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Tag Archives: Romania
Economy, Flashpoints, GeoPolitics, Resources May 18, 2013

Cold War politics hang over EU shale gas revolution

The shale gas revolution has taken its time to arrive in Europe. But after years of watching the US plunge head-first into natural gas exploration and of reaping the rewards, Europe’s politicians are now deciding whether to join in.

The first major battleground for European natural gas exploration is likely to be in eastern Europe, where the prospect of greater energy security from Russia is a big issue. It is also possible to detect Cold War overtones to the approach taken by the US oil and gas industry and its government.

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Development, GeoPolitics, Military Buildup, News May 2, 2013

Interesting: 3AF 9th Annual International Conference on Missile Defense

Thank you so much for inviting me to join you today. At the State Department, I am responsible for overseeing a wide range of defense policy issues, including missile defense policy. In this capacity, it was my responsibility and privilege to negotiate the details of the Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) agreements with Poland, Romania, and Turkey that will enable the United States to implement the European Phased Adaptive Approach (or EPAA), the U.S. contribution to NATO missile defense.

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Policy, Systemic Abuse September 11, 2012

Countries pressed over CIA prisons

European Union member states accused of having hosted secret CIA jails in the wake of the 9/11 attacks should come clean on the issue, said a resolution approved Tuesday by the European Parliament.

The non-binding resolution targeted Lithuania, Poland and Romania in particular.

They were urged to shed more light on allegations that they had hosted secret prisons used by the US Central Intelligence Agency for its controversial rendition programme in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

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Analysis, Flashpoints, Military Buildup August 20, 2012

ABM in Qatar: American way to control ‘excess of evil’

The US is planning to deploy an ABM system in Qatar. How will it influence the situation around Iran?

We have to understand, there are two dimensions of the problem. One dimension is that Americans have a far reaching, long term plan to have a global missile defense system as part of the system that they have already established. The same kind of facilities are in Japan. Now they are building them in Australia, in Turkey which is a part of the European missile defense. And auxiliary installations are on the territory of Romania. And of course such a sensitive area as Persian Gulf could not be avoided by Americans in terms of controlling the air space of the area where they have as they call “excess of evil”.

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Diplomacy, Military, News July 27, 2012

US to station forces in Poland for first time

The Pentagon said yesterday it plans to send a U.S. air force detachment to Poland to support fighter jets and transport planes, marking the first time that U.S. soldiers have been stationed there. The announcement was made at the end of talks between US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and his Polish counterpart Tomasz Siemoniak. The detachment “will arrive this fall to support quarterly F-16 and C-130 deployments beginning in 2013 and will be the first U.S. forces stationed on Polish soil,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said in a statement.

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Flashpoints, Military Buildup, News July 18, 2012

Missile shield may spark China nuclear upgrade: officer

China may need to modernize its nuclear arsenal to respond to the destabilizing effect of a planned U.S.-backed missile defense system, a senior Chinese military officer said on Wednesday.

“It undermines the strategic stability,” said Major General Zhu Chenghu of China’s National Defense University about the U.S.-led development of a missile shield, which has also alarmed Russia.

“We have to maintain the credibility of deterrence,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of a panel discussion on nuclear disarmament, referring to the military doctrine that an enemy will be deterred from using atomic arms as long as he can be destroyed as a consequence.

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Crisis, Economy, Risks April 27, 2012

Romanian government toppled, Czechs face test too

Romania’s opposition torpedoed the center-right cabinet in a confidence vote on Friday, raising the prospect of months of political turmoil and questions over a belt-tightening campaign that has caused a wave of protests against IMF-backed reforms.

Prime Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu’s two-month-old government is the latest in a string of austerity-minded ruling coalitions that have fallen across the European Union in disputes over spending cuts and tax hikes.

The defeat came ahead of another confidence vote, in the Czech Republic, whose budget-cutting cabinet is expected to survive but may find itself hamstrung by infighting among its scandal-plagued parties and widespread public anger over its policies.

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GeoPolitics, Military Buildup, Stratagem, Strategic Interests April 17, 2012

Russian media: Moscow could deploy radar station in Tiraspol, in response to U.S. shield in Europe

Thus, the Russian leadership would intend to pay particular attention to Transnistria. “Given the proximity region with a NATO country – Romania – already four NATO bases and processes related to the integration of Moldova in Romania is increasing, the Russian Federation intends to maintain its military presence in Transnistria, moreover, suggests Voronezh radar installation, “added the sources cited.

On the other hand, the Russian Defense Ministry has said independent military Publication editor, Viktor Litovnik, had no plans to conduct a Voronezh-DM radar station in Transnistria. Head of the Moscow military decided to build such stations exclusively in Russia – Leningrad regions (north), Kaliningrad (west), the Armavir (south) and Irkutsk (east).

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Development, Flashpoints, Military Buildup, News, Strategic Interests March 27, 2012

US Seeks Missile Shields For Asia, Mideast

The United States is seeking to build regional shields against ballistic missiles in both Asia and the Middle East akin to a controversial defense system in Europe, a senior Pentagon official disclosed on Monday.

The effort may complicate U.S. ties with Russia and China, both of which fear such defenses could harm their security even though the United States says they are designed only to protect against states like Iran and North Korea.

The U.S. push for new anti-missile bulwarks includes two sets of trilateral dialogues—one with Japan and Australia and the other with Japan and South Korea, said Madelyn Creedon, an assistant secretary of defense for global strategic affairs.

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Drill, Military, News March 11, 2012

Military exercises Agile Spirit 2012 start in Georgia

US Marines and soldiers from the Georgian 4th Infantry Brigade will participate in a combined military exercise called AGILE SPIRIT 2012 in the Vaziani Training Area from March 10 – 24. The focus of the exercise, which will involve more than 300 Marines from the Marine Corps’ Black Sea Rotational Force 12 based in Constanta, Romania, and the Georgian Armed Forces, is to increase interoperability between the forces and exchange and enhance each other’s capacity in counterinsurgency and peacekeeping operations, including small unit tactics, convoy operations, and counter-Improvised Explosive Device training.

AGILE SPIRIT has become an annual exercise and supplements other elements of our military partnership with Georgia, such as the Georgia Deployment Program, which is a US Marine Corps program that prepares Georgian Armed Forces to deploy to Afghanistan in support of the International Security Assistance Force.

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Military Buildup, News, Strategic Interests February 6, 2012

SE Turkey: Malatya radar system to be commanded from Ramstein

The NATO missile shiled program, whose radars were installed at the Kürecik Air Base in Malatya, southeastern Turkey, will be commanded from the Alliance’s Ramstein Air Base, according to U.S. Defense Minister Leon Panetta, who briefed journalists on the sidelines of the international security conference in Munich today.

Panetta reminded that in addition to the radar station in Turkey – which has greatly disturbed neighboring Iran – missiles will be stationed in Romania and Poland. Four U.S. ships capable of shooting down missiles will be stationed at Rota, Spain, he said.

The whole system will be managed from the Geilenkirchen base in Germany. Among the officers at this base will be a Turkish general and his team.

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Economy, FUBAR, History, News November 29, 2011

What happens when a currency collapses: ask Bulgaria

According to the International Institute of Finance, inflation in Bulgaria hit 174.4 percent in 1996 and a record of 1,077.5 percent the next year. Its curency, the lev, went from 500 per US dollar in late 1996 to 2,200 per US dollar in February 1997.

Food shortages and a harsh winter drove people to despair, with mass rallies ultimately forcing out the post-Communist government largely blamed for the disastrous policies that led to the currency collapse.

“For the average people, it was just terrible. Nobody really understood what happened, the only thing we could see was that it all ended in disaster,” says Komneva.

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