"... an eventual turn in terms of the country's European course, following the upcoming elections, will erase with the sponge any chance of choosing our fate, leaving only the "dark" option, in another "drawer of History", for who knows how long..."
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The world will never be as it was until February 24, 2022, when the Russian Federation started the war of aggression against Ukraine. On that day, an aggressor state flagrantly violated all the laws and agreements that had regulated human coexistence on the planet Earth until then. Everything that followed and still follows after this date inevitably leads to tectonic movements and radical transformations, including in the field of world order. By the current stage, we have a wide range of positions expressed in this regard by political actors and players from the international analytical environment.

Drawers of History

The final content of these transformations in large measure will depend on how and when this bloody, unprovoked and illegal war ends. But the process is initiated; it already affects the whole world, and the actions announced the other day by the new U.S. President Donald Trump are also, simultaneously, a reaction, a manifestation and a component part of these tectonic transformations.

Until now, throughout history, the big wars ended through negotiations between the great powers, as a result of which these divided the spheres of influence, interest, but also occupation, outside their own states, at the expense of weaker states or territories. Most of the times, "iron curtains" were left between those spheres and we don't have many reasons to believe that this time it will be different.

Since the beginning of the 19th century, the current territory of the Republic of Moldova found itself for several times on the "dark" side of the "curtain": in 1812, following the signing of the Treaty of Bucharest between the Tsarist Empire and the Ottoman Empire; in 1940, following the Secret Protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop-Pact, signed between the Stalinist Soviet Union and Nazi Germany; in 1944, with the subsequent consecration of the Soviet occupation by the Yalta Conference in 1945, in which the Soviet Union, the U.S. and Great Britain participated. And only twice did our territory experience “brighter” circumstances: in 1918, the year of the end of World War I, in the version of the Paris Conference (1918-1919), as well as in 1991, partly as a consequence of the Malta Summit of 1990, which involved the leaders of the USSR and the U.S.

In three of the five cases mentioned, we were not asked in any way what our will is. It should be noted that these are the "dark" cases. In two other "brighter” cases, we had a say as to fate we wanted to choose. Which side of the "curtain" will the Republic of Moldova be on this time? Who personally and what general factors will it depend on this time? 

When will Russo-Ukrainian war end?

The Russo-Ukrainian war is not a bilateral one. In essence, it concomitantly reflects the purpose, manifestation and partial effect of the violation of the world order that existed so far and the creation of a new order in the version agreed by Russia. A part of those claims were formulated by the Russian leader Vladimir Putin as early as December 2021, during the well-known meeting with the then U.S. President Joe Biden and also referred to a return to the situation before 1997, the year when a number of Eastern and Central European states, previously components of the USSR's sphere of influence (and occupation), joined NATO. More specifically, Russia wants those states to renounce their NATO membership. Respectively, this also implies the withdrawal of the U.S. military forces from the region. Because no one is going to give Russia such a gift, and Russia still insists on this demand of its own, the first answer is that the war will continue for an indefinite period of time and can even expand its area inside Europe. If no one can be found to stop it. Not only Ukraine because it is, in fact, a war waged by autocratic Russia against Europe, in particular, but also against the democratic West, as a whole.

In the context of the elections and the taking of office by the current U.S. President, he, as well as the members of his team, circulated several deadlines for ending the war: "24 hours", and "100 days", and "until Easter", and "half a year". Because it is not yet known exactly by what means Donald Trump and the U.S. would like to achieve their goals, it is presumable that Trump has only two ways at hand.

How will Russo-Ukrainian war end?

One of the ways is to reach an amicable agreement, "a deal" with Putin, based on the "special" relations that the current American leader says he has with the permanent Russian leader. But stopping the war is unlikely in this case because neither the Russian leader can give up his goals without endangering his position as authoritarian leader of the country and even his physical existence, nor does the American leader have anything to offer him in return to fulfill his wishes that were made public abroad and internally, and were repeated for many times.

And the second way remains thus - the path of economic or military pressure, or both simultaneously. "If we don't make a 'deal', and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of taxes, tariffs, and sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States and various other participating countries," Trump said last week. But the economic pressure must be similar to those that destroyed the USSR, and the military pressure must exceed by a few levels any aid offered to Ukraine in the first three years of the war. In fact, one of Donald Trump's major supporters, Andrei Ilarionov, also a former advisor to Vladimir Putin in the early 2000s, in a categorical way said that, in general, there is no non-military solution to stop the war waged by Russia. In fact, Andrei Ilarionov was one of the few Russian opponents invited to Donald Trump's inauguration.

What should the Republic of Moldova do with the "when and how the war will end" factor? It seems that the created situation does not allow it to do anything other than maintain its position of firm and unconditional support for Ukraine, despite the physical and psychological fatigue of society, the pronounced and continuous worsening of the internal situation on practically all levels, the existence of a strong internal political opposition and the external interference of the Russian Federation in this regard. The “position of support” is rather figurative speech because the insignificant potential that the Republic of Moldova has does not allow it to provide much practical help in a war of incomparably greater potential, but it matters that the great powers, which will someday end the war and divide the future spheres of influence, clearly know which side of the curtain they want to stay on.

Moldova’s relations with the U.S. and the EU

At least at this initial stage, the relations between the new president of the United States and the European Union seem to be quite tense, including in the economic and commercial sectors (eventual imposition of high taxes and tariffs, respectively, geostrategic  competition), the ideological field (American sovereignty vs. European globalism), the climate, military, security sectors (5% of GDP for defense, threat to leave NATO), etc. In particular, the U.S. does not even hint that it would accept the EU as a partner, even a smaller one, in the future negotiations with the Russian Federation on the war and the future spheres of influence, if the war is brought to an end. At this stage, the initiative seems to belong to the U.S .and the EU is put in a position to react, to look for solutions to reconcile the "cabbage and the goat", but also to maintain its strong positions in the relationship with the U.S. both at the economic, commercial and military levels, as well as at the level of principles.

What should the Republic of Moldova do with this factor? Apparently, the Moldovan administration sensed the delicacy of the situation quickly enough because President Maia Sandu, on a television channel on the very evening of President Trump's inauguration, said that the Republic of Moldova is very interested in moving in the relations with the U.S. "from strategic dialogue to strategic partnership”. With the same goal of bringing the country closer to the U.S. under the new administration, Maia Sandu highlighted Moldova's interest in the Moldovan-American cooperation "in the energy field", the energy sector being one to which Donald Trump attaches enormous importance both in "restoring" his country's status as the first force in the world, and in the future relations with Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation as a whole. These first reactions are a proof of the fact that the Moldovan authorities know how to intuit "where the wind is blowing from" and that they have already thought about how to get closer to the U.S., and the consolidation of our Embassy in the U.S. would be a first step in this regard.

At the same time, it is strictly necessary for the Republic of Moldova to maintain the same sincere rapprochement with the EU as before, even if the U.S. could prove to be somewhat jealous. This is because the U.S. will never get to hold the Republic of Moldova in its arms for so long, as the EU has been doing for many years, in particular, because the U.S. foreign policy is rather global in character, being oriented more towards regions of the world than towards particular countries, even more so towards such small countries as the Republic of Moldova. For the U.S., it will matter more which area, eastern or western, Moldova wants to belong to, when it comes to dividing the spheres of influence. The western area for the U.S. is certainly (also) associated with the EU. The European Union, on the contrary, cares a lot and concretely about Moldova, especially because of its great interest in the security of its eastern borders. 

Relationship with Romania

From the perspective of the future division of the spheres of influence, Romania's role for the Republic of Moldova remains a crucial one. As in the case of the relations with the EU, Romania can become its main advocate in the new relations with the U.S. This is because Romania already has a strategic partnership with the U.S., and Romania's recent inclusion in the Visa Waiver program, through which Romanian citizens will be able to travel visa-free to the U.S., is just one of the freshest manifestations of this special relationship. Personally, Donald Trump spoke about the importance of the strategic partnership between the two states, and Romania was the country that responded positively, among the first, to his request to allocate of 2% of the GDP for defense.

Certainly, the U.S. will not withdraw its troops from NATO military bases located on the territory of Romania, including from the largest military base in Europe of the North Atlantic Alliance, and will need the Republic of Moldova as a safe territory to ensure the security of the eastern flank. 

In this regard, the Republic of Moldova has to strengthen the partnership with the Romanian state, with its current authorities, but it can also anticipate closer relations with some of the Romanians who knew how to become basic people for the new U.S. President. One of them, Dragoș Sprînceană, who has been by Donald Trump's side since his first term, is even thinking of running in the presidential election in Romania, scheduled for May.

Will of government and of society

With all the major importance of the external factors presented above for the situation in which the Republic of Moldova will find itself in the future, there is another absolutely decisive one: the clear victory of Ukraine in this war in any of the three traditional ways, military, economic and diplomatic, or all taken together. Of course, this can only happen if it gets enough support in this regard from the collective West and, mainly, from the U.S.

Equally decisive is the internal factor, especially the will and capacity of the Moldovan state and Moldovan society to formulate, promote and defend their interests, in our case, regarding the part of the "iron curtain" in which they want to find themselves after the division of the spheres of influence. This message, addressed especially to the future negotiators of the new global order, matters a lot both in the period after this year's parliamentary elections and, especially, before these elections. This is because an eventual turn in terms of the country's European course, following the upcoming elections, will erase with a sponge any chance of choosing our fate, leaving only the "dark" option, in another "drawer of History", for who knows how long.