For the CSTO, Afghanistan Might Be the Last Credible Threat

The Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization is conducting its “Rubezh (Frontier) 2026” military exercises from September 12-19. Those exercises are designed with Afghanistan in mind, a country that the CSTO has been talking about frequently in 2026, and also one where militant groups pose a shared threat to its members. And even the Taliban are no longer viewed as the threat they once were. Frontier 2026 The Frontier 2026 exercises are taking place at the Koktal training ground in southeastern Kazakhstan’s Zhetysu Province. The CSTO’s Rapid Deployment Force is practicing to repel cross-border incursions in mountain and desert terrain. The exercises come this time as concerns about infiltration by militants in Afghanistan into CIS territory are increasing. Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said on September 8 that Russia is paying special attention to strengthening Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan. The Tajik authorities have been calling for additional aid for the country’s border forces since a series of attacks from Afghanistan in November 2025 left five Chinese workers in southern Tajikistan dead, followed by an attack in December that killed two Tajik border guards. Tajikistan has regularly asked for international help in guarding its frontier with Afghanistan since independence in 1991. But after the violence at the end of 2025, the Tajik government appealed especially to its fellow members in the CSTO for increased assistance. CSTO Secretary General Taalatbek Masadykov said at the end of August that the first shipment of weapons and equipment would be sent to Tajikistan this autumn. Raison D’être The Collective Security Treaty was signed in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 1992 by representatives from Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. In 1993, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Georgia joined. The purpose was simple. If any of the member states was attacked by an external enemy, that state could request aid, including military assistance, from the other members. In the early 1990s, there were potential enemies for the Treaty members in practically every direction. The Soviet Union had collapsed in late 1991. There were questions about how the former Communist Bloc countries and their new Western allies might act. The theocratic regime in Iran was a possible threat to the South Caucasus and Central Asia, and the latter region had unstable Afghanistan to worry about also. China was a concern for Central Asia and Russia. Back then, banding together made sense for the nine newly independent states that signed the treaty. When Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Uzbekistan dropped out in 1999, it appeared the Collective Security Treaty was on the brink of becoming irrelevant. After Vladimir Putin became Russia’s president, he put a new emphasis on a security bloc within the CIS, and in 2002, the remaining six treaty members signed a new charter. However, now, in 2026, the list of the CSTO’s potential external threats is greatly reduced. Far from being a security concern, China is now a leading trade partner for Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, and provides military assistance to all four countries. Iran’s relations with the West remain...

Islamic State Khorasan Province Expands Reach Beyond Afghanistan

More than a decade has passed since the formal emergence of Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). For Central Asia, the history of this group is especially significant: the region features prominently in its propaganda and recruitment, and people from Central Asian countries have become part of transnational networks linked to ISKP. Today, ISKP must be assessed as more than an armed group operating in Afghanistan. Over the past decade, it has repeatedly lost leaders, been driven from most of its original territorial strongholds, and endured several major campaigns against it. Yet it has not disappeared. The current iteration of ISKP differs markedly from the organization that tried to establish itself in eastern Afghanistan in 2015-16. The main change is that it has learned to survive and spread its influence without controlling substantial territory. This transformation makes it especially important for Central Asia. Distance from the Afghan border and the number of districts under the group’s control are becoming less important measures of the threat. Its ability to maintain transnational ties, address audiences in local languages, and use migrant and digital networks is becoming more important. A large body of recent research, including a recently published monograph by the Usanas Foundation, makes it possible to trace this transformation. The group’s decade-long history is important for what it reveals about changes in the modern terrorist threat: loss of territory and a decline in membership do not necessarily mean an organization will disappear. ISKP did not emerge in a vacuum. Its original core was formed largely by members of existing jihadist organizations. They included former commanders of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Taliban members, and representatives of other groups who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State’s leadership after the organization emerged in Iraq and Syria. On January 26, 2015, Islamic State officially announced the creation of its “Khorasan Province.” Eastern Afghanistan became its main territorial base. This choice was no accident. Significant Salafi communities and religious networks had long existed in the region. Their development can be traced at least to the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s, and by 1990, Kunar Province already had its own Salafi political-religious movement, which briefly established the Islamic Emirate of Kunar. These networks should not automatically be equated with jihadism, but the presence of an established religious milieu and long-standing tensions between some Salafis and the Taliban gave ISKP more favorable conditions for its initial recruitment and entrenchment. The initial strategy largely replicated the Islamic State model in Iraq and Syria. ISKP sought to do more than carry out terrorist attacks. It tried to establish itself on the ground, build bases and its own control structures, collect local revenue, and demonstrate an ability to impose an alternative order. It was an effort to implement a specific territorial project. That effort to establish a territorial foothold soon became the group’s main source of vulnerability. From the middle of the decade, ISKP came under pressure from several adversaries at once. The armed forces of the former Afghan government and the...