ON DECEMBER 20, Russia's main legislative body, the State Duma, reaffirmed its faith in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The Commonwealth is the oldest multilateral institution linking all the former Soviet republics except the Baltic states. In their statement, Duma members declared: "The Commonwealth of Independent States meets the interests of all its members and the international community. It has potential for development and cooperation in all directions."
Missed Opportunities at Minsk
Russia's legislatures must truly be placing hope over experience. For the Commonwealth, 2006 represented one of the worst years in its history. At the end of November 2006, the leaders of the CIS governments held their annual summit in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. Apparently by coincidence, the meeting occurred at the same time as the NATO summit in nearby Riga, Latvia.
The main item on the CIS summit's agenda was the organization's renewal. An ad hoc group formed after the Commonwealth's 2005 summit in Kazakhstan had drafted a 42-page report offering reforms designed to improve the institution's effectiveness and efficiency. Vladimir Garkun, the CIS senior deputy executive secretary, said that if they did not adopt this comprehensive restructuring plan, the CIS leaders would call into question the organization's very existence.
In the event, the summit attendees failed this test. The member governments did agree to enhance their cooperation against organized crime and terrorism. For example, they adopted measures on fighting human trafficking and other forms of illegal migration. They also signed accords to provide judges with better personal protection and to combat money laundering. As in their other recent summits, however, the attendees postponed making the tough decisions on major restructuring until the next summit, currently scheduled for the summer of 2007 in St. Petersburg. In the interim, they instructed their foreign ministers to draft and present an agreed reform concept by July.
The members' divergent visions of the CIS's proper role in the "post-Soviet space" largely explain its paralysis. On the one extreme, Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev had has been pushing for years for a major restructuring and strengthening of the organization. At the July 2006 meeting, he proposed the CIS pursue new initiatives in the areas of cross-border crime, migration, and transportation. He also suggested several cost-cutting measures.
On the other hand, the leaders of Ukraine and Georgia see the organization primarily as a mechanism for consultations with follow CIS leaders, a concept derisively referred to as a "presidential club" by its critics. For example, they sought to use the Minsk meeting to discuss one-on-one with Putin problems in their bilateral relations with Russia. (In the end, Putin refused to meet directly with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.) Even such close CIS allies as Russia and Belarus are divided over key issues like whether to adopt a common currency and what the price other CIS members should pay for Russia's oil and gas.
Troubled History
After the USSR's disintegration, the CIS initially represented the most important institution connecting the former Soviet republics. Nine of its members (including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Russia) signed a CIS Collective Security Treaty (CST) at a 1992 summit in Tashkent. According to its provisions, they pledged to assist one another in case of external aggression. The CST signatories also agreed to cooperate to resolve conflicts between treaty members, a clause which Russia used (along with bilateral agreements) to legitimize its continued military presence in many CIS member states.
In addition, the CIS played a useful role in facilitating a "civilized divorce" among its members following the USSR's collapse. Compared with the chaos that arose in the former Yugoslavia, another communist-dominated multinational state that had failed to overcome its underlying ethnic divisions, the disintegration of the Soviet Union occurred with surprisingly little violence. For the most part, the leaders of the newly independent former Soviet republics accepted the USSR's administrative boundaries as their new national borders. Putin himself praised the organization for "clearly help[ing] us to get through the period of putting in place partnership relations between the newly formed young states without any great losses and play[ing] a positive part in containing regional conflicts in the post-Soviet area."
After its first few years, however, the CIS ceased to exert any great influence on its members' most important policy decisions. For example, the agreement establishing a collective CIS air defense network, which began to operate in 1995, had to be supplemented by separate bilateral agreements between Russia and several important participants such as Ukraine. Georgia and Turkmenistan withdrew from the system in 1997. The influence of the CIS reached its nadir in 1999. In that year, Russia withdrew its border guards from Kyrgyzstan and its military advisers from Turkmenistan. At the same time, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Uzbekistan declined to renew their membership in the CST.
Current Problems
Furthermore, the CIS historically has had difficulties securing implementation of many of the economic, political, and security agreements its member governments have signed. Although the institution does provide opportunities for dialogue among its members--especially between government ministries and agencies dealing with common problems such as customs and migration, as well as among legislatures through the CIS Parliamentary Assembly--its lack of effective enforcement or oversight mechanisms severely limits more substantial cooperation. Members find it difficult to reconcile their conflicting policies and legislation, since even Russian lawmakers ratify only a small percentage of CIS accords. According to Nazarbayev, of the 1,600 agreements formally adopted by the CIS, its members have signed and implemented fewer than 30 percent.
The problems of achieving consensus among twelve governments with increasingly divergent agendas, combined with the organization's weak, opaque, and inefficient institutions, have led to its stagnation and steady decline relative to the other major multinational institutions with a presence in Central Asia. Russian President Vladimir Putin himself complained that the CIS employs "obsolete forms and methods of work." Although Russia alone might be able to push through certain CIS organizational reforms thanks to its ability to offer commercial and other incentives to its fellow member states, Russian officials have declined to play this locomotive role for many years and instead have devoted their attention towards strengthening other institutions such as the Collective Security Organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Eurasian Economic Community.
In addition to its structural weaknesses, policy differences among CIS members have also called into question the institution's viability. Major frictions between Russia and other members have arisen over a number of issues. For example, members disagree over the appropriate prices for Russian energy (as seen most recently in the confrontation with Ukraine, but also in the context of disputes between Moscow and Georgia and Moldova) and Russia's restrictions on labor mobility (though the late August 2005 CIS summit adopted new measures to deal with illegal migration). Plans to establish a CIS free trade zone have been repeatedly postponed. At present, many members trade more with Western countries than they do with each other. Similar divergences are evident over the question of some members' desire to increase ties with seemingly rival Western institutions like the EU and NATO. The recent color revolutions have widened divergences among the members' political systems, with certain countries seeking to establish European-style liberal democracies and other regimes committed to preserving their authoritarian status quo.
Ironically, a major weakness of the CIS--its inability to reduce differences in the goals, policies, and values of its members--probably also will prevent its complete disintegration. Since it exercises so few limits on their freedom of action, these governments lack a strong reason to break with inertia and formally leave the organization. Instead, the results of the recent summit show that, while the CIS may persist, its influence will probably continue to decrease as its members redirect their attention and resources elsewhere.
Richard Weitz is senior fellow and director of program management at the Hudson Institute.