Romania's Strategic Culture 1990-2014: Continuity and Change in a Post-Communist Country's Evolution of National Interests and Security Policies by Iulia-Sabina Joja

Author:Iulia-Sabina Joja [Joja, Iulia-Sabina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783838272863
Google: 2DzVxQEACAAJ
Goodreads: 53388435
Publisher: Ibidem Press
Published: 2019-01-15T13:33:32+00:00

2001-2004: Romania in NATO

The 2000 elections reinstated Ion Iliescu’s Presidency and brought about a new NSS in 2001. Although the strategy took far longer than the legal term of six months after inauguration26, it was sent directly by the SCND to Parliament and approved. Unlike the previous Iliescu strategy, the NSS 2001 “Guaranteeing Democracy and Fundamental Rights, Sustainable Economic and Social Development and NATO and EU integration” is a modern document, with a Europeanized discourse and an unambiguous security policy orientation.

Drafted in the aftermath of 9/11, the primary aim of the 2001 NSS was undoubtedly to obtain NATO membership. It elevates integration into the Euro-Atlantic community to the status of primary national interest, after NATO’s demonstration in 1999 that it remained unconvinced of the irrevocability of Romania’s transition process. Emphasizing that the country’s path was on a trajectory towards a stable democratic system, the 2001 NSS places NATO first among foreign and security priorities, followed closely by EU integration and then by the development of the US bilateral cooperation in the framework of strategic partnership. The trinity NATO-EU-US remains valid today, though the prioritization of the three would change according to the president’s political color and the international political context.

Beyond the trinity of Romanian security policy, the 2001 strategy is dominated by the elevation of terrorism as the ultimate threat to security. Given the context of 9/11, transnational terrorism is the topic given most attention to, despite the fact that prior to 2001 it had never been mentioned in any Romanian strategic document. In response to this new threat, the strategy provides for Romania's participation in counter-terrorism missions. The NSS 2001 discursively constructs a connection between NATO and terrorism, so that national participation in counter-terrorism (and the implied solidarity with the US) can easily be read as a precondition for joining NATO.

It is widely acknowledged among Romanian policy- and decision-makers that 9/11 was an opportunity for Romania to demonstrate absolute solidarity with the US and therefore secure its membership in the Alliance. In line with this approach of unconditional support for the US (the US was considered Romania’s security guarantor) Bucharest agreed to host US military bases on its territory in the aftermath of the attack. Furthermore, Romania supported the Iraq intervention, both politically and militarily, without hesitation, despite vehement protests across Europe and European leaders’ threats to endanger Romania’s EU membership.

Interestingly, discursive legitimization of terrorism’s securitization as a threat to national security is absent from the 2001 NSS, and would only be present in the framework of the next NSS (2006/2007). The 2001 strategy constructs terrorism as a transnational risk rather than a national one27. The issue’s novelty at the end of 2001 and the realization that terrorism failed to constitute a threat to national security at that time prevented the Iliescu Presidency from securitizing the topic at the level of a full threat.

In terms of its ownership the 2001 NSS takes a step back from the 1999 strategy, but a step forward from 1994’s Concept. The drafting process

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