They say politics makes for strange bedfellows, and if that’s the case then perhaps we don’t have to look any further than the images coming out of Astana last week for proof of that dictum.

Astana, of course, is the capital of Kazakhstan, and last weekend it played host to the annual leaders’ summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), an intergovernmental body that until this month had just six permanent members: China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. But this summit, the group’s 15th annual meeting, marked a special occasion: the accession of two new members to the organization. And not just any members. India and Pakistan have officially moved up the ranks from observer states to permanent members of the SCO.

That’s right, after years of talks and one year of waiting, India and Pakistan have finally become full-fledged SCO members…

…which means two nuclear-armed nations who are bitter archrivals and who have unresolved border disputes that very well could erupt in all-out war (even nuclear war) at any moment are now working together in an international security organization. Like I said: Talk about strange bedfellows.

So what is the SCO, and what does it mean now that India and Pakistan are both members? Find out more about the China/India/Pakistan triangle in this week’s edition of The Corbett Report Subscriber.

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