Posted on 12/12/2005 7:28:13 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
BUCHAREST, Romania | “It took them more than 60 years – but better late than never!” This is how 82-year-old Dimitrie Balus greeted the news that the United States would soon station troops permanently in Romania.
The Transylvanian villager is one of the many Romanians who after World War II hoped for American troops to come and liberate their country from Russian occupation.
Sixteen years after the collapse of the Soviet bloc and three years after former Warsaw Pact member Romania joined NATO, it’s official: the Americans are coming.
NO MORE COLD WAR
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Romanian Foreign Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu signed an agreement on 6 December in Bucharest that grants U.S. troops access to some of Romania’s military facilities.
This marks the first time that the U.S. is permanently stationing troops in a former Warsaw Pact country.
Rice greeted the agreement as “historical” and said Romania was "a strong friend with whom we share common values." Rice said Washington had chosen the country to host American troops because of the very close military ties between the two countries as well as Romania's strategic geographical position.
President Traian Basescu said the agreement “gives Romania political credibility, confirms the fact that the Romanian army has arrived at a level that gives it the status of a partner to the U.S. armed force, and will transform our country into a regional pillar of stability.”
The agreement will most probably become effective in 2007, when the first U.S. soldiers will arrive. The expected number of U.S. personnel has not been revealed, but experts said there would be at least 500 troops permanently stationed in Romania.
If some Romanians were expecting that the arrival of U.S. troops would mean a big boost for the economy, as in Germany where huge U.S. bases employ thousands of locals, they received a cold shower when U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that the bases were forward operating sites rather than the large bases like those Washington built in Western Europe during the Cold War.
A statement by the Romanian Defense Ministry also stated that the agreement simply gives U.S. personnel access to bases operated by Romanian troops under Romanian command.
The ministry said the bases will also be used for joint military exercises of NATO and Partnership for Peace members.
Some sources inside the ministry said this formula might be just semantics in order to avoid the negative attitude some countries in the region might have towards the Americans moving east.
WAKING THE SLEEPING GIANT
If that was the intention, it didn’t work – at least not with Russia, the likely addressee of this semantic tinkering.
If Moscow noticed that some signatories to the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty were ignoring its provisions, "we will draw certain conclusions," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said in response to the agreement.
He stressed that Russia had been informed by Washington about the plans, but didn't know how many U.S. troops would be stationed in Romania or how many bases would host them. He said Moscow would probably make a statement when those aspects were clarified, according to news reports.
In Bucharest, this reaction was seen as typical. Dan Stanca wrote in his column in the daily Romania libera, “Whoever imagined that Russia had lost its reflexes from the time when it was suffocating the desire for freedom of the countries under its thumb was wrong.”
And Traian Ungureanu, a senior editor of the daily Cotidianul, wrote: “Russia has noticed a serious failure. … Its strategic arrangements in the region are falling to pieces. The network of economic, political, and moral pressures supported by its military presence on Europe’s eastern border is crumbling.”
Military analyst Radu Tudor, quoted by Hotnews.ro, thinks that Moscow is trying to find reasons not to comply with the Conventional Forces in Europe agreement and keep troops in areas of “frozen conflicts” such as Transdniester, Abkhazia, or South Ossetia.
But the new U.S. ambassador in Bucharest, Nicholas Taubman, was more conciliatory in his comments. Russia should not be worried about Romania opening its military facilities to U.S. troops, as Moscow is Washington’s ally in the war against terrorism, he told journalists.
From a geopolitical viewpoint, however, the Russians have good reason for concern. Three of the four facilities U.S. troops will have access to are situated very close to the Black Sea or the former border of the Soviet Union.
The Mihail Kogalniceanu airbase is located just a few kilometers from Constanta, Romania’s second city and the most important port on the western shore of the Black Sea. The facility has recently been in the spotlight following accusations that the CIA was holding secret detainees there, a charge the Romanian authorities reject.
Two of the facilities, the Babadag and Smardan training grounds, lie near the country's borders with Ukraine and Moldova and only 150 to 200 air kilometers to the self-proclaimed Transdniester Republic, where several thousand Russian troops are still stationed.
Only the largest of the training fields selected by Washington, Cincu, is more comfortably located from Moscow’s point of view - across the Carpathians in southern Transylvania.
RISKS AND BENEFITS
It wasn’t just the Russian reaction that made many Romanians uncomfortable, despite widespread pro-American feelings. “We must not forget that this move makes us more visible on the map of potential terrorist targets,” political analyst Ion Cristoiu said on a television talk show.
President Basescu contradicted this assessment: “The agreement doesn’t imply a bigger risk, but a bigger involvement in the global security system. The risk potential was unlocked when Romania became an ally in the fight against terrorism a few years ago.”
A more tangible fear concerns Romania’s chances of entering the European Union in January 2007. A safeguard clause in the accession treaty allows the EU to delay entry by one year if Romania doesn’t meet certain requirements, and some Romanians fear that France and Germany might take a tougher stance on those requirements in retaliation for Romania’s offer to host U.S. troops.
A senior Romanian officer told TOL that the Germans might also be angered by the closure of U.S. bases there. Most of the troops to be stationed in Romania will come from U.S. facilities in Germany, which sustain the economy of entire towns.
Others see the issue in brighter colors. Political analyst Stelian Tanase told TOL, “There is indeed a low risk of terrorist attacks, but the Americans would be those targeted. On the other hand, the agreement is proof that Romania is a safer country that can attract foreign investments because it has such powerful allies.”
Yet others are pinning their hopes on tangible benefits for the local economy. Iordache Carp, a senior municipal official in Smardan, told TOL, “Even if we are only few kilometers from a city of 300,000 [Galati], the streets are in a bad state and we have no water system. Maybe now we will receive some money for such projects.”
TROUBLED RELATIONS
Romania has had a complex relationship with the United States since World War II.
During the war, Romania fought alongside Nazi Germany until it switched sides in August 1944.
During that time, Bucharest and several other cities were heavily bombed by U.S. warplanes, as were the oil fields in the Prahova region.
Despite its switch to the Allied side, Romania was occupied by the Red Army and forced into the Communist bloc, though in later decades it managed to steer a more independent course than other Warsaw Pact countries.
Soon after the collapse of the Ceausescu regime in 1989, Romania decided it was time to turn its back on the past and to seek NATO membership. After a failed attempt in 1997, the dream came true in 2002.
As a sign of gratitude, Bucharest sent troops to Afghanistan and later to Iraq. In the winter and spring of 2003, the Mihail Kogalniceanu airbase was used by U.S. troops as a springboard for the conflict zones of the Middle East.
Another sign of gratitude was the 2002 signing of a so-called Article 98 agreement with the U.S., which grants U.S. personnel in specific countries immunity from prosecution by the newly-established International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Together with Israel and East Timor, Romania was among the first countries to sign such an agreement, provoking the fury of Brussels.
The agreement appears in a different light following recent accusations, among others by Human Rights Watch, that the Kogalniceanu airbase was used by the CIA to detain or transfer prisoners without any oversight.
President Basescu rejected the allegations. “There are no such prisons and it wouldn’t be possible for torture to be used in Romania.” He invited foreign media to search for such secret prisons anywhere they chose.
Reporters from The New York Times and other international media roamed the Kogalniceanu facility and turned up empty-handed.
A parliamentary commission was set up to look into the allegations, and the issue was also discussed by Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu with EU officials in Brussels. The accusations could yet prove another obstacle for the country’s EU aspirations because the scandal is probably not yet over.
If recent history is anything to go by, though, Romania’s steadfast support to Washington will continue to be a powerful irritant for Brussels, Paris, and Berlin once the prisoner affair is over.
WTG Romania! Welcome aboard to the good fight.
"Romania has had a complex relationship with the United States since World War II."
Considering that Romania was the last nation ever targeted with a unanimous formal Declaration of War by the Congress of the United States (Jun 5th, 1942: 361-0), I would say, "yes, we do have a complex relationship"...
dvwjr
"Relax, Russia. You aren't the Bad Guys any more. It's quite true........we share a common enemy now in radical Islam.
They should welcome our presence and our joint efforts to eradicate this Muslim threat from the face of the earth."
Mm - yeh. And quit feverishly developing new intercontinental weapons to counter America's defences!
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