It may be too early to tell whether George Simion is a man of destiny, even if he does win the Romanian presidency this Sunday. He would have to go on and achieve great things in office, over two terms, turning around his country’s fortunes and role in the world, in order to earn that epithet. But, at just 38, inches away from a historic triumph, he is certainly a force in Romanian – and, increasingly, European – politics, having built and led his anti-establishment AUR party from zero to this point in barely five years.
There can be no doubt that the restless, self-confident and assertive Simion would be a transformational president for Romania, who will seek to play a highly active role on the international stage. Not only is the presidential function constitutionally centred on foreign policy and defence. But this is a man of strong opinions and a passionate advocate for his country’s national interests, as he sees them. Under Simion we should expect to see a complete break with the post-1989 “tradition” of low-key Romanian presidents who have hardly registered in European, let alone global, affairs.
American exit
The “concern” that Simion would somehow weaken Romania’s links with NATO is completely manufactured by his political enemies. It is a red herring that dovetails nicely with another propaganda trope that tries to cast Simion as “pro-Russian”. On both these points Simion – as well as AUR, his party – has been absolutely clear and consistent for years: he supports the Alliance, is staunchly pro-American, and condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its aggressive behaviour more broadly. Like any Romanian nationalist, Simion would have no illusions with regards to Russia which has caused untold suffering to his country and which widely seen as an enemy by most Romanians.
That being said, no responsible statesman from this troubled corner of the world could ignore the two new fundamental developments in regional security taking place right now, which require a realist response.
The first is America’s unambiguous intent to end its historic role as Europe’s security guarantor. It may not yet be entirely clear quite how long it will take for the US to fully pivot away from this continent and hand over the principal responsibility for its defence to the Europeans themselves; but the writing is on the wall.
The consequences of this new US policy of disengagement from Europe cannot be overstated. The keystone of NATO deterrence and European security architecture is being removed. The Alliance will inevitably become hollowed over time as Article 5 loses credibility without full US backing. All three pillars of Lord Ismay’s original rationale for NATO – “to keep the Germans down, the Americans in, and the Russians out” – are now crumbling: Germany is rearming rearmament (foolishly encouraged by historically-illiterate onlookers), the US is pivoting away, and Russia is waging war on European soil.
It is a fantasy to believe that the “Europeans” – UK included – will actually be able to fill in the gap left by the US and compensate for the American military and political power that has ordered European security affairs for the past 80 years. There is not nearly enough money, political unity, or public support (to include the socio-cultural fabric of today’s morally-disarmed Western nations) to build out and cohere a proper, joint, “European defence” – despite endless current and future talk about it among “experts”, politicos, and the like.
Instead of a like-for-like substitute – European for American power – to keep the old NATO-centred, monolithic security order in place, what most likely to actually happen over time is a fragmentation of European security into sub-regional arrangements. Without an external hegemon like the US to act as a broker and arbiter of security politics on the continent, the only remotely politically-viable defence constructs can only be organised within subgroups of European countries.
This is already happening, with a Northern Alliance taking shape across the Scandinavian-Baltic area from the UK to Poland and Finland. The defence cooperation and political coordination within this grouping of nations is without parallel in Europe. Separately, Hungary has recently concluded a defence agreement with Serbia, just after a new Croatia-Albania-Kosovo Trilateral Pact. Therefore, at both ends of NATO’s Eastern flank, in the North and in the Balkans, there is significant effort invested in redrawing priorities and local alliances, outside of NATO politics.
Meanwhile, Romanian statecraft is nowhere to be found on this new activity map of Europe – it’s frozen like a deer in the headlights.
The long-term Russian threat
The second strategic development – better understood, in fact, as a trend – is the long term strengthening of Russian military power, and therefore geopolitical influence. The Russian military is increasing in size, not decreasing, and its equipment is being modernised as the General Staff burns through its old Cold War stocks of weaponry. Like the Ukrainians, and unlike Western militaries, the Russians are obviously gaining vital combat experience. The Russian economy and much of the society are also increasingly militarised, allowing the country to sustain an offensive policy for a long time, perhaps indefinitely. In addition, Putin’s “no limits partnership” with Xi Jinping has clearly secured a Chinese “backstop” for Russia’s war effort – and perhaps for its further ambitions in the Black Sea region.
None of this is to say that Russia is in a position to “win” the Ukraine war in any decisive way. The vast sums of European money poured into Ukraine to prop up its economy and public services, together with the joint US-European military support – including vital intelligence feeds – given to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, make it very hard for Russia to make any major headway in the war. However, all this aid is in the gift of European and US governments to give to Kiev – or to take away, if the politics change.
After all, no one in NATO has an actual mutual defence pact with the Ukraine, i.e. a treaty-based legal obligation towards this country, democratically ratified by parliament. It is all done on the basis of unilateral political commitments made by political leaders of the day, from the UK to Estonia or indeed to Romania, which must be rolled over from one government majority to the next, in each case. Again, this is a rather precarious situation, which political events can alter. These could include things like a peace deal, a change in US policy, the emergence of other crises or priorities in domestic or foreign policy competing for allied resources.
All this is to say that Ukraine’s long-term geopolitical position might be less robust and assured than it seems at the moment. Holding off the Russians and getting that codified in a peace deal is only the first task, and that is hard enough. What is even harder for Kiev is obtaining long-term security guarantees (with no real, serious solutions yet in sight), and then recovering from the conflict once the wartime Western money flows start dying up.
Finally, all this must be done with Russia almost certainly applying the full panoply of its “hybrid warfare” tactics to derail Ukraine’s prospects. The end of the war might well be only the start of a different order of troubles for the Ukrainian state – and the beginning of a new cycle of Russian military and political power-projection in the region.
As for Romania, it will have to contend with this new security context effectively on its own, once the US rebalancing away from Europe gathers pace.
Romania’s response
Meanwhile, trouble is brewing in the Balkans. Hungary and Serbia – Romania’s western neighbours – are friendly to Russia and China, and drawing close to each other. Bulgaria, on Romania’s southern border, remains a place of strong Russian cultural and political influence. Moldova, in the east, with its large pro-Russian minority and the frozen conflict in Transnistria, is a traditional “grey zone” battlefield against Kremlin influence. In short, Romania’s geostrategic isolation keeps growing; the noose is tightening.
No wonder that there is now a deep sense of crisis in Romanian foreign policy circles, verging on despair. Who will defend Romania in the coming years from potential Russian aggression (or even – who knows – Ukrainian excesses)? The Americans won’t, anymore; and the Europeans can’t, not now nor, likely, ever.
Solving this strategic conundrum will require a complete overhaul of Romanian foreign policy, almost from first principles. Constant Romanian deference to the hawkish “European consensus” set in Brussels, with cues from Paris and Berlin, will have to be urgently replaced by a pro-peace, Romania First policy grounded in the national interest, first and foremost. In practice, this means that a Simion Administration will need to urgently review the country’s international posture and prioritise its partnerships and political alignments by what is strictly in Romania’s direct interest, not by what pleases Western chancelleries and the mainstream press.
In order to survive and thrive in the new structural insecurity context of its own region, Romania must adopt a maximum flexibility strategy, seeking to balance between the different geopolitical forces around it rather than remaining locked in rigid alignments. This would only be a reversion to the more traditional mode of Romanian statecraft, honed over a centuries-long struggle for political survival at the intersection between the Hapsburg, Russian and Ottoman empires.
The end of US security primacy in Europe, together with the prospective geostrategic fragmentation of European security under Russian and Chinese pressure as well as Europe’s own endemic failures, is re-creating multipolar geopolitical conditions in Romania’s region that are similar to those of the early modern period. The historical experience of this area is therefore becoming highly relevant again.
As part of a new balancing strategy, a Romanian statecraft operating on maximum flexibility principles should give more consideration to détente as a policy response to the emerging geopolitical realities in the region. Again, as previously detailed in these pages, any serious détente effort must be accompanied by a considerable defence build-up.
Secondly, in the short term, a Simion presidency primed for bold action is an opportunity to shift the strategic axis of Romanian statecraft from an East-West orientation to a new North-South line of effort. Instead of trying to curry favour with the likes of France and Germany, and obsess over the so-called “pro-Western direction” – a concern left over from the days when Romania was still fretting about being admitted into the “Western club”, but which has now become superfluous – Romanian policymakers should seek to develop a specifically-Romanian alliance ecosystem in the country’s own backyard – i.e. in Southeast Europe, and beyond.
Romania’s affinity with the West is not in question given that it is a Latin country with a culture overwhelmingly shaped by contact with the Western world (especially France) and with a population whose primary, quasi-universal aspiration upon the fall of Communism was to re-integrate into the “civilised West”. But this is also why Romania has more leeway to safely explore other options and leverage other aspects of its very rich cultural tapestry – especially its Byzantine inheritance, best expressed in its Orthodox traditions and a wealth of historical experience dealing with the Balkans and Turkey.
It is here, towards the South, where Romanian diplomacy would do well to focus its efforts in the coming years. If the future of European security is going to be one of sub-regional groupings and alliances, Romania desperately needs to form its own, in its own area – or at least to work hard at the joint creation of one.
The project should take in Greece as well as Turkey – Bucharest can find ways to balance between the two, particularly if it is smart enough to coordinate with British diplomacy especially at Ankara, in view of Britain’s experience in handling Turkey with great skill over more than two centuries. British naval expertise and interest in Black Sea affairs should also be integrated in Romanian policy planning.
From a Romanian perspective, the Turkish opening should become the centrepiece of Bucharest’s new foreign policy. This is because Turkey is the only available potential security sponsor for Romania at the Black Sea, as the US interest in this area wanes. The challenge for Romanian diplomacy in handling Turkey’s complex web of interests around the Black Sea and into the Balkans should not be underestimated. But Romania and Turkey can find common ground on a range of issues in the region, which can then be leveraged towards an increasingly strong and effective partnership between Bucharest and Ankara in the future.
It is important that Romania’s new geopolitical framework should extend all the way to Israel. The latter, in particular, should be recognised more clearly as a key Romanian ally, not least because Israel can and should become a much more significant military equipment supplier to the Romanian Armed Forces. Should the Romanian government decide, or be pressed by the EU, to switch away from procuring US weapons systems, the immediate alternative, where possible, should be Israeli kit – not European.
To the north, slightly outside of this prime area of interest, Poland should also be enticed to participate in this potential North-South Romanian-led geopolitical axis, not least because some of the groundwork for a Polish-Romanian-Bulgarian-Greek connection has already been laid through the Three Seas Initiative.
Beyond the European area, under an energetic young new president, Romanian statecraft can finally begin the long-delayed work of developing a proper overseas policy and, eventually, a more fully-fledged global posture for its trade and diplomacy. There is no doubt that such a thing is possible: indeed, Romania did operate a substantial international policy in its Communist days, under the Ceausescu regime, projecting its commercial interests and diplomatic influence from Africa, to the Middle East and to China.
Today’s Romania, more democratic, richer, and part of a stronger Western alliance system, can certainly achieve even more, and much quicker. But to get there, the country’s system needs a reboot and a new generation of leaders and policymakers must take charge – guided not by what Brussels or anyone else wants, but by what Romania needs. George Simion is the chance to make that happen.
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