Description
A collective security oriented organization in the post-Soviet space, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has been discussed on various occasions by its members. As it is a regional security organization, than an international one, the member states’ expectations from it are high but not fulfilled. Feeling protected under the Russian umbrella, but at the same time threatened by Russian aggression, the member states are not yet committed to the value of the organization. As more members require Russian assistance in their domestic troubles or outside conflicts, under the CSTO framework, e.g. Oshi protests in Kyrgyzstan of 2010 or Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan of 2020, the position of CSTO became more important on whether it has the right authority to assist to those issues that the states deal with. With the discussion started between members, it becomes more popular to assume CSTO, as a Russian tool to show its role in the post-Soviet region.
By looking at the official reactions of Russia towards the crisis in the CSTO member states and comparing them with the actions, this paper suggests that CSTO is not directly used as a tool to influence or control the post-Soviet sphere by Russia since CSTO has its own framework and Russia already has its own foreign policy tools. For this purpose, within the case of Nagorno-Karabakh War, this paper analyses the Russia’s flexible acting and CSTO’s Charter-led behaviour through looking the organization’s “institutional design” in order to understand CSTO in its own context.
