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

Abstract

Security organisations can differ in their scope of activities and in deepness oftheir mutual cooperation. For instance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation(NATO) nowadays pays homage to the broad concept of security: security not onlyencompassing military but also political, economic, social and environmentalfactors.1 Among other things, this comprehensive approach to security includesaspects such as free and fair elections; well-organised administrative, lawenforcementand judicial organs at national, regional and local level; employment;housing; education and health services. If all of these dimensions of security areprovided in the areas where NATO operates, such as Bosnia, Kosovo andAfghanistan, then a stable and secure situation has been reached. However, in 1949NATO started as an organisation with an exclusive military objective, namely todeter an eventual attack by the Soviet Union and its satellites against European(NATO) countries. Especially during its operations in the former Yugoslavia in the1990s, the Western alliance realised that its concept of security should include otheraspects than military, in order to achieve a stable international security environment.As to the intensity of cooperation among its member-states, NATO started with themost essential elements of political and military cooperation only. It took NATOmany years to establish its current integrated political-military structure andactivities, such as frequent political deliberations, joint forces and allied operationsfar beyond its territorial borders.