NATO Romania

To achieve her rightful interests, as a democratic, stabile and prosperous country, within the Euro-Atlantic community and European Union, Romania chose to: promotes, protects, and defends democracy; observes the fundamental human rights and liberties; takes actions that comply with inter¬national law, in order to speed up its economic and social modernization and development.

Within a volatile international security environment, as a responsible member of a dynamic and conflicting world, Romania builds her national security based on three pillars: membership of the North-Atlantic Alliance, European Union inte¬gration and strategic partnerships with United States.

“Nine-eleven” is already a fact of history; that day, the new millennium came on stage abruptly and violently, with a worldwide political earthquake - the terrorist attacks that targeted major symbols of the democratic world - killing instantaneously thousands of innocent people. Followed quickly by other murderous actions perpetrated in various areas of the world, the event trigged off strategic changes of the security environment, and brought about consequences that influenced the international community deeply and over the long term.

Confronted by such kind of complexity of the international and domestic security environment, coming also from a multifaceted globalizing process, all nations have to review their strategies. A right understanding of the strategic trends and of the way each country has a chance to become an active engine of this process seems to become a prerequisite both for survival and progress. In such dramatic circumstances, the security of each individual country and of the international community as a whole, proved to be dependent on the ability to anticipate and to undertake proactive actions, rather than on reacting to events or adjusting to them.

That is because, at the beginning of this millennium, the international community brought into a new phase of its development. It’s a phase bringing together the co-existence and - at the same time - the clash of some major positive trends with others generating high risks, threatening international security as a whole and the security of each individual state. This process is one of the high concerns, even the efforts towards a new global security architecture are growing up as result of the international community’s endeavors.

On the global level, the world is increasingly a conflicting one. The driving forces of the conflicts operate within two areas:

• The access to resources, to the mechanisms of distributing them and to the global market, on one hand, and

• The identity differences of ethnic, religious, cultural or ideological natures, on the other hand.

In these circumstances, the likelihood of a wide-ranging military conflict is relatively slight, but the regional and domestic conflicts seem to become more frequent, while their direct or cumu¬lative effects can be even harder to predict or to keep them under control.

The changes in the area of international security environment are non-conventional in nature and they come fast. Some of them could be seen as regular, linear and predictable, either stemming from the expected development of the security environment or representing the result of ongoing strategies and programs. Others are surprisingly, seismic or discontinuously of strategic magnitude, coming with a significant degree of uncertainty with regard to their nature or duration. All of them are increasingly influencing the dynamics of the international relations focused to those projects intending to support the international community’s efforts focus on building a new international balance - one able to ensure the expansion and strengthening of freedom and democracy.

According to the Romanian National Security Strategy, the international security environment is mainly characterized by the following major trends:

• The acceleration of the globalization and regional integration processes, concomitantly with the persistence of developments generating fragmentation of some state;

• Reasonable convergence of the efforts towards a new stable and predictable security architecture, accompanied by heightened anarchic ten¬dencies in some regions;

• Renewed efforts by states to preserve their prevalence in the international relations’ dynamics paralleled by multiple forms and increasing likelihood of the non-state actors interference.

The main confrontation is taking place between fundamentally different values, between democracy and totalitarianism. It is triggered by the violent aggression of international religious-extremist driven terrorism, structured in transnational networks, against the democratic states and against other political forces committed to democracy.

International security tends more and more to reveal its indivisible character. As result, the international community is ever more aware of the responsibilities incumbent upon it. There are entire regions affected by instability, conflict, poverty and frustration that trigger or favor the proliferation of the new threats. Some of these can have a major impact on Romania’s security. At the regional level, particular in a yet unstable south-eastern Europe, there are still long-lasting tensions. They are caused by historical disputes either of ethnic, religious, territorial or separatist nature, or those challenging the existing borders, as well as by cross-border crime.

At the same time, a range of new, asymmetric threats of military or non-military nature, coming usually from the international environment, tends to become more dangerously and more likely; they may have serious impact on the Romania security. The danger posed by such negative developments may be substantially increased if they combine, especially on the lines between global and regional threats and between foreign and domestic ones. As the global processes and technological development accelerate, when distances become less and less important, the emergence of such negative phenomena must be identified in right time - irrespective of the place where they happen. At the same time, their assessment needs to take into consideration the indivisible nature of global security. In this context, countering them firmly and effectively - even in remote locations, far from the national borders - becomes a major responsibility of a responsible government.

The main risks threatening Romania’s national security, its values and legitimate interests, as a member state of the EU and North-Atlantic Alliance are considered to be: international terrorism; proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; regional conflicts; cross-border organized crime; bad governance.