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Originally Posted by Feanor
The SCO does not exist as a coherent counter-part to NATO. At best it's a loose framework of military cooperation.
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The latest SCO military exercise
"Peace Mission 2007" involved over 6,500 troops from the six member nations. Such large scale military exercises could hardly be a result of a "loose framework of military cooperation".
Stephen Blank, a professor of national security studies at the U.S. Army War College's Strategic Studies had this to say about the SCO wargames:
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Although the SCO's representatives always say that it's not aimed at a third country or party, if you look at their communiques going back to 2001 -- and even before that to the Sino-Russian communiques and the formation of the six-party border agreements -- their communiques have always been full of coded anti-American foreign policy statements. So for Russia and China, it's aimed at American interests. And the size of these exercises is growing, and many experts do not believe that they are confined only to so-called antiterrorist activities, or even just to Central Asia. The August 2005 Sino-Russian exercises, which were conducted under the auspices of the SCO, were so large and [they] so thoroughly combined arms and major-theater conventional warfare in their approach, that people believed these were aimed as much at Taiwan and Korea as they were at any potential Central Asian contingency.
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Eurasia: U.S. Security Expert Talks About SCO Exercises, Summit - RADIO FREE EUROPE / RADIO LIBERTY
There is also growing economic and cultural cooperation within the SCO framework (see
wikipedia).
Ofcourse SCO does not have as complex and as coherent a structure as NATO because NATO is an older and more experienced alliance. However SCO is developing very rapidly and has already shown that it can take concrete steps to defend the geopolitical interests of its members (ie. eviction of the US military presence from Uzbekistan).
In either case, the analysis at
Welcome to Cold War II - by Kiron is not based solely on NATO and SCO structures as members of these organisations make alot of their geopolitical maneuvers outside those frameworks (ie. US invasion of Iraq, or on the other hand, military-technical cooperation between Russia, Cuba and Venezuela). SCO vs NATO is simply the most suitable umbrella under which to analyse the struggle of the world's most influencial geopolitical poles. Although I think I will change the naming on the map to avoid confusion.
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Originally Posted by maqsad
India should probably be purple in this map anyway.
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Originally Posted by gamercube
India is an ally of the SCO countries? Like who, except Russia? I'd put India in NAM.....it is a founder of that, after all.
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Membership in NAM is not indicative of a country's neutrality. For example, close US allies (which receive large packages of US foreign military financing and/or host US troops and/or support US military actions etc..) such as Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and United Arab Emirates are members of NAM. At the same time, Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela -- countries which oppose US-driven globalisation, are outspoken critics of US foreign policy, which support the military-industrial complexes of Russia and China by importing their weapon systems etc.., are also members of NAM. Therefore I haven't really decided yet how NAM fits into this analysis or whether it should be mentioned at all.
Following are the factors which were used to determine India's geopolitical stance as a "close ally of SCO":
India (19,040): SCO observer (wiki);
major purchaser of Russian weapons (link,2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2006), 70-80% of Indian armament is of Soviet/Russian origin (link);
ongoing military tensions with Pakistan over Kashmir (wiki)
India is an SCO observer, with the possibility of full membership in the future. She has extensive links to the Russian military-industrial complex, being the second largest importer of Russian armaments. Some analysts point to the fact that because of Indian purchases a large portion of the Russian defense industry was able to survive the chaos of the 1990s.
India has a territorial dispute with Pakistan. The latest military clash between the two sides in Kargil was only nine years ago. While Pakistan is a major buyer of US defense equipment (ie.
In fiscal year 2005, the Department of State authorized the export of defense articles and services valued at $122,408,447 for Pakistan.) and is the third largest recipient of US foreign military financing. Pakistan receives at least $300 million USD in military aid each year, which is about 7% of its total military budget. This puts India in direct geopolitical opposition to the US. Although the political language between the two countries may be polite and courteous.
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Originally Posted by gamercube
Same goes for Nepal and Myanmar.
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Nepal (105): Surrounded by SCO and SCO observer states (link)
This was the only factor which I used to determine Nepal's geopolitical stance. It is surrounded by India and China, thus its policy largely depends on these two countries. I made a mistake in that my map did not match the analysis concerning Nepal, it was shown as 'red' when it should have been 'dark red'. I haven't really researched this country's politics that much so if you have any useful articles which you think would back up your opinion about Nepal's neutrality then please share them with me here.
Burma (Myanmar) (39): Ally of China and major purchaser of Chinese weapons (link);
"Outpost of Tyranny" (wiki);
purchaser of Russian weapons (2001,2002,2006);
target of US (link) and EU sanctions
I think it is pretty self-explanatory as far as Burma goes.
Thank you for your comments friends.