Alexander Cooley (Claire Tow Professor of Political Science, Barnard College) writes about the CSTO intervention in Kazakhstan and the role of regional organizations in protecting regime security in Central Asia and beyond:

“What does this deployment mean — and what is the CSTO? Some analysts see the deployment of Russian troops as analogous to the Soviet Union’s intervention in the domestic affairs of Warsaw Pact countries. But this first intervention by the Eurasian security organization isn’t a callback to the Cold War. My research suggests it’s a sign of the rise of contemporary regional organizations designed to protect the survival of autocratic regimes.”