Maritime Security Forum
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There have been enough times in history when the future of our country, both in terms of opportunities and challenges, seemed to be increasingly linked to the Black Sea maritime space. However, nowadays, perhaps more than ever, we are becoming more and more aware of the importance of this maritime space for the future of our country and of each one of us. Unfortunately, however, the Black Sea is no longer just the supplier of immense resources which, if exploited rationally, could provide thebasis for human existence, nor is it the area of understanding and cooperation between the nations bordering it that it was decades ago. The Black Sea has become a geopolitical area subject to extremely high political and military pressures, which are having a huge impact on stability and peace not only at regional level, but on the entire European continent. Sustainable development efforts of states in the region are almost impossible to achieve without security both onshore, near-shore and offshore. At sea the situation is all the more complicated as almost all littoral states, with the exception of Turkey and Russia, have historically neglected the maritime dimension of national security and have not bothered to develop a dedicated strategy in this area. Nor has the West shown much concern for the maritime security of the Black Sea region even though this area has been and continues to be the Euro-Atlantic community’s great eastern border with the Middle East.
However, the unprecedented series of events unleashed over the past decade and a half by Russia against the former Soviet republics in the region, culminating in the 2022 war against Ukraine, has highlighted the large security gaps, especially maritime security, that the Black Sea littoral states have and has shifted the focus of attention on the region from the periphery to the centre of the Euro-Atlantic community. So, after largely ignoring the region for the past decades, the West is now beginning to wake up and realise both the growing importance of the Black Sea region and the need for a modern and updated strategy. The characteristics of the current situation are prompting both the United States and
Europe to focus their attention on this region and to develop a new and as coherent a strategic framework as possible. Geopolitically, the Black Sea region is the Euro-Atlantic community’s great eastern border with the wider Middle East, and the countries of this area are a natural partner in any Western Middle East strategy. On the other hand, the Black Sea states have become increasingly aware that the West’s increased attention to the region needs to be harnessed within a new strategic framework defined by a rethinking of national security strategies to respond as adequately as possible to Russia’s strategic challenges in the region. In this context, the strengthening of maritime and geo-economic capabilities must be the main pillars of the national security strategies of both the NATO member states located in the Black Sea region, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, and the other states in the area that have engaged in closer ties with the Euro-Atlantic world, namely Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia.
Ensuring the maritime security of these states is crucial to maintaining regional strategic balance and balancing Russia’s expansionist tendencies. NATO, the European Union, the United States and other Western partners must assist the Black Sea states both in projecting maritime power from land and in creating and maintaining robust “no-go” zones that allow them to defend their coastlines and sea lanes. All these must become basic elements of the maritime security strategies that all states in the region, including Romania, should adopt. Unfortunately, throughout history, Black Sea states have almost constantly neglected the maritime dimension of their national security and have not bothered to develop a distinct strategy dedicated to this area. However, the time has come for this to change, at least from the perspective of ensuring our country’s national security.
More than ever, Romania needs a maritime security strategy that will enhance its strategic position as a country bordering the Black Sea and allow it to make the most of its full socio-economic and military potential to promote national interests in the maritime environment. The promotion of these interests must be one of the major objectives of Romania’s foreign policy as a landlocked state, as this area has played and continues to play a key role in the economic development of our country. Romania is and must remain a country with a maritime vocation, and its connection to the global ocean through the Black Sea and the Danube – Main – Rhine – North Sea “European Magistral” gives it huge opportunities to exploit and promote national interests.
All these assessments have been the reason why, lately, there has been an intensification of the interest of some institutions and prestigious Romanian political, scientific and military personalities to bring back to the right place the issue of national interests related to the Black Sea and maritime and river economic activities, which after 1989 seemed to have been left in a shadow. In the same trend of coagulating scientific efforts to bring the maritime domain back into the spotlight, the Maritime Security Forum, a scientific forum operating under the auspices of the Romanian Admirals’ Club Association, which has constantly supported this approach since its foundation and has been actively trying to contribute to redefining our country’s place and role in the regional and international maritime landscape.
The main purpose of all the work carried out by the Forum in 2022 was to identify a concept of maritime security to be assumed by our country and on the basis of which to develop a maritime strategy, with a strong maritime security component, as a foundation for promoting and protecting Romania’s interests in this field. All the meetings, discussions and debates with expert groups, members of the forum or special guests, aimed at achieving these objectives. The annual scientific conference organised by the Maritime Security Forum also promoted a series of papers whose themes were oriented in the same direction of identifying a comprehensive concept of maritime security adapted to the historical realities we are currently experiencing in the Black Sea region.
The conclusions and lessons learnt from these activities were the subject of the present study, developed under the aegis of the Maritime Security Forum, whose aim is to identify and propose an adapted concept of Romania’s maritime security that responds specifically to the protection of a set of national interests promoted by our country in the maritime field. In this scientific approach, the expert groups considered that Romania’s maritime security must be integrated into the regional geopolitical and geostrategic context and must respond to the dynamics of Black Sea security. At the same time, it is necessary to develop a national maritime security strategy that is complementary to the maritime strategies of other countries in the region and, above all, aligned with NATO and EU strategies for the region. All of this should be based on scientific maritime security studies, the importance of which is well documented in this study.
Given the fact that there are very few similar initiatives at national level, and that the competent authorities have not adopted any relevant document reflecting on maritime security or directing the relaunch of economic and social activities related to the maritime and fluvial domains, the study Romania’s Maritime Resilience in the Era of Hybrid Threats and the Importance of a Maritime Security Strategy, developed by the experts of the Maritime Security Forum, is an important step supporting scientific efforts dedicated to the sea and its security. At the same time, this study responds to the growing need for analysis, research and promotion of maritime security as a complex and dynamic concept that defines “the coordinated set of organisational and practical measures that a state or non-state actor adopts at the domestic, national or international level to enable it to assert, promote and, if necessary, defend its maritime interests in relations with other state and non-state actors that are involved and/or active in the maritime domain, and to protect them against any risks and threats”. In addition, the scientific approach of the Maritime Security Forum constitutes a scientific basis for the adoption by the competent national authorities of decisions on the development and adoption of a maritime strategy for our country and sectorial plans for its implementation.
For the Forum’s experts, this approach provides the scientific basis for future research, which will focus on developing a maritime strategy model that also includes a security component approached from a multi-sectorial perspective, calling on the efforts of all stakeholders interested in exploiting the potential of the maritime domain, as well as its resilience and security. A strategy recognises the status quo, provides a vision of what the future should look like and is supported by an action plan that sets out the path from the status quo to the desirable one. In other words, developing a maritime strategy involves first understanding the existing state, which the Forum experts have done through this study, and then in future research efforts will be directed towards developing a national vision for the maritime domain and an action plan to achieve that vision.
Romania needs to turn its attention to the maritime domain without delay and to engage strategically in this area, and for this it unquestionably needs a maritime strategy. Strategic engagement in the maritime domain facilitates the promotion of national interests in this field, taking into account the existing challenges, and paves the way for the successful exploitation of all the opportunities offered by our country’s exit to the sea. Despite the increasing risks, dangers and security threats, the Black Sea region remains an area of opportunities, for the exploitation of which a process of transforming it into an area of peace, security and prosperity must be started urgently, a process from which Romania must not be absent. The study carried out by the Maritime Security Forum aimed primarily at finding the answer to the following question: Does Romania need a Maritime Policy and a Maritime Security Strategy? You will find the answer in its chapters and arguments, and you, the reader, have the choice.