After the disintegration of the Soviet Union the leaders of the newly established sovereign states tried to build on the ruins of the communist empire the new super-national structure that could facilitate the process of global integration of the fonner Soviet repUblics. But shortly after the proclamation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (OS) it became obvious that the new organ of international cooperation looks more like an instrument of "civilized localization," as some
of the observers put it Among positive results of the activity of the as can be mentioned the peaceful division of the nuclear arsenal of the USSR and basically peaceful tenitorial demarcation between the fonner USSR republics, quite successful mediation in several ethnic and civil conflicts, attempts to maintain common economic space and security structures. On the other hand, the experience of more then ten years of the history of as shows clearly that as a whole this organization is unable to become the subject of the unified effort to enter the global economic and security structures.