Comparative analysis of NATO and SCO Behaviors in Central Asia from 2001 to 2012

The strategic importance of Central Asian region emerged within the framework or global security challenges following 9/11. NATO engagement in Afghanistan and the US strategic shifts from “energy security" to "fighting against terrorism" in the region, together with its new approaches in various political, military and operational fields within the context of comprehensive theory of "cooperative security" encountered with the formation of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)and the formation of new regional security arrangement within the context of neo-regionalism theory. These developments indicate the importance of the Central Asia Region in the world politics and amongst major players of these two organizations namely US, Russia and China over the past decade.
This article tries to answer the main question by using a comparative-descriptive How could security policies of NATO and SCO in Central Asian Region be studied and theoretically compared? The authors believe that, over the past decade, member states of the two organizations have shared tactical interest such as the stability of Afghanistan, the fight against drug trafficking, organized crimes and terrorism, all realized in terms of partnership mechanisms for NATO peace and NATO-Russia council. Therefore, despite the existence of mechanisms of cooperation to achieve tactical shared interests, two organizations disagreed on strategic subject matters such as the long term goals of the US in the region, the expansion of NATO to the East and the controlling and managing energy security in Central Asia. In the meantime, there are some elements such as NATO’s bilateral relationship with some Central Asian countries being affected by China and Russia policies, contradicting goals of major players, and lack of comprehensive institutional mechanism of consultation and cooperation in the two organizations have deepened the differences among them.