No “Orange Virus” Until CSTO Exists

While NATO member states are preparing for the summit in Chicago, the CSTO summit was held in Moscow, in which Vladimir Putin stated: “We have similar approaches to the basic issues of international and regional security. I’m sure CSTO’s role in the world will further grow.”

We can only guess which approaches of CSTO members are similar. Most probably, not “global” or regional security, since CSTO member states face different security challenges. Combination of challenges of two countries is possible but the approaches of the member states to external challenges will hardly be the same.

The countries may have similar approaches to the necessity to prevent “orange” revolutions in the CSTO area. It is not accidental that the forces for the prevention of “emergency situations” are being developed intensively in the CSTO. Unrest and “revolution” are also considered an emergency situation.

Thus, Armenia needs CSTO as a guarantee of internal stability while bilateral relations with Russia are enough for addressing some issues of Armenia's foreign policy. By and large, the CSTO is not a system of global security because it does not formulate common challenges (amorphous formulations on combating terrorism and drug trafficking do not count) but rather gendarmerie in the post-soviet space.

NATO fails to outline the frame of tasks after the collapse of the Warsaw agreement either, and the summit in Chicago is called to solve this task. NATO has been created with the aim of preventing communist revolutions in its area of influence but it was also called to keep internal stability and public order in its member states.

But now no communist revolutions threaten NATO states. Now this organization is actually, defending the economic and energy interests of its members, as well as it ensures anti-terrorism security.

Will Serzh Sargsyan attend the NATO summit? The Azerbaijani mass media have announced back in February that Aliyev has been invited to the summit and will take part in it. Even though James Appaturay, NATO representative in the South Caucasus, visited Armenia and met with Serzh Sargsyan, apparently he has not been invited to the summit.

Serzh Sargsyan did not take part in the last Lisbon summit either, stating that the project of the final resolution contains “inadequate” formulations on the Karabakh issue. Apparently, he will not take part this time, and Armenia will be represented by its foreign and defense ministers. Moreover, Vladimir Putin also decided to skip the summit in the United States.