The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation's momentum towards a mature security alliance

Abstract

Security organisations can differ in their scope of activities and in deepness of
their mutual cooperation. For instance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
(NATO) nowadays pays homage to the broad concept of security: security not only
encompassing military but also political, economic, social and environmental
factors.1 Among other things, this comprehensive approach to security includes
aspects such as free and fair elections; well-organised administrative, lawenforcement
and judicial organs at national, regional and local level; employment;
housing; education and health services. If all of these dimensions of security are
provided in the areas where NATO operates, such as Bosnia, Kosovo and
Afghanistan, then a stable and secure situation has been reached. However, in 1949
NATO started as an organisation with an exclusive military objective, namely to
deter an eventual attack by the Soviet Union and its satellites against European
(NATO) countries. Especially during its operations in the former Yugoslavia in the
1990s, the Western alliance realised that its concept of security should include other
aspects than military, in order to achieve a stable international security environment.
As to the intensity of cooperation among its member-states, NATO started with the
most essential elements of political and military cooperation only. It took NATO
many years to establish its current integrated political-military structure and
activities, such as frequent political deliberations, joint forces and allied operations
far beyond its territorial borders.

Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies Vol. 36 (1) 2008: pp. 14-30