A security expert explains why the question: “With the US or with the EU?” is wrong for Romania. “The real discussion should be about the hierarchy of relationships”
Romania should not formulate its security policy in terms of a choice between the United States and the European Union, argues Marius Ghincea, an expert in military security at ETH Zurich University. According to him, the question “With the US or with the EU?” it starts from a wrong premise and does not reflect the strategic reality of the region.
Donald Trump and Nicușor Dan PHOTO: presidency
Marius Ghincea shows that, in the short term, Romania cannot afford to lose the perception of security that the American guarantees offer to NATO's eastern flank, even if this perception is no longer always real or credible.
“With the US or with the EU? It's the wrong question. In the short term, Romania cannot afford to lose the perception that US security guarantees provide to the entire strategic planning on the eastern flank. Including Romania. Even if this perception is no longer real or credible. The choice, in the short and medium term, for Romania and the other states in the region, is therefore not between America OR Europe, as a binary and mutually exclusive option”, security expert Marius Ghincea, from the ETH Zurich University, sent.
According to the specialist, “the real discussion should be, rather, about the hierarchy of these relationships and about the priorities that should structure the allocation of material, political, diplomatic and strategic engagement resources”.
Traditionally, Romania's foreign and security policy has been organized around the three pillars: the United States, NATO and the European Union.
In state institutions, however, there are several schools of thought that propose different approaches.
“Traditionally, Romania's foreign and security policy is organized around the three pillars of the strategic trinity: the USA, NATO and the EU. The continuist school, dominant in the institutions, supports the maintenance of this model, with the following hierarchy: USA > NATO > EU. The revolutionary school, out of ideological opportunism, formally supports the same hierarchy, but goes further, undermining and even more accentuated any initiative to develop a European Defense Union, which differentiates from the continuationists on this topic”, explained Ghincea.
The reformist school supports, on the contrary, a re-ranking of the strategic trinity, taking into account the current strategic reality and the issue of the credibility of American security guarantees. : EU > NATO > USA.
“It is not about a binary choice, but about a change in the hierarchy on a continuum of priorities in the structuring of strategic relations. And this for pragmatic reasons related to the behavior of the Trump administration, not as an expression of any anti-Americanism”. said Marius Ghincea.
“It is therefore meaningless to discuss in binary terms when the appropriate logic is one of hierarchies between the various pillars of the strategic trinity”concluded Marius Ghincea.
