Senseless Dreams and Small Steps: The CIS and CSTO between Integration and Cooperation

Abstract

The pursuit of integration in post-Soviet Eurasia (PSE) concerns institutions, but it is also about ideas: the vision that the region at some level remains some sort of political community. While the dream of unity remains an active project, the object remains as elusive as ever. Initiative is piled upon declaration, yet there appears to be little substantive progress. The lack of large-scale achievement in integration, however, belies some small advances at the level of cooperation, especially at the subregional level. The ambition to recreate some sort of pan-Eurasian body covering the greater part of the former Soviet Union is clearly for the present a hopeless dream. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) lacks an internal dynamic for development, and while its routine gatherings of heads of state and other officials continues to provide a forum for negotiation and a sphere to solve certain practical problems, the CIS has not developed into anything like an analogue of the European Union (EU). However, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO; in Russian Organizatsiya dogovora o kollektivnoi bezopasnosti, ODKB) does show certain cohesive qualities, and although it is a relatively small organisation with a restricted mandate, its continued development suggests that the cooperative drive in PSE is not altogether exhausted. It represents a small and partial step, but perhaps more importantly indicates the way that genuine integration projects can be achieved. Indeed, soon after his inauguration on 7 May 2008 Dmitry Medvedev stated that strengthening Russia’s ties with other former Soviet republics would be the priority for his presidency, and his first foreign visit as president was to Kazakhstan (Moscow Times, 23 May 2008). This was in contrast with Vladimir Putin, who began his presidency by stressing the importance of ties with the EU. However, war in the Caucasus within months of Medvedev’s inauguration demonstrated just how complex the combination of internal pressures and external influence had become. Conflicting internal imperatives and outside interests rendered the former Soviet space the focus of a new era of confrontation.