The West's new struggle with Russia

Western analysts have also accused Moscow of conspiring to turn the Shanghai Cooperation Organization an intergovernmental body composed of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, with India, Pakistan and Iran as invited observers, meant to foster good neighborly relations and deal with issues of Central Asian security - into a sort of "OPEC with nuclear weapons," as described by Simon Sweeney, director of the International Studies Program of York St. John University College in the United Kingdom.