THE SHANGHAI COOPERATION ORGANISATION’S MOMENTUM TOWARDS A MATURE SECURITY ALLIANCE

Abstract

Security organisations can differ in their scope of activities and in deepness of their mutual cooperation. For instance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) nowadays pays homage to the broad concept of security: security not only encompassing military but also political, economic, social and environmental factors.1 Among other things, this comprehensive approach to security includes aspects such as free and fair elections; well-organised administrative, lawenforcement and judicial organs at national, regional and local level; employment; housing; education and health services. If all of these dimensions of security are provided in the areas where NATO operates, such as Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, then a stable and secure situation has been reached. However, in 1949 NATO started as an organisation with an exclusive military objective, namely to deter an eventual attack by the Soviet Union and its satellites against European (NATO) countries. Especially during its operations in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the Western alliance realised that its concept of security should include other aspects than military, in order to achieve a stable international security environment. As to the intensity of cooperation among its member-states, NATO started with the most essential elements of political and military cooperation only. It took NATO many years to establish its current integrated political-military structure and activities, such as frequent political deliberations, joint forces and allied operations far beyond its territorial borders.