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Eastern Focus ISSUE 05 | Spring 2021 A project by GlobalFocus Center, Bucharest Defusing a blitzkrieg against democracy Turkish balancing act - between the West and a rising Asia Black Sea - the epicenter of geopolitical storm NATO 2030 - strategic simultaneity SPECIAL REPORT Who Summons the Dragon? China's demand-driven influence in CEE and the Western Balkans Oana Popescu Zamfir: Editor's Foreword � /p.002 Ana Maria Luca (Beirut): A question of trust. Table of Why is China not as sexy as Korea? DEMOCRACY & RESILIENCE. THE SECURITY RISKS A Romanian perspective _______________________ /p.096 OF (SOCIETAL) MARGINALISATION Vlad Iaviță (London): The AURo-Atlantic CHANGING CHARACTER OF CONFLICT: Contents Romania ____________________________________________ /p.012 THE RISE OF COGNITIVE WARS Brad Allenby, professor of engineering Andrei Tiut (Bucharest): Let’s make a folder. What do we know about AUR, the new golden and ethics, Arizona State University (Tempe): ‘Pluralism was designed for a time when party of the Romanian far right? ____________ /p.018 information moved more slowly’ _____________ /p.108 Kamil Całus (Warsaw): Moldova: the first ‘pas’ forward ______________________________________________ /p.026 DISRUPTION. EUROPE AND THE CHALLENGES OF ‘STRATEGIC SIMULTANEITY’ Siegfried Mureșan, Romanian MEP (Brussels): ‘We need to do more to inform people of the real Wess Mitchell, principal at The Marathon Initiative (Washington D.C.): ‘The West needs to redevelop the benefits of European integration’ _____________ /p.032 tools and mindset of strategic competition’ /p.118 Ramona Strugariu, Romanian MEP (Brussels): ‘I fear that we might end up with a blitzkrieg Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, vice president at the GMF (Berlin): ‘We need a robust German‑American against democracy’ _______________________________ /p.040 relationship at the core of NATO’ ____________ /p.130 EUROPE ONWARD. THE TROUBLED PERIPHERY About Eastern Focus George Vișan (Bucharest): The saber-rattling in SPECIAL BRIEF: Ukraine is heating up the Black Sea ________ /p.050 Who Summons the Dragon? A focus on Central-Eastern Europe, Mădălin Blidaru (Bucharest): Turkey’s regional China’s demand-driven influence the Black Sea and the Balkans, options in the 21st century: between the political in Central-Eastern Europe and in a transatlantic key West and the wider Asia ________________________ /p.064 the Western Balkans Bucharest-based English-language Romario Shehu (Tirana): Next generation Marius Ghincea, Clara Volintiru, quarterly bringing regional voices, ideas Ivan Nikolovski Turkey and its foreign policy in the and topics to the great debates of today. (Florence, Bucharest, Skopje) /p.138 Western Balkans __________________________________ /p.074 Shedding light on regional developments. Anchored in democratic values. Delivered DISINFO/HYBRID: UNWRAPPING THE ‘ANACONDA’ straight to the movers' and shakers' OF MALIGN NARRATIVES inboxes across Europe, America and Oana Popescu-Zamfir (Bucharest): globally. Connecting people across Information wars and regime stability. geographies and thought bubbles. How can nations respond? _____________________ /p.088 The cover builds on details from “The Rape Rufin Zamfir (Bucharest): Malign foreign of Europa”, a painting by the Italian artist influence: a triangle with its vertex abroad Titian (ca. 1560–1562). It hangs in the and the base at home ____________________________ /p.092 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum of Boston, Massachusetts. Eastern Focus Issue 05, Spring 2021 Oana Popescu Zamfir: Building a transatlantic constituency for democracy Editor's Foreword Building a transatlantic interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. What is new under What is new under current circumstances is the focus on delivery capacity, which is why current circumstances constituency for democracy POTUS has tasked the government to deliver within 200 days concrete recommendations is the focus on for battling corruption worldwide; as well as the framing of this necessity for the United delivery capacity. States to be ‘flanked by nations that share our values and our vision for the future – by other democracies’1 not as a strategy for facing potential future challenges (as has been the case throughout the 20th century), but as an existential imperative to preserve As US president Joe Biden is making his first trip not only international standing, but also our way of live within abroad in Europe, his administration seems to have the transatlantic community in the face of immediate threats. defined how the United States aims to deal with the shifting global order and the rise of revisionist powers Biden’s approach is momentous, and if Europe rallies around the like China: the answer is promoting democracy same goal, it may still be able to push back against the ‘blitzkrieg worldwide as the best delivery option for both old against democracy’2 that we can increasingly witness all around and new needs, from creating jobs and prosperity us. With both domestic leaders in the EU and around its borders, to lowering inequality, from tackling new realities and foreign powers like China and Russia aggressively promoting and challenges in trade and technology, to providing alternative systems of thinking, of values and of government, good healthcare or crisis management infrastructure. the response cannot be reactive only. No amount of effort in countering such influences can match the impact of pro-actively The concept is not new; nor is its centrality to putting out there our own democratic narrative, and building an American power projection globally. In fact this is actual societal constituency around democracy, rule of law and how America has both gained unparalleled influence anticorruption as the backbone of good governance and freedom. in many parts of the world, especially Europe (from defending Europe in WWII to rebuilding it via the Marshall Plan, and from supporting resistence The anticorruption drive in Romania – against communism and the fall of the Iron the paradox of unexpected success Curtain, to advancing Central and Eastern Europe’s NATO and EU accession), and lost more of said While not transferable as such to its neighbours in the EU or influence than it might have imagined, following around its borders, Romania’s experience is perhaps especially indicative of both ‘how to’ and ‘how not to’ go about building rule © Photo by Steluța Popescu of law, with the benefit of hindsight and awareness of current Oana Popescu Zamfir @OanaPope challenges to democracy across Central-Eastern Europe. Editor-in-chief, Director GlobalFocus Center 002 003 Eastern Focus Issue 05, Spring 2021 Oana Popescu Zamfir: Building a transatlantic constituency for democracy Alongside Bulgaria, Romania is one of only overall credibility of enlargement is much with almost unanimous approval from both society and political two countries to have become EU members lower, governments and societies do not actors. It was constructed as the country’s sole national project and still be subjected to an ongoing feel that they necessarily have to make for a decade and a half and beyond5, giving the EU and the United monitoring mechanism on justice and the an exclusive ‘East/West’ type of choice, States unmatched leverage over the internal agenda. It was rule of law. Pressure from the EU (and US) the incentives to effect painful reforms are also the subject of an unprecedented accord among all political and political will at home concerning the proportionally reduced and the EU has put parties, ratified in the Snagov Declaration of 21 June 1995, which accession and most of its eggs granted their full support to the national EU accession strategy6. integration process in the baskets of to both NATO and As both the domestic regimes that have Political will was therefore paramount to the full implementation the EU, against lost much of their of justice and good governance reforms, building democracy the background of political will and internal legitimacy and rule of law. It reflected also the widespread option of the massive popular and used the EU to electorate, but it was embraced by the top levels of the country’s support for external leverage have consolidate power. leadership and seen as an exclusive strategic West vs. East reintegration with the Yet a few important choice which would ensure nothing less than the country’s West, have allowed started to wane in principles of action survival as an independent state, providing security guarantees for a comprehensive can be extracted in an otherwise troubled region, and the political and socio- institution-building recent years, the which, we believe, economic integration with the EU that would ensure the de effort to be deployed have universal facto structural transformation of the country into a Western (albeit not with the long‑term sustainability applicability. democracy. After the initial focus on liberalising the economy, most democratic Chapter 24 Justice and Internal Affairs, was opened in 2002 and it means), which in of this endeavour The particular became the main sticking point in negotiations between Romania turn has led to a background of and Brussels, given the high level of corruption in the country. societal process, i.e. seems to lie more the anticorruption Romania eventually became an EU member without having fully building an actual and justice reform met all of the criteria regarding judicial reform and corruption, constituency for rule with this rule of law drive started in the therefore the Cooperation and Verification