Comparative Analysis of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Terms of Theır Counterterrorism Doctrines, Organizational Structures and Practices

Giray SADIK
Assoc. Prof. Dr., Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Turkey

Aybike YALÇIN İSPİR
Ph. D.Candidate, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Turkey

ABSTRACT

Since the September 11 attacks, counter-terrorism (CT) has gained prominence and become a central issue throughout the world. Given the growing transnational character of terrorism, counter-measures also entailed a collective nature. At this point, the role of global and regional organizations to bring the efforts of the individual countries into a meaningful action become much more important. In this regard, this article will comparatively analyze North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in terms of their counter-terrorism doctrines, organizational structures and practices between 2001-2019.

These international organizations have been specifically chosen by taking their counter-terrorism histories and member compositions into consideration. While NATO is often called as a transatlantic military alliance and SCO as a Eurasian security, political and economic organization; there is an evident ef fort for combating terrorism in the framework of these institutions for several years.

In this context, this article aims at addressing the question that to what extent these organizations respond to global terrorism legally, structurally and functionally. Furthermore, it is also questioned that whether these two security clusters can cooperate in countering terrorism. In addition, as a general question, whether these organizations contribute to military competition by masking it in the form of counter-terrorism will be asked.

Preliminary findings suggest that Transatlantic and Eurasian security structures are very much interrelated and that is why NATO and SCO’s cooperation in combating terrorism will bring fruitful results for the regional security and stability. Moreover, the early findings indicate that counter-terrorism policies of these organizations have been reflecting as much geopolitical rivalry as their genuine security concerns.

Key Words: Counter-terrorism (CT), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), regional security


1. INTRODUCTION

Terrorism is a complex threat for both national and international security. Although the history of terrorism goes back, developments in communication, transportation and weaponry have resulted in unprecedented scale of violence. However, terrorism has become a more central issue for international organizations especially after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States (US).

While terrorism is evolving into a more trans-national nature, countries cooperate under global and regional international organizations because it is obvious that a more coordinated response is needed if a real solution is being sought. As a result, several international organizations have put counter-terrorism to their agenda as one of their security priorities. In this context, this article specifically deals with two large regional security organizations which are North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)in terms of their counter-terrorism doctrines, organizational structures and operations.

NATO and SCO have been selected as the cases for the article for purpose. First of all, as it is indicated inFigure 1, Transatlantic and Eurasian security systems are very much interrelated when main organizations and networks dealing with security in these regions are taken into consideration. However, interestingly, they do not have official dialoguing combating terrorism in the region. Although NATO and SCO have cooperation clauses in their official documents, there is a tendency to communicate and act jointly with traditional partners such as United Nations (UN), Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and European Union (EU) for NATO and UN, OSCE, Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) for SCO.