Sergey Saenko, international observer

In the current difficult geopolitical conditions and with the escalation of tensions in relations between the world’s largest powers, the role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (hereinafter SCO or the Organization) is becoming increasingly important. At the same time, the collective position of the SCO member states on key international issues can significantly influence global public opinion and politics.

It should be noted that the influence of the SCO extends beyond economic and demographic power. The strategic location, natural resources and military potential of its members make this association a key player in the sphere of regional security. The SCO’s emphasis on joint security initiatives and efforts to combat terrorism underscores its role in shaping regional peace and stability.

In turn, the accelerated destruction of the unipolar world poses a whole range of urgent tasks for the SCO to ensure pan-Eurasian security. This became especially relevant after the July NATO summit in Washington adopted a declaration in which it was stated that China allegedly “challenges Euro-Atlantic security”, therefore the alliance intends to develop a partnership with Beijing’s opponents in the Indo-Pacific region (IPR). This passage in the declaration of the North Atlantic Alliance means that in the future we may talk about the creation of a full-fledged “Eastern NATO”, which, along with the AUKUS bloc (Australia, Great Britain, USA), will be able to conduct large-scale military operations against China and maintain a naval blockade regime as an element of possible anti-Chinese economic sanctions of the West. It should be noted that not only China, but absolutely any state pursuing a sovereign foreign and domestic policy, including Russia, may face a similar situation.

In this regard, it is no coincidence that the Russian expert community has increasingly begun to voice the need to create its own intelligence structure within the SCO. For example, not long ago in an interview with RIA Novosti, the well-known Russian military analyst, editor-in-chief of the National Defense magazine Igor Korotchenko stated that the SCO countries need to create a joint intelligence committee and form a military committee against the backdrop of the possible creation of an “Eastern NATO” in the ITR.

“Today, the need for new formats of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s activities is becoming increasingly urgent. First of all, we are talking about creating a joint intelligence committee of the SCO, which will be able to analyze global world processes in real time through the prism of risks and threats to the national security of the member countries of this organization, establish a mechanism for the mutual exchange of intelligence information, prepare recommendations for jointly countering threats and challenges, and expand specialized cooperation in the fight against terrorism, separatism and extremism,” Korotchenko said.

The military expert’s statement echoes the statement made by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the SCO Plus meeting held as part of the organization’s summit on July 3-4 in Astana. At that time, the Chinese leader stated the need to improve security in the region through joint efforts, and to do this, he said, it is necessary to establish an exchange of experience in public administration, accelerate the creation of a center to counter security challenges and threats, create an anti-drug center, and also increase the exchange of intelligence data within the SCO. Such an exchange, Xi Jinping noted, is already underway, but the Chinese President wants it to be more active and complete. It must be assumed that the Chinese leader has every reason to insist on intensifying the exchange of intelligence information. One of the key problems in the Eurasian space, which to one degree or another affects almost all SCO countries, is terrorism and extremism. The intelligence services of the countries that are part of the association should really step up their efforts to exchange information on the activities of terrorist and extremist groups.

Another problem is the subversive activities of Western intelligence services in Eurasian countries. It is known that the intelligence services of a number of Western countries provoke “color revolutions” and mass unrest in the countries of the region through their controlled political structures. And in order to counteract such activity of foreign players, it is also necessary, first of all, to intensify the process of exchanging intelligence information. For this reason, the leaders of the SCO member states should really listen to the above-mentioned statement by Xi Jinping. It can be said with a high degree of certainty that the Chinese leader called on the SCO to intensify the exchange of intelligence information due to threats from the United States, which is increasingly tightening the hostile ring around China. It is no secret that NATO and the European Union are already openly conducting subversive and provocative work against the SCO and BRICS. Washington, it should be noted, is not shy about saying that it is ready to destroy competitors, which for them are the SCO and BRICS countries, primarily China. And it will be easier for the SCO and BRICS member states to counter threats from the collective West when they actively exchange intelligence, which is exactly what Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for.

Another truth is also quite obvious: security in the Eurasian space as a whole is much easier to ensure through joint efforts. It seems that this axiom is well understood in Russia. After all, it is no coincidence that the director of the domestic Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Sergei Naryshkin previously stated that the closest cooperation of this agency is established precisely with the intelligence services of the SCO and CIS countries. “The SVR has the closest relations with the intelligence agencies of the CIS and SCO countries. It is in this circle that we develop common assessments of terrorist threats and approaches to resolving regional conflicts like the Afghan one,” Naryshkin said in an interview with the Argumenty i Fakty newspaper. At the same time, Sergei Naryshkin noted that the SVR’s cooperation with the intelligence services of China and India is of particular value, including in the format of trilateral meetings of their leaders.

By the way, it is worth recalling that Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about the security issue back in June last year during his online speech at the SCO summit in New Delhi. The main topic of that summit was precisely the security issues of the Organization, which, by the way, was held under the slogan Towards a SECURE SCO. So, in his speech, the Russian leader proposed “transforming the regional anti-terrorist structure of the SCO into a universal center that would respond to the entire spectrum of security threats,” and this, as experts believe, means the beginning of the formation of a global military-political union within the Organization.

It can be assumed that in the future, a single center will be created within the SCO that will coordinate the activities of various special services of the Organization’s member countries, but at the same time it will not coordinate the strategy of actions, but will only work on exchanging information and preventing attacks and threats. Some experts claim that this single SCO center would be appropriate to compare with Interpol, only in a more expanded format of work with special services, where the emphasis will not be on police functions, but on a closer exchange of data, open databases on terrorism, threats and threats to the security of SCO countries.