Although Ukraine is still quite far from victory over Russia, it is not too early to draw some valid conclusions for Romania. Under the umbrella of NATO and fed by European money, to which the Romanian citizens also contribute, politicians in Bucharest seem to be fooled by the thought that the war in Ukraine will not bring any systemic change. It will though, and the country will have to adapt because, otherwise, it will grow increasingly irrelevant, at least from a political point of view. The fact that the war caught Romania governed by the largest parties in the country - which theoretically share opposing doctrines, but which are always brought together by a single model of governance - supports the idea that this is in fact the actual level of performance of the Romanian system, which also includes society, as it has been built after the fall of Ceausescu’s regime. So, it is not a question of the ability of one or the other of the country's major parties to deal with an extreme situation, but of the system as a whole. If this is good news, we should congratulate ourselves, and if we learn about worrying things, we should all reflect on them.
The involvement of military elites in politics, a first step towards authoritarianism and bankruptcy
Beyond all the military implications, Putin's invasion of Ukraine is first and foremost a warning to all those who are convinced that the shortcomings of democracy, especially there were it’s still in a process of consolidation, can be combated by a kind of transfer of expertise from authoritarian regimes. With the example of China in mind, but paying close attention to Putin's propaganda, many Romanians, including politicians, were convinced that, despite its “shortcomings”, authoritarianism was effective. The way Russia is waging war in Ukraine, as well as the strange experiment that China has undertaken in Shanghai, clearly shows that propaganda, corruption and repression are the only areas of “excellence” of authoritarian states. In the others, performance varies, and that has nothing to do with the nature of the political regime as such, but the quality of the strategic decisions and the capacity to implement them.
Increasing the share of military elites in the political exercise, even under the pretext of the tense security situation - a process noticeable in Romania, not so much borrowed, but rather similar to what has happened in Russia - should be avoided at all costs. Putin's decision to start the war, despite all the evidence provided by a bare understanding of how the Euro-Atlantic community works, has shown that the political decision must not be left to those who consider society a “tactical field”. Special services have often been instrumental in starting wars, but they have never been able to win them without the participation of society. Society is not a "tactical field”. It is a living organism, endowed with a kind of collective intelligence, which cannot be administered and influenced in the long run by “operations”, but by transparent political decision and dictated by public interests. The attack on Ukraine is the result of the “reflection” of a small group of “epaulettes” around Putin, who share the same values, the same psychology and especially the same contempt for open society and democracy. Russia's fight is not against NATO, as it claims, or even against Ukraine, as it is. Its war is against freedom, thereby denying the right to existence of some states - not just Ukraine - which it considers incapable of and especially not entitled to the right to express an independent political will. Putin is convinced that the space between Russia and the other Great Powers is populated with “micro-organisms” incapable of autonomous projections and sovereign will, worthy only of the contempt of the truly powerful and only suitable for trading in times of tension. To the “new nobility” - as Nikolai Patrushev called the officers of the many Russian special services - society must not have access to the way such decisions are made, and should only bear the consequences, and accept all the absurd justifications delivered to them post-factum. Therefore, the need for structured political communication is not felt in Moscow, because the mimicry of popular support for the aberrant decisions of the authoritarian leaders is not achieved by calling for reason, but by exploiting fears, ignorance, stupidity and by means of intense police terror.
Romanian politicians do not seem to comprehend the historic signfificance of the war in Ukraine
The reaction of the Romanian authorities to the war, first of dismay, to then continue with formal commitment and secrecy, shows that the belief that foreign policy, peace and war are exclusively the areas of competence of “institutions” and politicians in important offices is shared by Bucharest too. To some extent this is the case, but the war in Ukraine has shown that a prepared, mobilized society, fully aware of the moment it is going through, is the foundation of an effective military reaction. Their delayed and unconvinced reaction, as if waiting for orders “from above”, shows that after the departure of President Traian Băsescu from the state leadership, Bucharest gave up any claim to its own interpretation of the region in which it is located. Communicating with difficulty and without emotional and political substance, in a perfect wooden language, Bucharest gave the impression that it did not give any chance to the Ukrainian resistance, although many times, Romanian officials had boasted that the country was a regional provider of “intelligence”. No matter what tactical plans have been drawn up in Bucharest in connection with the reaction to Russia's military aggression, things are much worse. In reality, a large part of the Romanian officials did not understand then and kept failing to understand the historic moment that Europe has been going through since. Continuing to interpret the situation in the traditional narrow key of “national interests”, which in fact means nothing in the absence of a solid Romanian regional policy, they have addressed mainly those who think that adherence to democratic values ends where the dangers begin. Such an attitude, transmitted rather by the absence of a communication strategy, has provided a wide field of action to the Russian propaganda and especially to imposture, which the Romanian authorities have not combatted through an operative flow of official information, that would defend the legitimate interest of society in the unfolding of the war. We must admit that at least a small part of the important information about the region, which Romania claims to be constantly sharing with the Allies, should have been shared with the citizens, as it has happened on several occasions in the US, the UK or Poland.
By constantly assuring us that the country is safe, which is absolutely relative in the event that Ukraine collapsed, as Putin hoped, with some officials even trying to downplay Russia's aggression, Romania has created for itself the image of a country terrified of the televised force of Putin's armies. As always in such moments, the reaction of the Romanian society was the right one. Fully offsetting the inertia of the institutional system, civil society mobilized quickly, and this was seen in the way the aid networks for Ukrainian refugees were organized. The habit of the Romanian politicians to approach major events electorally, a sign of a modest moral scope, manifested right away, with the officials hurrying to appear at a border crossing point between the two countries, displaying the usual official stiffness and irritated by the legitimate questions asked by journalists. After the “traditional” official photos and some statements addressed to Brussels, especially when the possibility of financial assistance to the countries hosting refugees was mentioned, the officials in Bucharest stopped being interested in the subject, removing from the list of emergencies a series of legislative initiatives related to material aid for Ukrainian refugees.
Romania urgently needs coherent policies towards Ukraine
The evolution of the events and especially Romania's reaction to them, has shown that the country did not have an Eastern policy, which the natural data required. A sign of the fact that the high political bureaucratic apparatus considers itself the owner of the Romanian national interests is that it’s extremely cautious in sharing this task with society. The state of the infrastructure linking Romania to Ukraine, which the Romanian state began to be interested in only after the first month of the war, under Western pressure, shows that beyond “legitimate concerns”, Bucharest didn’t even think of facilitating the access of Romanians in Ukraine to their country of origin. Considering Ukraine, sometimes rightly, a state hostile to Romania and Romanians, Bucharest showed considerable immobility in being aware of the civilizational rupture that took place in Ukraine after 2014. The fact that Ukraine itself, in turn, retained a number of Soviet origin misconceptions regarding Romania, did not help either. As always, however, Bucharest sought to promote its interests by addressing only political factors and not Ukrainian society, although only in this way would it have achieved a rapid and positive change in Romania's perception. The Ukrainian officials sticking to the “Moldovan” label applied to the majority of Romanians there could have been combated by a joint Bucharest – Chisinau initiative to form a unique program to support Romanians in Ukraine, besides the more or less sterile negotiations with the Ukrainian side. Too concerned not to be associated with the Hungarian efforts to parasitize the Ukrainian national consolidation in the face of Russian aggression, Romania was content to find that it could not do much, without seeking to innovate. Obsessed with control, politicians and senior officials in Bucharest admit only in theory that diplomacy has a major cultural and civilizational component, which must be understood in a broader sense than the specifics of RCI-type cultural activities. Such diplomacy, which requires intelligence, resources and creative freedom, can be used mainly in countries where they have recently become democratic or are even controlled by authoritarian regimes, in order to obtain from significant social segments what national governments are hesitant or unwilling to offer. Sooner or later, this “investment” will pay off. This is only possible by involving the participation of civil society in the diplomatic exercise, starting from a common understanding of national interests, which cannot be “owned” by groups of officials or politicians. The war in Ukraine, strange as it may seem, offers Romania an opportunity to rethink its policy towards this state and its people. But the process must begin now, because before listening to the legitimate wishes of the Romanians, the Ukrainians must feel their support in the most difficult of times.
