Why The Emergence Of The Shanghai Cooperation Organization Is A Threat To The West

Putin Signs Secret Pact To Crush NATO -- Zero Hedge

Submitted by Marin Katusa via Casey Research,

Back on September 11 and 12, there was a summit meeting in a city that involved an organization that most Americans have never heard of. Mainstream media coverage was all but nonexistent.

The place was Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, a country few Westerners could correctly place on a map.

But you can bet your last ruble that Vladimir Putin knows exactly where Tajikistan is. Because the group that met there is the Russian president’s baby. It’s the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), consisting of six member states: Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

The SCO was founded in 2001, ostensibly to collectively oppose extremism and enhance border security. But its real reason for being is larger. Putin sees it in a broad context, as a counterweight to NATO (a position that the SCO doesn’t deny, by the way). Its official stance may be to pledge nonalignment, nonconfrontation, and noninterference in other countries’ affairs, but—pointedly—the members do conduct joint military exercises.

Why should we care about this meeting in the middle of nowhere? Well, obviously, anything that Russia and China propose to do together warrants our attention. But there’s a whole lot more to the story.

Read more ....

My Comment: There are a number of significant differences among the members (and future members) of this organization .... but the intent is there .... to develop an economic/military/and political organization that will be independent from the EU, NATO, the U.S., and financial institutions like the IMF and World Bank. Will it succeed ... I have my doubts .... but if it succeeds .... there will be a realignment in international relations, and the big loser will be the West.