Romania as a Sub-Regional Security Provider in Eastern Europe

Abstract

The current state of European security brings to the fore a number of classic international relations concepts and their characteristics, in particular, such as the military-political potential of the state, the regional balance of forces of interstate alliances, issues of guarantors and guarantees of regional security. In this regard, the sub-region of Eastern Europe or the Black Sea region is the main geopolitical area of military threats to European security today, and the Russian Federation is the main subject of projecting such threats. Based on the generally outlined problem, this article is aimed to study the current military and diplomatic potential of Romania in view of the author’s proof of compliance with the latest status of a security provider in the sub-region of Eastern Europe or directly in the Black Sea region. The author relies on the neorealist paradigm of interpretation of the state’s foreign and security policy, designating the latter conceptually as a "supplier" or "security provider". Methodologically, scientific intelligence is based on a structural-functional approach, according to which the author’s attention is paid to formalized (NATO and EU) structures of multilateral cooperation in the field of regional security, as well as the quality of providing separately allocated functions of the state (Romania) as a direct security provider. The author proves that Romania meets the status of a state that is a security provider in the Eastern European region or directly in the Black Sea region. In practical terms, Romania is involved in all, without exception, conditional functional projections aimed at ensuring regional security in both military and civilian dimensions. Among them, the direction of military diplomacy, as well as the state’s ability to deploy operational response forces, full participation in military and civilian missions abroad, should be singled out as particularly successful at the moment.