be thrown out. While it is tempting to point to this as some beginning of the end for the modern Russian empire, that has been ending continuously since the USSR fell. Eleven states formed the CIS and nine agreed to make the CSTO. When Moldova is finished leaving eight states will remain in the CIS and six in the CSTO. Five former Soviet states have military cooperation with Turkey. Three have joined the EU and NATO. Two have now fought wars against Russia. The CSTO is not an attempt to make a NATO or a Warsaw Pact, it is an attempt to maintain a lost past.

Part three: The CSTO in numbers

Russia, being around 75% of both the population and the GDP of the CSTO contributes in total 80% of active duty personnel and 90% of the total military budget. Do note, these are numbers from before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but counting occupied Crimea. If the CSTO functioned as a unified military bloc it would be the third largest military both in active duty personnel and in budget, even surpassing the USA in total active duty soldiers. The majority of the GDP and military budget contributions from outside of Russia in the CSTO comes from Kazakhstan. 

Country	Population	GDP	Active soldiers	Military budget
Russia	147 000 000	$2 215mrd.	1 154 000	$65,9bln.
Kazakhstan	19 000 000	$596mrd.	108 000	$4bln.
Tajikistan	9 750 000	$9.9mrd.	29 000	$79mil.
Belarus	9 250 000	$79mrd.	62 000	$660mil.
Kyrgyzstan	7 000 000	$9mrd.	23 000	$600mil.
Armenia	3 000 000	$23mrd.	69 000	$1.3bln,
Total	195 000 000	$2 932mrd.	1 445 000	$72.5bln.

A total of 21600 troops are earmarked for CSTO operations, though the real number may have been reduced by Russian losses in Ukraine. As of 2022 the CSTO common budget was $5.7 billion, with half that amount being provided by Russia. 

Branch	Personnel	Budget
KSOR	18 000	Unknown
Peacekeeping forces	3 600	Unknown
Collective air force	Unknown	Unknown

There are plenty of important metrics not counted here, like reserves, equipment numbers, nukes, military exports and more. The CSTO is by members the largest multilateral military pact which does not include any NATO countries or close allies of NATO, and by size the largest by most measures after NATO and the comparatively lonely countries of China and India. 

Part four: Russian military cooperation outside of the CSTO

In red, member states of the SCO. In pink, partners and observers of the SCO (Egypt off map)

Russian military cooperation mostly happens in one of four spaces, the first being the near abroad already covered by the CSTO, the second being the Asian space through cooperation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the third being the middle eastern space through the Russian cooperation with the Iranian sphere and the last being Russian involvement in African civil conflicts. 

Russia maintains three puppet regimes in their "near abroad" in the form of breakaway republics from what Russian nationalists would perceive as breakaway republics, those being post-soviet states. Two of them, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, are breakaway states from Georgia. Russia maintains the position that these two are independent states, despite the use of Russian passports and money. The two breakaway states, recognized internationally as being Georgian land occupied by Russia, are each protected by around 5000 Russian troops in each country, more than either of them can field in active duty soldiers. The last one, Transnistria, is in the eastern parts of Moldova, and is secured by a deployment of some 1000 Russian troops. Transnistria, being more removed from Russia, is also more functionally independent. Prior to the annexation of Ukrainian territories in 2022 there were also two puppet breakaway states in Ukraine, the Luhansk People's Republic and Donetsk People's Republic. Both People's Republics are now parts of Russia according to Russia, though neither is under the full military control of Russia as of writing. 

The SCO is sometimes falsely presented as a military pact and as a kind of eastern NATO, or alternatively as an Asian EU. The SCO is neither of these things, but that does not make it unimportant. Russia balances their good relations with China and India, who are regional rivals. Russia is the main military exercise partner of China, as well as provider of a great deal of their military tech. India's main arms exporter is Russia, and their relations have been good since the cold war. This does not, however, mean that either China or India can be called proper Russian allies, as neither of them would support Russia in any offensive or defensive conflict. 

The SCO has a sub-organization called the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) which has the goal of opposing the "three evils" of terrorism, extremism and separatism. RATS functions as a forum for cooperating security and law-enforcement resources between the nations against rebels, terrorists and organized crime. The RATS does not have any shared units, nor do they agree on what groups they consider to be terrorists. 

The Russian cooperation in the Middle East happens in the framework of the Russia-Syria-Iran-Iraq coalition, an intelligence sharing network between the four states in the battle against the Islamic State. This framework is often called 4+1 by observers, with the one referring to the Hezbollah. Russia is the main arms exporter to Iran and Syria, and the second largest to Iraq. With Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Russia has become the one in need of weapons, and Iran has ironically become their largest foreign arms supplier. 

Russia's only direct military intervention outside of the former USSR since the fall of the union has been in Syria, where Russian air, naval and ground forces have fought the Islamic State and the Syrian opposition. The Russian air campaign in Syria has been of great help to Assad's government, and may have been completely necessary to maintain the regime. On Syria's end of the relationship, Syrian troops have fought in Libya on the side supported by Russia and the Syrian diplomatic body consistently vote in favor of Russia, regardless of the unpopularity of that stance. 

Russia's influence in Africa shows itself through two actions. The first is arms sales, which is most notable in North Africa to Algeria, Libya, Sudan and the US ally of Egypt. The second is the use of mercenaries from the Wagner group, which the Russian government claims to not be involved in. These mercenaries bring European competence and equipment to Africa, and have fought in the internal conflicts of Mali, Burkina Faso, Libya, the Central African Republic, and Mozambique. Wagner involvement means Russia may be the non-African country with the most soldiers in Africa, though clandestinely. 

Overall, the Russian involvement outside of the former USSR was more important than that in their near abroad, though that changed with the invasion of Ukraine. The most important Russian partnerships outside of Belarus are still outside of the CSTO and CIS framework, which clashes with Russia waging a war in Europe, where Iran, India, China and Syria do little to help.