There is a clear trend in the 21st century for regional organizations to multiply, to become more multifunctional and to devote themselves in whole or part to security goals. Old-style alliances with a defined opponent are now rare, and most groups address themselves to the reduction of conflict (internally or externally) and to transnational challenges such as terrorism. It is no coincidence that regions where these structures are absent or weak are also those with the greatest remaining problems of interstate tension or internal violence. While all these phenomena are somewhat under-researched, the forms taken by multilateralism in the area of the former Soviet Union have been particularly little studied. There is a widespread assumption in the West that, because they involve imperfectly democratic states and often reject externally defined norms of governance, such groups are bound to be illegitimate or ineffective or both. This Policy Paper sets out to test and challenge such generalized views by looking in detail at the most dynamic and complex of such groupings, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Founded in 2001, the SCO includes China as well as the Russian Federation and the Central Asian states Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.