The CSTO is a security alliance comprised of six member states: Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. It traces its origins to a regional treaty signed after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but since the signing of its charter in 2002, CSTO has taken on a more formal structure, with a collective security council and a rotating chairmanship. Its secretariat is based in Moscow.
Russia dominates the CSTO: The nuclear-armed nation has the organization’s largest military, its biggest economy and most advanced weapons industry. The CSTO bars its members from hosting foreign military bases without agreement of all other members, giving Russia an effective veto over the presence of foreign forces in the region.
The organization holds military exercises to test peacekeeping and rapid-reaction capabilities. Last year, the organization held military drills on the Tajik-Afghan border after the collapse of the central government in Afghanistan. But it is still in its relative infancy compared with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which currently has 30 members.
The deployment of CSTO forces to Kazakhstan represents a test of the organization’s definition of collective defense.
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