The past couple of years have been marked by dramatic geopolitical changes triggered by the onset of the New Cold War, and while events such as the spree of urban terrorism popularly known as “Euromaidan” and Russia’s anti-terrorist intervention in Syria are well known, there are other major shifts which have yet to generate considerable public attention but have been no less consequential. Chief among this category is the surprising emergence of the South Eurasian Rimland as a unique geopolitical force representing the partial institutional revival of the Old Cold War-era grouping of Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan, albeit for contemporary and constructive purposes.

The Central Treaty Organization (CENTO)1 was a largely ineffective and unknown military alliance which was also referred to as the Baghdad Pact, and it brought together the three aforementioned states, Iraq, and the UK in a mutual defense arrangement from 1955-1979. CENTO was aimed against the USSR, and thus didn’t spring into action during the 1965 and 1971 Indian-Pakistani Wars, or at the time of the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus.

It received its final death blow with the 1979 Islamic Revolution and Iran’s subsequent withdrawal from the British-organized bloc, but the legacy of three of the largest, most powerful, and influential Muslim civilizations-states united under a single institutional banner provided the precedent for their 21st-century New Silk Road integration in the emerging Multipolar World Order.