When Valery Semerikov, the deputy secretary-general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, said Tuesday that the Russian-led security bloc is considering sending peacekeepers to Afghanistan after NATO's withdrawal in 2014, it surely raised eyebrows in the Kremlin. Moscow wants to prevent Afghanistan from erupting into chaos; it just needs someone else to do the heavy lifting.

The security situation in a post-NATO Afghanistan is indeed one of the most pressing issues facing the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Some of the bloc's member states — Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — either border or are in close proximity to Afghanistan and thus have extensive interests in the country. But direct involvement in Afghanistan has historically been a costly endeavor.

Semerikov did not articulate what a CSTO peacekeeping deployment would entail, saying only that a working group had been set up to study "relevant proposals." Still, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov forcefully denied the claims, reflecting Russia's aversion to direct military involvement in the country. Lavrov said that actions outside the security organization's area of responsibility, which does not include Afghanistan, are "out of the question."

Russia has long held a strategic interest in the South Asian state. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Russian Empire's expansion into Central Asia coincided with imperial Britain's expansion into India, setting the stage for Afghanistan to become a central component in "The Great Game" for nearly 100 years. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, the newly created Soviet Union bordered Afghanistan directly. In 1979, Soviet forces entered the country to support the communist regime in Kabul. The subsequent decadelong intervention prompted U.S. support for Afghan insurgents and became one of the major catalysts accelerating the collapse of the Soviet Union.

More than 20 years later, Russia still has strategic interests and significant involvement in Afghanistan. The primary logistical route into the country for U.S. and allied forces, the Northern Distribution Network, runs through the former Soviet states. Moreover, drug flows out of Afghanistan have had a tremendous impact on Russia, exacerbating an already poor demographic situation. Indeed, Russia has supported and participated in U.S. counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan and Central Asian transit states.

However, with memories of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan still relatively fresh, any form of direct military participation in Afghanistan would generate significant resistance in Russia, whether from the government, military or broader public. For this reason, the Kremlin has been happy to let the United States take direct responsibility for the security situation in Afghanistan over the past decade. This has freed Russia to act more assertively in its near abroad, and it has given Moscow cash from and leverage over Washington in exchange for logistical support for the Afghan War effort.

But this window of opportunity for Moscow may soon be closing. The scheduled withdrawal of NATO forces will create new, less stable political and security realities in Afghanistan. While Russia is not interested in replacing U.S. military forces on the ground in such an environment, neither is any other country. This would leave the current Afghan government, the Taliban and other indigenous forces to sort out the new political and security realities themselves. 

This environment is most concerning for Central Asian countries. No longer part of the Soviet Union, these states will be affected most directly by whatever takes shape in a post-NATO Afghanistan. Moscow has a strategic interest in the security of Central Asian states and, thus, an interest in bolstering Afghan stability, particularly to prevent a spillover of militancy into Central Asia or Russia itself. But it is unclear what Russia — whether unilaterally or through the CSTO — is willing to do about it. Supporting counternarcotics programs in Afghanistan is one thing, but pacifying the country after the withdrawal of the most powerful military force in the world is far more complicated.