Romanian naval dimplomacy, continuous evolution in the swirl of external diplomacy

From ancient times the dominion of the seas has been a condition for gaining power and influence, and the position of a state near a sea has been an advantage for both its development and the neighboring region. Due to its geographical position, the Black Sea is a region of great importance for all actors claiming leading positions in the world hierarchy and the intensification of economic relations between the states of the region after the end of the Soviet monopoly and its connection to the world market generated auspices for a new cycle development and regional prosperity. The relocation of the EU border to the Black Sea, along with the integration of Romania and Bulgaria, brings in many economic benefits, given its dependence on oil imports, but its expansion, like that of NATO, does not only mean benefits. The EU and NATO must also take on vulnerabilities in the area, such as underperforming economies, arms, drug and human trafficking, illegal immigration or frozen conflicts, and thus try to help stabilize the region. In recent years, the military has not only played a destabilizing role, but has made a decisive contribution to ensuring the security of the Black Sea region. In this sense, the military naval forces of the riparian countries, including Romania, had a special role. Through the wide range of missions in which the Romanian Naval Forces participate in the Danubian-Pontic space, both internally and externally, in cooperation with the states bordering the Black Sea and with the NATO member states, Romania contributes to the promotion of regional security and stability. The naval diplomacy actions carried out in the last thirty years thus reveal not only the role and purpose of the Romanian Naval Forces within NATO in the actions of maintaining and consolidating good relations with the states bordering the Black Sea, as well as maintaining security with allies in the distant maritime districts. They also point out that naval diplomacy has contributed to the expression of foreign policy in different areas and with means that have increased its effect, impact and efficiency.

Methodological foundations of security management information support of regional critical infrastructures

The unified methodological basis of information and analytical support of socio-economic security network-centric control in the region is proposed. The problem of regional security support is discussed at the level of risk-management of critical infrastructure resilience violation of the socio-economic systems. The methodology and tools for its implementation are aimed to information and analytical support of situational centers functioning in the region.

Resilience of critical infrastructure of regional security

The article is devoted to the development of the concept of regional security management based on the principles of ensuring the resilience of critical infrastructures. The article is a problem statement and considers general theoretical issues in the field of resilience of complex systems. The authors identify two main approaches to the model of representation of the regional security system from the perspective of ensuring its resilience.

Memahami Power dan Weakness: Sebuah Literature Review

This paper is a literature review of Robert Kagan’s article titled ‘power and weakness’ aiming to describe the US and the Europe’s perception on power in international system and their ‘trans-Atlantic’ relationship regarding ‘power’. The role of the US’ power has been known to contribute to the development of current Europe. Though, the Europe has experienced good relationship with the US since the Cold War and only softly challenged against the US’ policies in many conflicts, Kagan argued that the Europe has differing strategic culture from the US in responding the global issues when it comes to regional security and national interest, which has been driven by its decreased power.

Concept of Regional Security in Philosophical Approaches

The paper focuses on regional security, which has become a significant issue in situations where there has been a growth in the level of regional identity and the desire for relative autonomy in the general pro- cess of security system development. The approaches to security in the history of philosophy are analyzed in order to highlight the evolution of the concept of “regional security”. Comparative, systematic and her- meneutic methods are employed to reveal the aspects of regional security in terms of the problems of state, national and public security. The novelty of the research is associated with the development of the evolu- tion of ideas concerning regional security from abstract representations to the various aspects of regional practice. The conclusion is that modern regional security concepts are based on the synthesis of the meth- odology of systemic and constructivist approaches. This methodology is used to substantiate the claim that any state has to deal with the security problems of its regions and pay attention to any threats and regional interests, which may be constructible in nature, and pose a real danger associated with challenges from political, economic, military, environmental, and social spheres.

FOREIGN POLICY OF THE SOUTH CAUCASIAN COUNTRIES: RESULTS AND NEW CHALLENGES

The newly independent states (South Caucasian countries being no exception), the products of the Soviet Union’s traumatic disintegration, needed independent foreign policies. Throughout the three decades of their independence they formulated their priorities and defined approaches and principles under strong pressure of certain factors. This process has been unfolding amid the complicated social and political processes and geopolitical transformations in the region shaken by the post-Soviet ethnic conflicts. As could be expected, the newly independent South Caucasian states opted for different routes in their economic and statehood development, while their ruling elites took into account the external and internal contexts when shaping their foreign policies. Different approaches and different foreign policy priorities opened the doors to non-regional geopolitical actors: the United States, the European Union, Iran and Turkey have joined Russia, whose presence is rooted in its past. Recently, China, Israel and Japan have become interested in the region. Thus, today the regional countries are orientated to the interests of non-regional states. This has not benefited the situation in the region or cooperation among the regional states. Foreign policy of the South Caucasian countries is inseparable from the regional security problems, which means that it should become an object of meticulous studies. In the latter half of 2020, the war in Nagorno-Karabakh changed the region’s geopolitical setting and shattered its stability. The article sums up the results of the policies pursued by the South Caucasian countries and identifies the challenges and possible developments in the region after the Karabakh war of 2020.

CICA AND ASIAN COOPERATION ORGANIZATIONS (SCO, ASEAN, OIC): COOPERATION POTENTIAL AND PROSPECTS

The article contains an overview of the activities of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), a structure aimed at creating a comprehensive mechanism for developing and reconciling the positions of Asian countries on key security issues. The CICA is a forum that many regional states have joined as permanent participants. Eight countries and five international organizations, including the U.N., currently have an observer status at the CICA, which cooperates with existing regional organizations such as SCO, ASEAN, and OIC in a number of specific areas. The current concept of CICA’s work is aligned with five main spheres: military and political collaboration; the fight against new challenges and threats, including terrorism; drug trafficking; transnational crime and human trafficking; as well as the economic, environmental and human dimensions. Cooperation with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, whose members (including the observer countries) are all also members of the Conference, will be of great importance for the further development of CICA. The presence of both resource-producing countries and large oil and gas importers in the organization creates the preconditions for the formation of an energy block within its framework, which will increase the energy security of its member states. The authors note that the interaction between ASEAN and the CICA can be based on five points required for building a “community of common destiny,” which were set forth by President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping in Jakarta: (1) adhere to the principle of trust and strive for good neighborliness; (2) adhere to the principle of cooperation and mutual benefit; (3) constantly provide mutual assistance; (4) adhere to the principle of “living in perfect harmony”; (5) adhere to the principle of openness and tolerance. The authors note that the problem of Afghanistan can become a point of contact and development of joint approaches and strategies of the CICA and the OIC in the context of international and regional security. The author concludes that the transformation of the CICA into the Organization for Security and Development of Asia, proposed by Kazakhstan, would mean an expansion of the conference format and a turn towards solving new problems. In addition, the urgent task of the CICA at present is the transition to qualitatively new levels of cooperation—preventive diplomacy and conflict prevention.