The Civil Democratic Control on the Army Forces in 
Romania 1989-2007

Octavian SOFRONEA

Ph.D. candidate, Doctoral School of Political Science, University of Bucharest

Abstract: The end of the Cold War meant for the South-Eastern European countries an increased effort for establishing a market based economy and democratic institutions. One raised issue regarding democratization was the reform of the army forces and the democratization of the relationship between the military and the civil society. The civil control on the army forces and the creation of a democratic control system represents key indicators for the process of democratization and stabilizing and legitimizing elements for these states that, after the fall of the communism, were finding themselves in a complex transition process that inevitably demanded the reevaluation of the military institution. Thus, applying the theory on the case of Romania in the period 1989 – 2007, would allow me to analyze the way in which the reform of the Romanian security system took place, how the civil democratic control was implemented and the progress made for achieving the two main objectives: the accession to NATO and EU.

Keywords: civil democratic control, army forces, civil-military relations, security, strategy

1. 1. INTRODUCTION

The army is one of the institutions present in the daily life in most of the spheres of society. A much appreciated sociologist, David Segal, argued that “one cannot read the newspaper without realizing surprisingly the impact that the army has”1. It is useful to mention the fact that the topic of the army covers a larger area in reality, referring to all the institutions that use the force and that are legitimate through the modern state’s control, namely the land, naval, and air forces, Special Forces, gendarmerie along the intelligence agencies. The military institutions and organizations were a permanent element of modern societies, having as objective the management of the violence/conflict in the state, exercising an accepted monopole on the violence even in the most liberal societies.

The army was always an important topic in social sciences like political sciences or sociology. However, a theory regarding civil-military relations appeared only after the Second World War. Among the fields of studies that could have analyzed this aspect, the military sociology, especially the American one, produced the most complex works and studies regarding the understanding of the role of the army within a democratic society.

The concept civil-military relations became known in 1957, “once with the publication of Samuel P. Huntington’s work «The Soldier and The State»”2. Although Huntington was part of the Harvard University Department of Political Science, one of the concepts that he used was borrowed from sociology, in such a way that his book is considered as an important contribution for both the military sociology and political science. Huntington’s study was written in the Cold War period, but his conclusions can be taken as a departure point in any research about the civil-military relations, moreover since it was presented as an ideal model from the beginning.

Huntington’s book is considered “one of the most influential books that created the civil-military relations paradigm”. “The national Security and the civil-military relations” chapter introduces the theoretical framework for starting an analysis in the matter. Huntington conceived the civil-military relations as a fundamental institutional component of the security policy. This work is considered the departure point for defining the democratic relations between the society and the army. Having in mind this aspect, the role of the army in a society is discussed in terms of civil control that identifies itself with the civilian’s specific interests.

In this article, I aim to analyze the issue of the civilian democratic control on the army forces of post-communist Romania. I chose to analyze the civilian democratic control concept due to the fact that it had always represented a stabilizing and legitimizing element for the democratic states, and after the end of the Cold War, a number of South-Eastern European states found themselves in a complex transition process that inevitably required the reform of the army. Romania’s Security System reform represented an internal reform process, but without the assistance of the West it could have never achieved all the objectives required for the integration and the alignment of the army forces to the modern standards. The invitation for joining NATO addressed to Romania in 2002 in Prague was considered a success not only for the government of that time but also for the entire society. In fact, in the last two decades, the integration in the EU and NATO represented the fundamental objectives of Romania’s external policy. The vision that Romania had regarding these two objectives was not considered a contradictory one but rather “as two parallels towards the same end – the modernization of the country and its final launch towards the West”3.

An essential thing when analyzing the civil democratic control is the degree of professionalism of the army forces. The professionalization of the army forces in Central and Eastern Europe constitutes an essential part of the democratization of the civil-military relations and of the society per se. Scholarly literature regarding the topic highlights two perspectives, namely, one belonging to Morris Janowitz and the second one belonging to Marybeth Ulrich. Janowitz stated that the professionalization appears as a term that describes “the socialization processes of professional military”4. Thus, for realizing a contrast, political science uses the concept of «professionalization» as a normative one describing those army forces that “accomplish efficiently the necessary conditions for a legitimate government”5.

On the other side, Marybeth Ulrich, makes a clear distinction between military professionalism and democratic military professionalism and states that a professional army is defined as a military organization that accepts the role of completing the tasks of the legitimate government and one that “is able to accomplish efficiently the specific military activities”. Thus, a professional army has characteristics such as, clearly defined missions, maintaining the specific fight experience, clear rules regarding the army’s and the soldier’s responsibilities, and promotion based on meritocracy. When it comes to Romania, from this perspective, the changes of the role, of the abilities, of the structures, of the preparation and training that occurred within the Romanian Army Forces after the fall of communism are very visible and are highlighted through a continuous reform of the security system.

Starting with the 1960’s, the military sociology had more and more resources and interest in observing the organizational behavior, mostly regarding issues such as recruitment and maintenance of personnel, internal organization, cooperation and conflict within the organizations, the morality and the leadership. The most frequent thesis regarding the military organizations are those regarding its nature, namely, I/O model, institution or occupation, as well as those related to the switch from the mandatory military service to the voluntary one.

The I/O model is one of the fundamental topics analyzed by military sociology after 1970. Henning SØrensen has a short presentation in which quotes important authors of the field of study. If Huntington and Janowitz consider the military profession as a special and unique one, Charles Moskos doubted the special status of the military institution. He highlighted the fact that “after the end of the war in Vietnam and the implementation of the military service based on voluntary decision, the army tends towards becoming an occupation like any other civilian occupation with missions that are only to a certain degree oriented towards fight”6. The argument of the 70’s between Janowitz and Moskos was due to a different understanding of the concepts. Following this dispute, along with the evolution of the current trends can influence the practice of the Romanian military sociologists that have to defend today the human resources policies or that have to intervene in the debate regarding the military pensions given according to the contribution, just as for any other civilian occupation.

Thus, the democratic control does not have to be seen in a simplistic manner, as for example, the army or the intelligence agencies have to follow the orders of a politician. But rather as “a complex mechanism, a set of norms in which the political class has legitimacy, obtained through delegation from the people, and that has to agree the priorities of the missions, that has to evaluate the security system without intervening in the way the missions are conducted”7.

1. 2. THE CIVIL DEMOCRATIC CONTROL: THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS AND THEIR INFLUENCE OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY

The security is a very complex concept, whose definition generates many controversies in the academic sphere. The national security, at a general level, is understood as the trust of the people in the idea that the state has the ability to prevent the use of force by its enemies or as the trust that it will be able to defend them in case aggressions will start. This encompasses some elements through which the study related to issues of national security, policies and programs that help solving these issues and the governmental procedure through which such issues are formulated.

Under the influence of the Copenhagen School, an explanatory model of the concept of security is advanced. For instance, Barry Buzan elaborates, along with his collaborator Ole Wæver, an ambitious agenda for security studies and he is in favor of the idea that “a state is concerned with maintaining and consolidating its sovereignty, meanwhile a society tries to strengthen and preserve its identity”8. This idea suits very well the discussion, initiated by the same Barry Buzan about weak or strong states, due to the fact that it refers to the societal element and it problematizes it as a potential specialized object of security.

The Copenhagen School „promotes the idea of securitization of problems”9 and investigates how can some aspects become security matters or how can these be excluded from this domain. The representatives of this school are those who studied security “as speech act”10, as a discourse through which the political is represented. The analysis tries to establish with precision who are the actors of these acts and also their interlocutors in order to determine their position in the debate on the concept of security.

For the concept of national security there are two dimensions, namely, an objective one that concerns the physical existence of some threats and a subjective one that refers to the actors’ attitude and their perception. Through the intersection of the two dimensions, the national security policy can be defined as “a dynamic process that establishes strategic objectives and grants resources for achieving the security of the majority of the citizens”11. According to this model, depending on the way the threats are perceived, we can identify four states: insecurity, obsession, false security and security. Thus, decision makers, who were chosen according to democratic principles, will have to assure a security policy that grants resources for achieving that state of security, by avoiding the traps of the false security and of the obsession. For instance, an example that can be taken into account if we look at the Romanian history would be the period 1960 -1980 when Ceausescu realized that the fragility of the communist ideology and promoted nationalism as a complementary ideology. The opposition that was in place when the Soviet occupation on Czechoslovakia occurred created legitimacy for him and presented himself as a successor of the great rulers from the medieval period. Through a very well developed propagandistic apparatus, he started to promote the universal conspiracy theory on Romania, creating an obsession for external threats. Having in mind these things, it is obvious that the national security exceeds the simplistic defense of the borders, but “a conceptual framework and a rational methodology for evaluating the security environment and for identifying real threats and national interests within that context is necessary”12.

Romania’s national security strategy from 2006 defines national security in a very simplistic manner as “an imprescriptible right that derives from the complete sovereignty of the people is based on the constitutional order and it is brought to life in the context of local, Euro-Atlantic and global security”13. Although this strategy contains some less beneficial aspects from previous strategies, it had at that point, the merit of being the most complex and the most offensive among all the previous versions. It highlighted the fact that, in a world characterized by asymmetrical threats and very diverse security risks, the military strategy was not able to focus in the military instrument in order to eliminate conventional threats, but “its radical reform was needed under the conditions of the interoperability and efficiency necessary for NATO, in order to be prepared for combating efficiently new security threats”14.

A much simpler definition is given by the Geneva Centre of the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) that considers the national security policy “a framework through which a country produces security for the state and for its citizens”15. The reasons invoked by the DCAF are for the growth of the security system’s efficiency through the optimization of the contributions of each actor, the guidance of the national security policy implementation, the realization of a national consensus through taking into account all the threats and increasing the regional and international cooperation.

A problem that often appears when it comes to security is the confusion between different concepts like national security policy, defense policy and the national security strategy. The distinction between these is based on the perspective of a military strategist, Carl von Clausewitz, who considered the fact that the war and its leadership belong to politics, but the war is fought by the army, the war and the politics being parts of the same whole. Once the war is triggered, the politicians pursue the goals of the society, but uses military means. The much known dictum “the war is the continuation of the politics by other means”16 represents the essence of its theory regarding the civil-military relations.

The difference between the security policy and the security strategy is that the first concerns the process through which the very important state goals are established, and the second, regards the ways for realizing those goals. Moreover, the national security policy has even a distinctive aspect, namely, the “institutional level of political-military decision” 17.

Another distinction can be noticed between the security policy and the defense policy that targets the fact that the two have on one side a different end goal of the policies, namely the security of the nations for the first one, and the defense against an enemy for the second. And on the other hand, they are means used for achieving the same goal; if national defense is based on military means, the national security engages all the national resources. Most probably this confusion started during the Cold War when the “national security equaled the national defense”18.

The civil-military relations constitute one of the most important aspects of the national security policy. The national security has as a main goal the improvement of the security of the national institutions – those with social, economical of political attributions – against the potential external threats from other independent states.

The political scientist, Samuel P. Huntington distinguished within the security policy three kinds and two levels, namely, military security policy, internal security policy and situational security policy, each of them carried on the one hand, at an operational level, and on the other hand, at an institutional level. The military security policy has a very well defined role representing “the program of activities designed to minimalize or to neutralize the efforts conducted for weakening or destroying the nation through armed attack from outside institutional and territorial border”19. The second, the internal security policy is in charge of the threat designed in order to undermine the state order and it is produced by forces acting within its borders. And the last, situational security policy, targets “the risk of erosion that results from the long-term change of the social, economic and political conditions that tend to reduce the relative power of the state”20. All these kinds of security policies act at an operational level by taking immediate measures for preventing the problem with which they are faced, and at an institutional level by emphasizing how the policy is formulated and executed at the abovementioned operational level.

The most important institutional component within the pale of the military security policy is the civil-military relations. When the problems of the defense policy operational level are brought to discussion one needs to bear in mind three fundamental aspects, namely, the quantitative aspect, the qualitative aspect and that regarding the dynamic use of the army forces. The quantitative aspect regards one of the most sensitive problems in this field – the proportionality of the state resources that are designed to the needs of the army, meanwhile the qualitative aspect concerns the manner of organization of the army forces, their readiness, the weaponry, similar agreements signed with different allies. The third aspect regards first of all, the temporal dimension and secondly, the essence of the problem, namely: “when and in what circumstances force will be used?”21. Institutional policies have problems that are constantly present and redefine, but they never completed with a solution and their objective is developing civil-military relations “that would maximize the military security without sacrificing other social values”22.

At the foundation of the formation of military institutions, disregarding the type of society, there are two main forces: one generated by the threats to the society’s security, and the second which is born from the society’s dominant, ideological and institutional forces. This interaction represents the most important point in the issue of the civil-military relations that is why there is a need of a balance and for an appropriate adaptation due to the fact that there are even “societies incapable to assure their own military security”23.

The army is one of the fundamental institutions for a society, and its role is often relevant through the use of the civil control concept. In order to debate the issue of civil control, the determination of the relation between the army and the political power, moreover between the military leadership and the political one, is necessary. It is the most important object of study in the theory of the civil military relations. From this point of view, the civil control can be defined as a “series of concepts, procedures, laws, standards and traditions through which the civil political authority on the country’s army forces is exercised”24. The democratic civil control on the army forces does not represent exclusively a legislative problem, an attribution of the Parliament, or only an executive problem, an attribution of the Government or of the Presidency, but it is an overall problem of the political apparatus and of the democracy.

In the scholarly literature a distinction is made between the responsibility for the pursuit of the civil democratic control, that lies entirely in the political power and the responsibility for the army forces, which is on characterized by obedience and fulfillment. The civil democratic control becomes legitimate only if the electoral process is a legitimate one, because only in this way the will of the society can make itself known and delegated to the political leadership. A very important aspect is the fact that this democratic control “doesn’t need to be only a law text, a declaration or a constitutional provision” 25 but a practice in itself.

The same American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington distinguishes between two types of civil control: the subjective and the objective one. The subjective control implies “a minimization of the power of the military and the use of their influence and prestige for an increase of the civil groups’ power.”26 The states in which there is a subjective democratic control have a military elite that is subordinated and dedicated to the political leadership in power. The handiest manner for reducing the power of the military is by increasing the power of the civil groups in relation with the army, however this fact is not possible because there will always be a large number of civil groups with different interests and characteristics thus that the minimization of the civil power means the maximization of a specific group’s power or of some groups and never of all of them. The subjective democratic control can be regarded as “an instrumental slogan like «the rule of law»”27 more than as a goal in itself. In the Western society the control existed only in a subjective way due to the lack of a professional army.

On the other hand, the objective control is diametrically opposed because it suggests a maximization of the military professionalism in such a way that the “relation between the military elite and the political leadership leads to the implementation of some attitudes and behaviors characterizing the entire military profession and not only the elite of the Generals”28. The objective control implies the distribution of political power between the civil and the military groups. The objective control has as main goal transforming the military in an instrument of the state, and in contrast to the subjective control that can exist on various shapes, there is only one kind of objective control.

The way for constituting an army can be also a factor that contributes to defining the concept of civil democratic control. When the army is brought into discussion and when it is characterized, this thing will always be made based on its efficiency. Which one is more efficient? An army made through the mandatory military service regime, or one made by voluntary choice? I consider that the abolishment of mandatory military service in favor of a voluntary conscription is one of the most relevant progresses made in this domain. The advantages of an army made out of volunteers would be first of all, the conscription of some persons that desire a career and not those who cannot wait the military service to end. In addition, it would facilitate a much more professional training and the skills of the military would be improved. And last but not least, it would encourage the use of much more qualitative equipment. A small, professional and well equipped army could be at least as efficient if not more efficient than a large unprofessional one.

When it comes to the army forces there are significant differences between the states that implemented voluntary conscription and those that still keep the mandatory military service or the reforming process was not entirely completed. For each of the military categories, Ground Forces, Navy and Air Forces, there are worries regarding the success of new personnel conscription. The Air Forces have the least difficulties but an analysis on the methods for recruiting proves that there are differences that can significantly influence this process. Ground Forces usually recruit more persons that come from disadvantaged social status in comparison with the other kinds of forces. However, when it comes to officers, due to the fact that they enjoy a special prestige and have better salaries than other ranks, there are fewer difficulties in the recruiting process. Among the categories of soldiers, the most difficult to recruit are “the ground forces intended to combat, namely the infantry”29, because of the economic situation and due to the fact that the infantry implies a very big number of volunteers. At the opposite side, the Special Forces encounter no recruiting problems because they represent the most prestigious branch among the military forces and there are a lot of candidates. The only problem concerning this branch regards the extremely high requirements.

Another problem that has to be taken into account is that of the recruiting period because there “is a period of some weeks between signing the contract and the conscription”30. Thus, there is the risk that in that period the interested ones can find another job, they can change their mind and give up the military career. The best solution for the army forces in this respect would be to attract the interested persons in the exact moment when it is possible through a basic training. For a positive development of the volunteer recruitment some reasons are important. The first one would be related to a high financial benefit and the assurance of having a job, then the possibility of having new missions abroad that have a positive impact through the perspective of a new adventure and experiencing new cultures. In addition, for a military, a special importance represents the possibility of developing a career and gaining experience and leadership skills. The good reputation that the army forces have is another positive factor due to the fact that “when the society supports the army forces, the prestige of the profession grows and can intensify the vocation of the youth towards the army forces”31.

However, Charles Moskos argues that “the army has to be a vocation”32 and that there should be no other reasons for embracing this career. The military institutional frameworks is characterized by values such as obedience, order, hierarchy, discipline, but the army tends towards an employment like any other, legitimated by the market concept where the financial incentives are offered according to the skills of the employee. In the post-modern army there are two types of employment, the personnel that possesses an intrinsic motivation and that maintains the classical perception of the soldier and the personnel that considers the military mission a normal job and not an eternal one. Giuseppe Caforio, political man and retired Italian soldier stated in one of his articles remarked that those that enter the army “will encounter a good education, a solid engagement and an adventure”33.

An important concept for the civil-military relations and for the democratic control is that of authority. At the authority level one can highlight three fundamental elements, namely: “the relative level, the relative unity and the relative sphere of military and civil authority”34. A group becomes more powerful as the authority, the unity of the structure and the authority’s sphere are bigger. The governmental authority is the one that decides a group’s position within a hierarchy, the position being directly influenced by the degree of authority that it possesses. Within the army a hierarchic control is exercised and based on the authority in which the officers had the maximized level of authority, if obviously, other governmental institutions are subordinated. If the military does not possess the authority over other institutions and if these institutions do not have the authority over the army, there will be a low level of authority that will lead to two “parallel structures, a civil one, and a military one, defined as a situation of military independence”35.

Although the political influence is more difficult to analyze than the concept of authority, it can be evaluated according to four indicators. First of all, we have the affiliation of the entire corpus of officers and its leaders. This affiliation can be either before entering the army, during the completion of the military service such as the links with the parliamentary commissions, or after the completion and retirement. Secondly, another indicator can be the area of the economic and human resources, due to the fact that as long as more funds are allocated to the army the number of people willing to join will increase. A third indicator is the officer corpus member’s ownership of some positions part of non-military power structures, where we will notice that the military influence will decrease, meanwhile the number of civilians enclosed in military functions will increase. Last but not least, a relevant indicator is the prestige and the popularity held by the officer corpus leaders within the public opinion because these induce attitudes from the different social categories that can influence the military.

The professionalization of the military elite is along the technological development of the field a necessary condition for conducting a war. The sociologist Morris Janowitz considered that the technological evolutions are “compatible with the democratic model of political-military and civil elites, due to the fact that these are based on the differentiation of the functions that the politicians and the military have”36. The enlargement of the military institutions can be seen as a continuous and strong development of the technological means. However, the strong political character that is exercised by the political and military leaders cannot be explained by the technological differences that each of their armies have. These technological developments “create limits in which the civil and military elites share their power”37.

The military profession can be affected by certain changes like a democratic recruitment and training of the professional military, “a change of the fundamental organizational authorities38” and the reduction of the differences in skills that the military and civil elites possess. Within the army forces, a good soldier has to manifest his loyalty towards his profession. The military’s responsibility towards the state encompasses various aspects. First of all, the military represents “the necessities for the military security within the state”39. He has to inform the authorities about the minimum military security that he considers necessary. Also, the military has to analyze and report any kind of implication from a military point of view. For instance, if the leaders analyzes more policies in the field, he has to say which of those has a higher degree of risk. Finally, the military has even an executive function, namely, he has to apply the decisions taken by the state regarding the military security, even if “the decision taken is in contradiction with his mindset”40.

The military profession is designed to serve the state, and for making this thing possible, the professional military personnel has to be constituted as the state policy’s efficient element. Without obedience and loyalty relations, the military professionalism would not be possible. When the military receives a legal order from one of his superiors he does not have to question or to analyze it, he has to obey. The army forces are loyal towards the “ideal of the professional competence”41 and this loyalty is constant and unified. Within a modern army the professional motivation of the professional military is the same as that of those that joined for other reasons, like economic or political ones.

1. 3. THE CIVIL DEMOCRATIC CONTROL ON THE ROMANIAN ARMY FORCES IN THE PERIOD 1989-2007

If we look from a historical perspective, South-Eastern Europe is a place where a lot of confrontations took place. The Balkans started to be known as “<<the powder keg>> of Europe”42, as a result of many local conflicts but mostly due to the outbreak of the First World War. The 20th century started with the Balkan wars and it ended with the Kosovo problem, and the perception of the Balkan area as being a problematic and unstable one determined a special security policy that does not follow any pattern. At the end of the 1990’s an engagement for stopping the conflicts in that area appeared from the West, and also a NATO opening for aspiring countries that were ready to adopt democratic values was launched.

The democratic model of the civil-military relations represented a true challenge for the political development of the interested countries that realized “significant progress in their effort to join the Alliance”43. In this research I suggest to see the way in which Romania managed to transform the civil-military relations after the communist period and also the role that the Western support had for facilitating the transition period. This chapter has, in addition, the aim of describing the process through which the democratic type of civil-military relations were created in Romania and the process of implementing the civil democratic control.

The democratic type of civil-military relations is “a complex mechanism for democratic control on the army forces, for exercising civil surveillance by the democratically chosen political men and for the existence of a professional army that functions as an expert-organization for the protection of the state”44. This is the operational definition, resulted from a collective research project coordinated by Andrew Cottey, Timothy Edmunds and Anthony Forester, that I will use for the analysis on the civil democratic control.

In the communist period, Romania had a very well structured defense policy, with a clear and precise main goal, the defense of the country borders. If we would take the definition of the military professionalism, we could say that, only with the exception of the last years of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s dictatorship, the Romanian Army Forces were professional even in an authoritarian way. The problem of the individual professionalism is debatable though. The meritocratic promotion existed in parallel with the promotion on political criteria. However, since “the communist political systems are not identical, the civil-military relations in Romania have to be analyzed as being unique”45. Thus, the main goal of the political and military elite after the fall of communism was “to replace the authoritarian model of professionalization with a democratic one”46.

During Nicolae Ceaușescu’s dictatorship, a subjective civil control of the army was exercised through the Romanian Communist Party and the intelligence agency called «Securitate» “because their values overlap many aspects of the military values”47. This could explain the violent revolution from 1989 in which, the army was faced with the choice and instead of choosing to defend the communist regime it contributed to overturn. Many foreign experts expected that the army will take the power and will install a military dictatorship. However, it supported the new formed government and it adapted its strategy and structure contributing in this way to the installation of an objective civil control. It is useful to mention the fact that, from 1965 until 1980, Romania “had professional army forces and intelligence services, a doctrine of “the fight of the people”, a national defense institution, and all the structures were systematically integrated”48. Thus, we can consider that the reform of the security system was the way through which the transition from a totalitarian security system to a democratic one was done.

If the 1989 December’s Revolution divided and abolished the authoritarian security structures bringing in front the army forces reforming process that came with the legacy of a strong military corpus based on the mass conscription, Romanian in the period 1990 – 2007 experienced fundamental changes. In the communist period it was a country member of the Warsaw Pact, which lived one of the more severe dictatorial regimes in Europe, “with a very well organized defense doctrine, a huge army of approximately 300 000 soldiers and a developed defense industry”49. Today, Romania is a member of both NATO and EU, having a contribution to the international security with peacekeeping troops spread in Iraq, Afghanistan but also in the Balkans, the army being a professional one “consisting of 75 000 militaries and 15 000 civilians”50.

The transition process can be followed according to two vectors that characterized that period: “the social vector and the military vector”51. The societal one refers to the way in which the democratic surveillance mechanism was conceived, and the military one to the way in which the army forces were adapted to democratic norms of control. Based on these two vectors the analysis of the civil-military relations transformations, of the establishment of democratic norms of the civil democratic control and their application at the military level through the democratic professionalization is possible. In addition, one cannot disregard the Western’s support contribution for the democratization of the civil-military relations, and I will come back to this aspect further on.

The civil control on the army forces has its roots in the Romanian Constitution of 1991 which, although suffered important changes at its revision in 2003, kept the basic measures and the philosophy that approached the separation of powers and the role of the army. Through the post-communist Constitution, Romania was declared a semi-presidential republic, in which the president is the chief of the army forces and the president of the Supreme Council for the Defense of the State (CSAT). The Parliament, in his quality of legislative power, has a multiple role, namely, to declare the state of war, to debate and adopt laws from all areas and to address questions to the government or to ministers. According to article 117 from the 1991’s Constitution, the army is “exclusively subordinated to the will of the people for assuring the sovereignty, the independence and the unity of the state, of the territorial integrity of the country and of the constitutional democracy”52.

The Constitution undergone improvements in 2003 because Romania was invited to adhere to NATO and there was an ongoing discussion for a potential EU integration. However, there were no fundamental changes regarding the defense institutions. Through the article 55 from the revised Constitution, it is stated the fact that the defense of the country is compulsory for its citizens but in the next paragraph, it is stipulated that these conditions regarding the accomplishment of military requirements “are decided through organic law” 53. This fact offered the army forces the possibility of reforming and of adopting the voluntary conscription system starting with January 2007. Although the president remains the chief of the national army forces and the president of CSAT, his constitutional powers were diminished by the fact that the national defense strategy has to be debated by the United Chambers of the Parliament.

The legislative framework regarding the civil democratic control in Romania is a very well structured one. Besides the Constitution, that stipulates that the army is exclusively subordinated to the will of the people for assuring the sovereignty, the independence and the unity of the state, of the territorial integrity of the country and of the constitutional democracy of the country , there is the law of the national defense that was design to fill in the previously mentioned one, defining the basic principles for securing national defense, the structure of the national system of defense, but also the attributions that the public authorities of the national defense area have.

The National Defense Law no. 45/1994 highlights the fundamental principles of the organization of the national defense, the system’s structure but also the attributions that the local authorities have in this area. This law establishes precisely the structure of the national defense: “the Government is responsible for the organization and the implementation of the procedures according to its constitutional rights”54. If we would have a look at article 10, “the defense forces are constituted by the army and protection forces”55, the basic ones being the departments of the National Defense Ministry, the Internal Affairs and the Intelligence Agency. The army forces and the protection forces have to cooperate for accomplishing the goal, the national defense. In the situation in which a war starts, a General Cartel will be established “for leading the military actions at a strategic level”56.

Although, the uncertainties related to the extension policy of NATO, but also of the external threat perceptions, favored a set of law and doctrines that would support the self-defense, this was never approved. Other were approved, such as “the Law for preparing the national and territorial economy for defense no 73/1993 or the Law for preparing the population for defense no 46/1996”57. According to these laws, preparing the national territory and economy was the task of the Government, through the Central Office for Emergency Situations that had to develop a plan for mobilization, besides the plan for the budget. The last of the abovementioned laws, established in detail the attributions during peace and war times. These laws were subsequently modified and adapted to the accession of Romania to NATO. The main responsible institutions remain the same, but the problem of the norms and plans adaptation procedures to a private economy appears.

According to the Constitution, all three powers, executive, legislative and judicial one, have the role to monitor and supervise the army’s activity. The Parliament is the only authority from the legislative domain and has a very important role in the defense policy, “defining the missions and the military budget, ratifying treaties and asking for reports and programs for different ministries with which it works”58. Besides this, the Defense, Public Order and National Security Commission is responsible for the control of the army forces, and the government is the one that assures the implementation of the defense policy.

Thus, the role held by the Parliament is essential due to the fact that the supervising activity refers to the attributions belonging to the legislative power of monitoring the activity of the executive power. The Parliament is the one that elaborates laws related to national security, the one that approves the activity of the forces outside borders and in the airspace and entitles flight. The authority of the Parliament can easily be observed through the reports that this asks regarding military programs and activities and through the activity of the commissions for Defense, Public Order and National Security. The role of the commissions is relevant for the promotion of national security laws and for the approval of the military budget. In addition, the Parliament is the one that convokes the government officials and the Ministry of defense in order to answer specific questions regarding Romania’s national security and for the approval of the budget designed for the defense. The expenses from the military area “are transparent for public authorities”59 including the Parliament.

The President represents the Romanian state and “he is the guarantor of national independence, of the territorial unity and integrity, he is the chief of the army forces and he performs the function of president of the Supreme Council for State Defense”60, position that offers him an increased influence regarding national security problems like declaring the mobilization, of the emergency state or the state of siege. The CSAT is the one that coordinates all national security activities. The decisions are taken by a group of ten people led by the president of the country. The modifications brought in the CSAT structure represent a proof to the civil control dynamic. If we take into consideration the entire period 1990-2007 it can be stated that “if at the beginning five of the ten members of the CSAT were civilians, in 2007, nine of the ten are civilians and only one belongs to the military”61. In addition, the Prim-minister is the vice-president CSAT and the chief of the Civil Protection, having a significant role, namely, that of leading the government’s executive activity, but also that of implementing the defense policies through the mediation of the Defense Ministry.

Finally, the judicial system has its own attributions in the control of the army. The Constitutional Court is the institution that guarantees the compliance with the supremacy of the Constitution and treats the Army as any other institution, checking the constitutionality of all the normative acts regarding security. It would be useful to mention other two institutions that contribute decisively to the implementation of the civil democratic control, namely, The Court of Accounts, which is the organ responsible for the public expenses control, and the Ombudsman, which has the role of protecting the citizens’ rights and liberties.

The military and politically structures searched new strategic concepts and new military doctrines until 1994, when the arrangements for the membership to the Partnership for Peace begun. In 1994, the “Concept for Integrated National Security and Military Doctrine” appeared”62. Although, these managed to identify a considerable number of risks, there was no clear logic for their approach by the Romanian Army Forces. These documents were not ratified by the Parliament and were returned to the National Defense Ministry for their reformulation. After three years, in 1997, clear and understandable concepts were developed besides coherent mechanisms for the defense planning. For structuring the new concepts, a main role was held by the support coming from Great Britain, US and the Netherlands through the so-called “Kievenaar Studies”63.

According to the Law regarding Romania’s Planning of the National Defense, the defense planning originates in the political and strategic decisions of the Romanian Parliament, of the President and of the Government, but also of other public institutions that have some responsibilities for the national defense and security. The national values and interests, the risks and threats towards these values, but also the principles for assuring Romania’s national security are defined in a unique presidential document that is officially presented to the Parliament, namely the National Security Strategy.

For achieving the provisions of the National Security, the Government “conceives the White Book for Defense”64, that highlights the objectives, the tasks and the budget of the defense and security institutions. Each ministry or institution has tasks related to defense and security and it has to develop a plan, a program or a strategy that has to be in line with the government’s program and with the provisions of the White Book. If we look at the department strategies, the Defense Ministry, having the quality of authority responsible of the military defense of the country, “develops the Military Strategy, meanwhile the Romanian Internal Affairs Ministry and the Intelligence Agency prepare personal strategies according to their responsibilities”65.

Another aspect is the development of the first document “Romania’s National Security Strategy”66 passed by the Supreme Council for Defense in June 1999. After approximately two years, in December 2001, that time’s President, Ion Iliescu, presented a new “National Security Strategy to the Parliament, which suggested a much more clear image of the security framework and of Romania’s strategic objectives”67 defining national interests and establishing the mail action paths for assuring the security. This new strategy besides identifying the risk factors and weak points of the daily life sets clear action directions within the political-administrative, social, educational realms and national security, defense or external policies.

Also, regarding significant unsolved problems, there is, for instance, “the Emergency Ordinance no.1/1999”68, concerning the conditions for the emergency or under siege state. This was adopted within only a few hours, under the pressure generated by the miners’ uprising of January 1999, after it was initially postponed various times. Besides the procedural aspects, namely the debate within the Parliament, this ordinance is not compliant with the constitutional provisions that regulate the state of necessity, with a very synthetic content and big gaps regarding the attributions or the authorities in crisis situations. From the civil-military relations point of view it can be noticed that the ordinance states increased attributions for the army. These attributions have to be clearly regulated in order not to jeopardize the existence of a civil democratic control.

According to the “Law No. 63/2000”69 regarding the planning of the national defense, the Ministry of Defense introduced starting with 2002, a new planning, programing, evaluating and budget allocation system tested in 2000 and 2001. The novelty of the system is the integrated conception concerning the planning and the management of the resources – human, material and financial – that will improve the Army Forces capacity of completing operational criteria. The democratic control perspective offers to the civil leadership the possibility of establishing the objectives that the army forces should have, and to the army the possibility of proving its capacity of achieving these objectives.

A fundamental aspect for problematizing of the democratic control in post-communist Romania is the reformation of the Security System. The main objective of the structural reforms of the Romanian Army Forces was that of creating an army that is compact flexible and compatible with NATO standards, able to assure Romania’s security. The entire reform process was triggered by the requirements that were imposed after the December 1989 revolution and by “signing the Treaty regarding the Conventional Forces in Europe in 1990”70. The first step of the reform lasted until 1992 and has to be perceived as a “period of decommunization”71. New reform measures much more coherent and having a better structure were taken in 1993. This led to the approval of a new structure within the National Defense Ministry one year later. The document that appeared subsequently, “<<the Army 2000>> analyzes the way through which the Romanian military structures can be improved”72.

In the period 1990-1998 the reform was mainly characterized by the reduction of weaponry, the restructuring and the reduction of the forces, and by the introduction of civil democratic control mechanisms on the army forces. Later, the reform extended in order to encompass all the state system elements that had as objectives the violence management and the Intelligence agency, the police, the gendarmerie and border patrols and the judicially and penal system. A more general definition of the national security concept was desired, besides the initial approach of territorial defense against the attack of another state.

In 1991 the main external threats to Romania’s national security were provoked by regional conflicts, namely Transnistria and former Yugoslavia, thus, the requirements and the international assistance were fundamental for continuing the security system’s reform. NATO offered consultancy and resources for a democratic transition. In addition, one year later “the Covenant for Stability represented the main institution under the EU coordination that supported <<soft kind of security>> and the regional cooperation in security matters”73.

The reform that was started by the army’s initiative and by the internal factors had itself a fundamental role. General Niculae Spiroiu, who was appointed as Minister of Defense in 1991, declared that this had as a role the preparation of the legislative framework for the civil control and to deliver along the attributions to a civil minister. The public opinion supported the reform, but to the same degree the budget reduction and the difficult economic situation contributed to the success or the failure of this security system reform. Although the reform of the Romanian security system was influenced by the historical legacy, the international assistance and internal factors, regarding the last aspect there are only a few studies. The role that the internal factors had was presented more implicitly than explicitly, and the public opinion’s role and that of the economic development does not appear in any document.

The severe reforms that Romania had to implement were paid with a big price by the population. The first measures of decommunization and control of the Securitate after 1989 affected the intelligence system. If before 1989 only the Securitate represented the intelligence activity, after the revolution smaller agencies were created for <<intelligence>> missions. In 2002 the “chiefs of the SRI (Romanian Intelligence Agency) and SIE (External Intelligence Agency) declared that only 20% of their personnel previously have worked in the communist regime, and the number was in a constant decrease”74.. The defense industry was integrated in the Ministry of Defense, and from than moment on the Romanian army’s requests decreased significantly and the defense industry collapsed.

A key moment was that when Romania became member of the Partnership for Peace and it assumed “the Code of Conduct of OSCE”75 regarding the political-military aspects of security, in 1994. Thus, the goals of the reform became much clearer and the role of the western assistance for the implementation of the reform started to be an essential one in order to assure its success. However, the Partnership for Peace was not enough for the orientation of the security system reform.

A complete reorganization of the Ministry of National Defense was made in May 1997. The changes were done both at the level of central structures and at the level of combating forces. These changes happened under the name of Process for the Planning of Defense that had as goal the increase of the interoperability with NATO. In 1999 they created the “Action Plan for the Accession to NATO”76 (MAP) that contributed to clarify the process of reform of the security system. The preparations for the accession to NATO and its evaluation teams led the reform deeper than just the classical version, approaching matters from other areas like human rights, the issue of the abandoned children and of human trafficking. The documents had an institutional approach through the presentation of institutions and of the norms implied in the security system reform and of the defense planning. The documents emerged that “the human resource management, the participation at peacekeeping missions and the creation of a coherent system of security planning were fundamental”77.

“The education and the training”78 are main elements of the army’s professionalization process. The first step of this process was introduced in 1995 through “the Concept for Military Education Reform”79. This concept aimed to train professional military personnel and to prepare students of military education institutions. The institutions that assure military training are military high schools, secondary school education institutions such as the schools for warrant officers and non-commissioned officers, superior educational institutions for commanding officers and training systems for specialists.

In 1997 the Concept for the Human Resources Administration was created and it was completed with the support of Great Britain, the Netherlands and US. After, the “Framework and Action Plan for National Defense for 2000 – 20003 and the Long-term Framework until 2010”80 were created. These plans suggested three possibilities for the length of the Romanian Army Forces, between 87 000 and 140 000 military. The middle version of 112 000 military and 28 000 civilians was considered an optimal length for the defense system, and the deadline for this goal was 2003. This reduction was in the first phase part of the military reform held in Romania. During the second phase, 2004 – 2007, the reform was focused on “the modernization of the equipment and on the development of the interoperability with NATO”81.

Within the same Concept for the Administration of Human Resources, the following reductions were foreseen: the modernization of the high officers, namely, “from a total of 30 000 officers it will be reduced to half, from 2 300 colonels only 630 will remain, and the number of the lieutenants will be reduced from 5 600 to 1 800, and the number of majors from 7 800 to 2 800”82. Thus, the report between the officers and non-commissioned officers is of one at three. As a consequence of these reforms, “11 000 officers and non-commissioned officers left the Romanian Army Forces only in 1998, the majority of them retiring”83.

Other initiatives for reforming the Romanian Army Forces “were on the one hand, the «Military Career Guide» and on the other hand, «Professional Reconversion»”. The Military Career Guide was applicable since 2001 and it represented a fundamental framework for the entire process of army professionalization, compliant with the new roles and missions. Promotion is done following clear and transparent rules. Professional reconversion is as well very important in the context of splitting the army corpus in two. The taken measures are aimed to social protection for the military that leave the army and were meant to support and prepare them for finding a civil career.

The security system reform became an important concept, not only for the decision makers in the South-Eastern European countries, but also for the international community starting with 2000. The academic sphere tried to offer the concept a definition but it is still interpretable in various aspects. The attempts to define the concept were both theoretical and normative. An operational definition was given by the Centre “Democratic Control of Armed Forces” in Geneva that stated that “the security system reform comprises five elements”84. First of all, the initiative is taken by the political men according to the democratic principle. Secondly, the departing point consists of the general vision on the security. Thirdly, the reform incorporated all the national security institutions. Fourthly, the reform is a lasting process and last but not least, the reform targets both the structures and the human resources.

In January 2001 the government took a measure for restructuring the military and adopted the “Ordinance for the Organization and Operation of the National Defense Ministry”85. According to this, the Romanian Army Forces are under the leadership of the General Staff and consist of: Ground Forces, Air and Air defense Forces and Navy. These are divided in Operational Forces and Territorial Forces. The administration of these departments is done directly by the General Staff. The chief of this institution has the role of defense commander but also the officer with the highest rank in Romania. The General Staff was itself reorganized “through the introduction of shared folders in a similar way as the general staff of NATO and of US”86.

Finally, it is essential to mention the “National Security Strategy elaborated in 2006”87 that highlights the fact that in a world characterized by asymmetric threats and diverse security risks, the military strategy cannot focus on the military instrument for combating conventional threats, but a radical reform was needed within the conditions requested by NATO in order to be able to adapt the counteraction with the maximum efficiency to the new security threats. However, the strategy failed to identify and delimitate the necessary and adequate resources for such an effort.

1. 4. CONCLUSIONS

The social role of the military in the society is of fundamental interest for various academic disciplines like political science and military sociology. The relation between the military and the world offers a unique perspective and leads to the rationalization of their role and behavior. This thing can be applied where the social role and a professional one as well. A profession “is intensively and exclusively promoted and better individualized than the other human occupations”88. Continuously practicing a profession shapes a specific professional mindset. In this respect, the military thinking consists of specific values, conceptions and perspectives due to the fact that these are the result of practicing a professional military function, and a value belongs to the professional military ethics, if “it is implicit or derived from the expertise, responsibility and the specific organization of the military profession”89.

Within this analysis I tried to offer a perspective through which the national security concept can be clearly presented, even though it is characterized as a rather complex one. In order to support my affirmations I followed the model suggested by the Copenhagen School through Barry Buzan’s studies and those belonging to the other authors presented, that tried to prove how some aspects can become security problems or to what degree they would not suit this area. In addition, they try to decide the position that the actors and these document interlocutors have in the debate regarding the security concept. It is very important to avoid the confusion between some concepts related to security, like for instance, security strategy and security policy or security policy and defense policy.

A fundamental aspect for defining the civil democratic control is represented by the way in which the army is constituted. The passage from the mandatory military service to the voluntary conscription is the biggest progress for shaping a professional army and a necessary condition for the civil democratic control. Among the advantages of this kind of recruiting is the higher standard training and encouraging the use of professional equipment that would change the past image or a big army with insufficient endowment and poor quality in a small but efficient army. The problem of the recruiting period along with the financial parts were analyzed as well, and as main argument I highlight the position of the America sociologist Charles Moskos and of the military problem analyst Giuseppe Caforio who said that the army has to be a vocation.

Romania in the communist period had known a totalitarian civil control by the unique party and by the Securitate. The main challenge of the transition was the establishment of civil democratic control norms. OSCE, through the Code of Conduct of the political-military relations, suggested in 1994 the first norms. Then, the Partnership for Peace followed and the National Plan for the accession to NATO, which requested norms, standards, assistance and monitoring.

The main norms and regulations regarding the civil democratic control of the army forces were successfully implemented and updated during each government. All the three powers had major attributions in the security policy according to their function and the constitutional system. For instance, the executive in Romania is a two-headed one and has the role of control, guiding and priority setting, evaluation and assuring the resources. The Supreme Council for State Defense is the democratic control institution of the Executive, which has decisional power, sets strategies and manages crisis. The Parliament has as a duty the surveillance of the institutions, proposing laws, budget control, approving abroad missions and also security and defense strategies. The judicial system has as attribution the monitoring the application of the law and the use of special powers, like for instance, the phone calls recordings. Last but not least, the civil society is the one that guards and investigates through strategy proposals the alternatives. In the current context, the problem is that of the political will to transform the security system, to unlock the process.

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