Evaluate the effectiveness of the SCO as a platform for addressing regional security challenges, including terrorism, given its diverse membership.

Founded at Shanghai in 2001 and grouping China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, India (a full member since 2017) and the Central Asian republics, the SCO is Eurasia's largest security forum [1]. Its 26th Bishkek Summit (2026), marking 25 years, confirms it as a valuable dialogue platform of limited enforcement capacity.

Where the SCO has delivered

• Institutionalised counter-terrorism: the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), established in 2002, runs intelligence exchange, joint exercises and training, and since 2023 a distinct stream on online extremism and information security [2].
• Engagement despite rivalry: it is the only forum where India, China and Pakistan sit as equals; India uses it to project its pillars of "Security, Connectivity, Opportunity" [3].
• Stabilising the extended neighbourhood: sustained attention to Afghanistan, drug trafficking and radicalisation directly protects India's Central Asian interests [4].
• Security beyond the military: trade, energy and digital cooperation — reinforced bilaterally, as in the India-Uzbekistan strategic partnership talks at Tashkent [5] — address the economic roots of instability.

Where diverse membership blunts effectiveness

• Consensus and non-alignment: the charter principles of consensus, non-interference and "non-targeting anyone" reduce summit declarations to the lowest common denominator [1].
• No shared definition of terrorism: members differ sharply on state sponsorship, so India's cross-border terrorism concerns are frequently diluted in negotiated texts.
• Coordinative, not operational: RATS shares information and lists proscribed organisations, but cannot compel or enforce member action [2].
• Power asymmetry: China-Russia agenda-setting, and India's reservations on connectivity projects that disregard sovereignty, narrow the space for agreement.
• Imported bilateral disputes: India-Pakistan and India-China frictions travel into the chamber, capping collective ambition.

On balance, the SCO is effective as a standing dialogue and information-sharing mechanism but weak as an instrument of collective enforcement — valuable for presence rather than decisive for outcomes. India's interest therefore lies in deeper engagement: pressing for a common definition of terrorism, a strengthened RATS mandate, and sovereignty-respecting connectivity, so that the "Security, Connectivity, Opportunity" vision lends Eurasian cooperation genuine substance.