The Russians Continue Stirring the Romanian Pot

Romanian flag

Romania just held its second attempt at the first round of presidential elections, after the initial round was invalidated due to Russian interference. Looks like the Romanians are having some major déjà vu.

Both elections yielded an unqualified pro-Russian candidate surging to the top. Translation: the Russians are meddling, and frankly don’t care about hiding it. The question that must be asked here is why do the Russians care so much about Romania?

Think of Romania as the next steppingstone after Ukraine. If the Russians prevail in the Ukraine War, the next logical target would be fortifying the southwestern flank – aka Romania. The scariest part of all this is that Russia already has a political foothold in all the other countries in the region. Should they push into Romania, they will be at the doorstep of Vienna.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Transcript

Hey. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from Chicago. And before I go and get some pizza, because, we’re going to take a break from American politics and economics and, for the moment, and we’re going to talk about a country that doesn’t come up very often, and that is Romania. Now, Romania just had their second run, second attempt of the first round of the presidential elections. 

The first round a few months ago was canceled. We’ll link a video to that piece here. After basically, the Russians massively intervened to the point that it was just stupidly obvious. And it appears on the surface like that has now happened again. The Romanians do a two round system where everybody gets to run the first round, and then they were to have to have a run off for the second round. 

Now, last time around, the guy in play was a guy by the name of Georgia Screw, who was kind of a nobody. He had been a minor cabinet minister, back in the 1990s, and that was it. Then he vanished from the political scene, barely held down a real job, and all of a sudden, wow, he’s back on the political scene and came in first in the presidential election. 

The Russians basically made up 20 million fake accounts in a country that doesn’t have 20 million accounts on social media. And, canvass the country for him, this time around. The guy’s name is Simeon, and something similar has happened. Semyon is even more of a nobody. He was never in government before, has never had a real job. 

He was a professional protester. So imagine AOC in the United States, if she hadn’t had that job of being a bartender and she just went straight into the presidential election and did well. That’s basically this guy. Anyway, he actually, he sued the government a couple of years ago for accusing him of being a Russian agent. And in the court case, they actually proved that he was a Russian agent. 

So the fact that he’s even allowed to run, you know, Romania, who knows? Who knows what’s going to happen with the specifics, whether or not the Romanians are going to try to do this a third time? I have no idea. But why the hell are the Russians so focused on Romania? Well, it’s a geographic thing. There are two pieces of geography that define this part of the world. 

The first is the Eurasian steppe, just this broad, wide open, about the same size as the United States is in total. That’s flat and it’s open and it’s arid, and you just can’t get much economic activity about it. And that is in essence, Belarus, Russia or western Russia and Ukraine. And so the Russians, being from the Eurasian steppe, the only way they’ve ever figured out that they can be secure is to conquer all of it and eventually get to the zones where you can’t just run across the great wide open and punch them in the face to to a place where there’s a geographic barrier, and that barrier is the second of those geographic items. 

And that’s the Carpathian Mountains, which starts in the northwest at roughly the gates of Vienna, and then wraps along the Slovak Polish border, curving south through the eastern parts of Hungary and the western parts of Moldova and Ukraine, and eventually ending up in Romania and Romania, is where the southern anchor of where these two great features of the space come together. 

And so what the Russians have been after, what the Russians have always been after, is once they conquer the stepped anchor in the gap between the Carpathian Mountains and the Black Sea, where the Eurasian steppe ends. And so if and when the Russians succeed in conquering Ukraine, they’re just going to turn their sights further west and go for the line of countries that basically make the entire periphery of the Eurasian steppe. 

So getting to Finland and the Baltic states right up against the Baltic Sea, getting through Poland up to Vistula, that’s the river that separates the Eurasian stuff from the northern European plain. And then getting up into Romania and Moldova in order to plug the gap access from the southwest. That’s what the goal has been. That’s what it’s always been. 

And they’re using politics as a way to soften up opposition, of which Romania is part of this. Romania is actually the state in the region where they’ve had the least success, if you can believe that. So Hungary is ruled by a neo authoritarian, the name of Viktor Orban, who has been blanket pro-Russian for the last several years, to the point he’s actually using his position as president of Romania to sabotage NATO and EU operations from the inside. 

Next door, you’ve got Robert Fico in Slovakia, who’s trying to become Slovakia’s Orban. But the democratic traditions in Slovakia are a lot stronger than they are in Hungary. And so far it’s very back and forth. You’ve got Bulgaria, where about a quarter of the parliament is so tightly in Russian’s pocket they don’t even have to be directed. They do what the Russians want before the Russians even say. 

And then you’ve got Serbia, which Serbia is kind of a mess, but it’s Slavic and it has been pro-Russian, really, for the better part of the last 200 years. All that’s left is Romania. And if Romania falls, then not only would the Russians have no problem pushing into the Carpathians, there’s a very distinct possibility they might be able to push all the way to the gates of Vienna. 

And that would obviously get a lot of attention from a lot of places. So this is an election and a place that most of you have probably never heard of. That matters hugely, because if Romania falls the entire southeast quadrant of the EU and NATO falls with it, splitting Turkey and Greece off on their own. And we are in a fundamentally different game.

The Russian Reach: A Grip on Romania

Romanian flag

If Russia’s influence can make its way into the US on the scale we’re discussing, you can only imagine how bad it is in places like Romania. In December of last year, we discussed the “Red Strings in Romania” (which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/LP7tkPO6Wqk – but things have ramped up.

Romania annulled its presidential election due to proven Russian interference, mainly with Georgescu. He has now been barred from running in May in the re-election. Let’s circle back to how this is playing out in the US.

Tulsi Gabbard and JD Vance have criticized Romania, claiming that Europe is now a bigger threat than Russia. Couple that with the purging of any intelligent government officials near these issues and it’s looking like the US administration is making the case for a broader NATO withdrawal. And I would expect it to only get worse from here.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan on Geopolitics, our chosen charity partner is MedShare. They provide emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it, so we can be sure that every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence.

For those who would like to donate directly to MedShare or to learn more about their efforts, you can click this link.

Learn about medshare here

Transcript

Hey all, Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from my house. I’m about ready to jump in the car and head to the airport, but quick news update. A few months ago there were presidential elections in Romania. They did in two rounds. And the guy who came in first place? Guy by the name of Călin Georgescu. 

 It was a nobody. I’ve been in a couple of minor roles in government. The 1990s really hasn’t done anything with his life since. Except for kind of shifted to the hard right, Nazi salutes and everything. Anyway, Romanian authorities, were able to easily prove Russian intervention in the election. 

Both funding for, rescue specifically. So he’s under criminal investigation right now. As well as, my just a huge social media presence that the Russians have fabricated with as many, fake followers as there are citizens in Romania. So it was it was really beyond the pale. The Russians wanted to see how far they could go. 

Anyway, the first round election was annulled. Repeat elections are going to be held in May. And the news overnight is that George Eskew, has been barred from even running, because of the investigation, because of the Russian influence. Now, this, matters for two reasons. First of all, the U.S government now, both Tulsi Gabbard, who is the director of National intelligence, who has been working with and for the Russians for the better part of a decade, and JD Vance, the vice president, have both come out publicly and said that what the Romanians are doing to withdraw George Eskew is part of the reason why Europe is now a bigger threat to the United States than, the Russians are, which is, you know, propaganda of which the Russians are just gleeful to have people at the top of the American system saying that. And now that you’re just you want to be able to loud to run, you should expect, those statements of the United States to get much, much firmer. 

Two things. Their number one, I can’t speak to JD Vance. That investigation is still in progress, but, Tulsi Gabbard, she’s in the process of going through all the Intel, the strictures, and basically purging anyone who knows anything about counter Russian operations, specifically about her. So that’s a problem. Second, it appears that elements within the administration are looking for a minor ally, like, say, Romania, because they’re in NATO. 

To have a formal breach of relations with in order to basically justify some of their policies and especially, set the stage for a full NATO withdrawal, by the United States. And this is shaping up to be the perfect test case for that. So the Romanians are doing what they need to to protect their system. Decision makers within the American government are very clearly working hand in glove with the Russians on this, and things are going to get a lot worse before they even pretend to tilt towards getting better.

Red Strings in Romania

Photo of far right candidate from Romanian election, Călin Georgescu

The most recent presidential election in Romania has been annulled, and surprise, surprise, it’s because of the Russians.

The Russians like to meddle about in everyone’s business, but some countries get the short end of the stick; Romania is one of them. Given its proximity to Ukraine and geographic access points, it provides a critical space that the Russians would love to control. By interfering with the elections, Russia can create divisions and weaken political resolve amongst the Romanians, with the hopes of then swooping up some Romanian territory.

Romania’s political environment isn’t squeaky clean to begin with, but the coalition of dominant parties would love to prevent Călin Georgescu from entering office. New elections will be held soon, and we’ll just have to wait and see how the Romanian people respond.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan on Geopolitics, our chosen charity partner is MedShare. They provide emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it, so we can be sure that every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence.

For those who would like to donate directly to MedShare or to learn more about their efforts, you can click this link.

Learn about medshare here

Transcript

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from the crater of Mount Taranaki in Egmont National Park in New Zealand. And today we’re going to talk about Romania. Very, very short version. There’s this guy by the name of George Eskew who is a bit of a nationalist and kind of a dumbass. Really a no one, was in a couple of minor government, positions back in the 90s and really hasn’t done anything with his life since then. 

Anyway, he came in first in the first round of the presidential election that the, Romanians recently had. And, in recent days, the Electoral Commission of Romania has nullified that election. They’re going to hold it. And the reason is pretty straightforward. It’s flat out election interference by the Russians. And the Russians are trying different things in different places. 

They’re trying to see what sticks. And obviously not every culture is the same thing. So the playbook changes. But every once in a while they, like, bring everything together and push really, really, really hard to see if they can make a change. In the case of 

Romania, they pushed so hard it was really obvious. So something like 11,000 fake accounts were detected on social media with over, like, I think it was 17 million fake followers in a country with only 19 million people. 

So the interference was mad and it was obvious and it was found. And now we’re going to find out if the Romanians, once they realized the degree to which the Russians were trying to fuck around in their internal affairs, if they come up with a different opinion, there’s no guarantee that that’s how it’s going to go. 

Of course, people vote the way they vote. And when you tell people to go back to the polls so they can vote the right way, they tend to tend to get a little pissed off. Specifically, the leading Romanian parties have a reputation for corruption and being really cozy with one another, basically trading power back and forth. 

And they’ve recently joined forces to form a joint government to keep the presidency out of Georgia’s use hands. Or at least that’s the goal. Romania is generally considered one of the 2 or 3 most corrupt countries in the European Union. So the idea that there would be a robust protest vote makes a lot of sense. 

And it also makes sense that that protest vote would happen for the presidency. The Romanian system is a little bit like a flip of the French system. So in France is a very strong executive, a very strong president, but Parliament is elected separately. And if the Parliament and the presidency are from the same party, the president is in charge. 

The president picks the prime minister, the prime minister runs the government in Romania. It’s kind of the opposite, where the parliament, selects the prime minister, the president is elected separately. And if they’re from different parties, the president doesn’t have a lot of authority. Technically, he’s in charge of foreign affairs. Technically, he’s in charge of the military. 

But really, because they control the budget, the parliament still does that. So if you’re just you were to become president, he certainly wouldn’t control Parliament. And his room to maneuver would be somewhat limited. But for the Russians, this is enough, because Romania is one of the countries, after Ukraine that the Russians have shortlisted for the next wave of countries they want to invade. 

And anything that weakens the political resolve in Romania is something that can’t help but benefit the Russians in the long run. Now, specifically, the Russians are trying to weaken the resolve of the countries that border Romania to make it more difficult for the West in general to support Ukraine. And then, of course, the Russians ultimately want to make it to the Danube Delta, which would mean annexing somewhere between 20 and 30% of Romanian territory. 

Now, that’s a problem for another day. You can fault the Russians for being many things. But, planners, they’re always planners. 

So we’ll have a new first round elections pretty soon, and probably second round elections somewhere around the end of the year. 

And we will know what the Romanian people think of all of this before too long. 

Cover photo of Călin Georgescu by Wikimedia Commons