The CSTO is a military alliance that emerged from a military pact between many members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), an organization created from countries that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union. Initially, it was mostly a talking shop, with the majority of its efforts directed toward consolidating the movement of Russian military industry and hardware from its fellow former Soviet states. Moscow planned to have the CSTO become something more meaningful along the lines of NATO, albeit on a smaller scale. This prompted Uzbekistan, Georgia and Azerbaijan to withdraw from the group in 1999. The countries' chief complaint was that Russia was trying to use the military alliance to expand its influence in the former Soviet Union.