MILITARY MOBILITY IN THE EUROPEAN THEATRE

To ensure its defense and deterrence posture, NATO has to prove the ability to quickly deploy, reinforce and sustain its forces across the entire SACEUR Area of Responsibility. To ensure the end-state of free deployment of forces across Europe, the Alliance identified the need to abolish legal and administrative barriers and to improve the infrastructure status and transportations capacity. Both NATO and the European Union recognized the military mobility deficiencies as a strategic vulnerability for Europe in case of a peer-to-peer conflict scenario.

THE BATTLE OF MĂRĂȘEȘTI. THE STORY OF A MAUSOLEUM

Located in the “fire triangle” Mărăști, Mărășești, Oituz, the battle of Mărășești represents the most important battle of the first World War on the Romanian front. The battle from Mărășești, which lasted 29 days (24 July/6 August to 21 August/3 September 1917), stands for an important page of military history, being dubbed the ‘‘Romanian Verdune’’. The Romanian army, although exceeded both in number and in the first technical means of fighting, managed, by tactics and by galvanizing the soldiers, to frustrate the offensive plans of the “frontier breaker”, Anton Ludwig August von Mackensen. Right on the ground where the battle had taken place, the Mausoleum of the First World War Heroes was built. The remains of over 5,000 soldiers and officers are buried there. This paper aims to bring back to the image of today's generation the brilliant victory of the Romananian army.

A COMPARATIVE VIEW ON SECURITY CULTURE AS REFLECTED IN ROMANIA’S NATIONAL DEFENSE STRATEGIES

The present paper aims at analyzing the concept of security culture by, firstly, pinpointing its theoretical underpinnings and, secondly, by undertaking a qualitative thematic analysis of the concept as it is presented in Romania’s National Defense Strategies from the last decade. The objective is to examine to what extent the evolutions in the security environment are mirrored in the understanding of the concept at strategic level and in the objectives and actions proposed for the implementation of security culture at societal level.

SYRIA – “THE WAR WITH MULTIPLE PROXIES”. VIOLATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS

The civil war in Syria, triggered by the pro-democracy demonstrations of the "Arab Spring", was a complicated combination of religious, cultural and ethnic-identity contradictions. The non-international conflict was turned into a "battlefield" for foreign powers, which led to the transformation of a civil war into a "war with multiple proxies". The United Nations' efforts to mediate the conflict, based on a six-point plan, remained in the draft phase. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have denounced flagrant violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by the al-Assad regime, which has widely used non-discriminatory weapons banned in violation of the Geneva Conventions, 1949. The Bashār al-Assad regime is accused by the international community of being guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but attempts to incriminate it have failed.

GENERALS DE GAULLE, DUMITRESCU AND HERUVIM, GRADUATES OF SAINT-CYR

A very important Romanian historical event took place on 14 May 1968 when General Charles de Gaulle, the president of The French Fifth Republic, visited Bucharest, an initiative stemming from this visionary head of state’s idea of a unified Europe stretching “from the Atlantic to the Urals’. Have you heard of Romanian generals Polihron Dumitrescu and Ioan Heruvim? Charles de Gaulle’s visit proved quite difficult to manage for the communist regime, one of the difficulties being the French general’s meeting with these two generals, former classmates from the Special Military School of Saint-Cyr. His itinerary included the cities of Craiova and Târgoviște because of these expectedly emotional meetings with Dumitrescu and Heruvim, the former having been de Gaulle’s class president, and the latter one of its most brilliant students, and the city of Cetatea Băniei where the French general performed an official military salute.

ASYMMETRIC OPERATIONS OF THE HOSTILE MILITARY INTELLIGENCE SERVICES ON THE ALLIED STATES TERRITORIES

Globalization and technological developments brought to societies huge benefits, but also new security challenges. State or private entities, having access to new, advanced technologies, and benefiting of the rapid and free movement, developed methods and strategies to harm their perceived enemies. National security, considered alone or in conjunction with those of the allied states or within the security organizations is challenged lately by hostile acts performed by various entities, aimed at weakening societies, value systems, beliefs or even the simply well-being of the citizens. Intelligence services, as part of the national / organizational security systems are called to discover, perform early warning, monitor, and counter such aggressive actions, even if a clearly attribution of the perpetrator is difficult. Our endeavour is to draw a picture of the current preoccupations in the field, presenting also three cases where the uncertainty of the transgressors has been eliminated without any shadow of doubt.

EUROPEAN COMMON DEFENCE A NEW CHALLENGE FOR THE EUROPEAN UNION

The efforts for peace at the end of the Second World War were based on the belief that only through "European unification" was there hope for an end to a chapter in Europe's recent history of war, bloodshed and destruction. The supreme objectives of safeguarding peace, but also of economic unification, contained in the Constitutive Treaties of the European Communities were impregnated with the fundamental intention of ensuring peace. The Treaties that gave birth to the European Communities and the Union confirm that the goal of peace has succeeded, and that a violent confrontation between Member States is currently unlikely. On the other hand, the conflicts that have affected the former Yugoslavia have shown that peace and democracy in Europe are not as obvious as they seemed. The Yugoslav crisis has also shown that it is vital to act in support of peace beyond the borders of the conflict-free zone within the European Union. The paper aims to analyze the evolution of the concept of common European defence, in order to identify features and trends of the European security environment that can provide an image of the future options of the European Union in the field of defence.

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION PROCESS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Information is a very valuable weapon, with its help you can manipulate, you can change behaviors and actions. Also the Internet makes the process of communication at the mass level amplifies the speed dissemination, which further accentuates the influence. Since 2015, the EU has worked actively to reduce the impact of disinformation. The European Parliament has consistently pushed for adequate staff and adequate resources for the task force. This resulted in the formation of a team called the East StratCom Team. This team has developed, in cooperation with the EU institutions and the Member States, the Action Plan. The creation of the East StratCom working group was aimed at countering Russian disinformation. At the same time, another StratCom interinstitutional working group was created, which aimed to address the phenomenon of radicalization in the Arab world using public diplomacy and communications. In this article we aim to analyze how the implementation of the Action Plan is working in the EU and witch are the results since 2015 till now. Also we analyze the pandemic and its role in the accessibility of measures to combat fake news and how EU took action to combat COVID-19 disinformation. Although the East StratCom working group has taken important steps and the sites to combat fake news and the Code of Practice have also brought quantifiable results on this front, the EU is still failing to combat Russian misinformation and propaganda. As a general conclusion, we believe that the European Union has shown through the steps initiated that it knows what needs to be done to implement and use strategic communication effectively, but, to date, it has been limited in finding an effective solution.

NATO’S ENCOUNTERS IN THE CYBER DOMAIN

Last two decades technological advances in artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, telecommunications or space assets, brought new threats for the international security and have fundamentally changed the nature of warfare. Coercive cyber aggressions between opponents have enough potential to affect the digital economy and national security services without escalate into traditional conflicts. Cyber threats to Western security organizations are becoming more frequent, complex, and destructive. NATO’s strategic competitors such as Russia and China seek to shape cyberspace through state action in order to gain an asymmetric military advantage. By adapting its posture in the cyber domain, refining doctrine and developing new capabilities, NATO aims to deter cyber aggressions against its interest and to coordinate better the defense of its member states.

INTRODUCTORY STUDY ON THE INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW APPLICABLE TO ARMED CONFLICTS AT SEA

The purpose of the international humanitarian law applicable to armed conflicts at sea is the same as the International Humanitarian Law relevant to land conflicts: to reduce the destructive consequences of the armed conflict to a minimum, to protect the civilians and other non-combatants, as well as the civilian and cultural objects, to ensure a minimal consideration of some fundamental human rights and to limit the means and methods of warfare in accordance with the four customary cardinal principles, as considered by the International Court of Justice in its advisory opinion on the Legality of the Use of Nuclear Weapons: the principles of humanity, distinction, proportionality and military necessity. Without any pretense of being an exhaustive study on the subject, the purpose of this article is to offer introductory insight into the international law of naval warfare.