TY - BOOK AU - ROTHACHER Albrecht TI - Allying with an evil axis?: the ambivalent role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Central Asia PY - 2008/// KW - SHANGHAI COOPERATION ORGANISATION KW - AFGHANISTAN N2 - Provides a short account of the history of the SCO and its predecessor the Shanghai Five. Identifies the SCO as essentially "a mutual support agreement against the domestic enemies of the regimes involved" with a veneer of respectability provided by co-chairs Russia and China. Although this account is highly critical of the SCO and sees its demise as a near certainty, it suggests there may be some benefit in limited engagement by the west with the SCO in relation to Afghanistan where the problems are closer to SCO than to NATO ER -