Romanian Military Thinking

Geopolitics • Geostrategy • International Security
true that fundamental liberties cannot exist without security, the preservation of civil
rights remains essential for the preservation of democracy itself. Through proclaiming
the exceptional character of terrorism, authorities have taken the habit of restricting
and suppressing some public liberties, as well as some constitutional guarantees.
The exceptional measures taken after 9/11 by Western democracies, such as the
Antiterrorism Act in Great Britain or the imprisonment of suspects, in conditions of uncertain
transparency, in Guantanamo, draw attention towards the discriminatory treatment of
people of foreign origin about whom security forces think that they might have connections
with terrorist networks. Thus, under the pretext of terrorism, it has been created a veritable
surveillance society that makes use of the new surveillance technologies to observe,
localise, process and install data in the network and that can contribute to combating
this scourge but reactivates, at the same time, the ancestral fear and uncertainty of the
ordinary citizen. All these elements contribute to the “publicity effect” offered by the
terrorist way of action today to make itself heard on the international stage, to help with
the evolution of the dominant representations that prevail on the strategic stage and to
eventually alter the course of each of us existence;
The acknowledgement of responsibilities between police and the armed forces as far as
security is concerned is characteristic of the state within the EU, in the context in which
the military in some countries like France, Italy, Spain and Portugal take – in conformity
with the law – a series of responsibilities proper to homeland security, especially related
to territory and sensitive points protection. On the contrary, in the Northern countries,
taking these prerogatives by the armed forces is not stipulated in the legislation
and this fact is seen as an infringement of the principle of separation of power. To have
a unitary vision on the European homeland defence experts think that a dialogue regarding
the role of the military sector in protecting the national and the European territory should
be initiated;
The EU institutional system, built on the three pillars established through the Treaty
of Amsterdam, has responded so far neither to the necessity of harmonising the Union
homeland security nor to the one of eliminating the existent barriers between internal
and external security. As a result, there are sometimes discrepancies or interferences
in the activity of internal and external agencies, generated by the existence of two groups
that focus on the same issues. In this context, it is mentioned the “Institutional Antiterrorist
Cooperation” that belongs to the third EU pillar (Justice and Home Affairs), which is
coordinated by the “Terrorism Working Group” (TWG) within the Council, as well as
by the COTER (Counter Terrorism Working Group), responsible for the external security
within CFSP and ESDP, the three procedural contexts being appreciated as not an optimal
solution for preventing and combating the terrorist scourge.
Mention should be made that, despite the fact some national administrations remain
reticent, making direct reference to the individual rights and even to the very substance
of the national sovereignty, the establishment of a European internal group appears to be
a natural evolution of integration, as a medium term necessity of the discussed process.
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