Ali Tavakoli
Affiliations:
Matser’s Student in Regional Studies, Faculty of Eco Insurance, Allameh Tabatabai University, Tehran, IRAN
The series of developments in the world since the events of 9/11 has given a new geostrategic significance to the Central Asian region. NATO's presence in Afghanistan and US strategy change from "energy security" to "counter-terrorism" strategy in the peripheral environment of Central Asia and work on various military and operational policy areas in the region within the framework of a comprehensive "cooperative security" theory. Involvement of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and new Coalition in Neo-Regionalism Theory against NATO's influence on the region shows the importance of the Central Asian region in the politics of the important players of these two organizations ; the US, Russia and China in the first decade of the current century. This article attempts to answer this question by using a comparative descriptive approach on how to study and compare the security policies of NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the Central Asian region. The findings of this article indicate that over the past decade, the members of the two organizations have shared interests in issues such as Afghanistan's stability, counter-narcotics trafficking, terrorism as part of NATO-Russia partnership mechanisms and the Russian-NATO Council have organized it. This subject organization throughout the region had a mostly tactical level. But despite the common threats posed by the two organizations to strategic issues such as long-term US acceptance in the region, NATO expansion to the east, and security of energy routes, there are differences of interest. Meanwhile, factors such as the impact of NATO's relations with Central Asian countries on Russia's and Russia's regional policies, the conflicting goals of the major players and the lack of a comprehensive co-operation between the two organizations have exacerbated the differences.
Keywords:
NATO, Co-operative Security, Shanghai Cooperation, Neo-regionalism and Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure.