The article focuses on the formation and subsequent development of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which was a response of the association’ states-founders to a dangerous increase the threat of terrorism, separatism and extremism in the post-Cold War period. According to the author, during the last decade, the SCO has demonstrated its potential as an effective tool for regional integration, able to ensure the implementation of its member countries’ key interests. The author shows the evolution of approaches to the question of the organization’ expansion with the inevitable in this case internal problems of growth and the need to strengthen its institutional framework.