Alina Bargaoanu: Thank you very much for inviting me. I’m looking forward to our conversation. It is a very inspired title for your podcast, The Ties That Bind, because apparently, this is exactly the opposite of the world we are living in, ties that disrupt us or polarize us. So hopefully we’ll have a conversation that will contribute to the title of the podcast.

NK: Yes, we’re trying to stay positive here, talking about what connects us, not divides us.

AB: Exactly.

NK: We are recording this a few weeks after Russia allegedly spent hundreds of millions of euros on disinformation campaigns in the parliamentary election in Moldova.

Of course, Romania had its own experience with these kinds of campaigns during its presidential election towards the end of last year. Now, ultimately, that election was annulled by the Supreme Court, and the campaign was restarted.

Can you tell us a little bit about what were the narratives you saw during that presidential election? What were the tactics used? And, perhaps, have you seen any long-term effects of that campaign used in Romania?

AB: First of all, again, thank you for inviting me and thank you for your interest in the subject of the Romanian elections. I have frequently expressed the view that the Romanian elections are a gold mine for studying coordinated external influence and interference, foreign information interference campaigns, and it is a gold mine that is still waiting to be mined. There was a lot of media coverage last December and January but I think that we—the community interested in these topics of political information warfare—still haven’t come up with a very clear, detailed picture of what has happened.

What happened in Romania, in my understanding at least, was the culmination of a long-term influence campaign. I think that this is a point that was somehow missing from the global conversations on the elections in Romania.

We studied the specific political and election interference. There was a lot of discussion about it. But I think that what was mainly overlooked was that the interference was by the book, the culmination of a long-term influence campaign.

And this long-term influence campaign was low-volume. It was not necessarily very spectacular. Sometimes it was below radar. I’m not trying to find excuses for institutions in charge of detecting these kinds of operations, but I, professionally, truly believe that contemporary influence operations very frequently fly below the radar.

They are not necessarily public. Once they become public for everybody to see, it is probably too late to have an intervention. And by flying below radar, on closed social media groups, for example, on WhatsApp phones—using a phone is a deeply personal thing. So, we have no idea what is happening on people’s phones until there is some sort of a media coverage: “Oh, look what is happening.” So, once these contemporary campaigns become public, it is very, very difficult to mitigate them. Again, my point was that in my understanding, we [were dealing] with a low volume and long-term influence campaign that very often was below the radar.

And under the right social, political, and economic circumstances, it became very acute, so it was a chronic problem that became acute under the right circumstances.

I would say that this kind of political and information influence in Romania was structured around events, first of all, around the pandemic, vaccination, the invasion against Ukraine, elections, natural disasters or natural crises—big floods, for example.

Another thing, this kind of influence could be detected around topics: around energy, the Black Sea, NATO military assets in Romania, territorial and historical grievances—the call that Romania should reclaim its territorial losses to Ukraine, for example—and around major controversies.

And another way to identify this kind of influence campaigns is around narratives. And to my professional dismay, these narratives are pretty stable across the Western world.. Sometimes contemporary influence operations are very sophisticated in nature. But in terms of narrative, these are pretty stable, and while these are pretty global around the countries in Central and Eastern Europe, I would say that these are very, very familiar: for example, the idea that Romania, just like any other country from the eastern flank, is a loser after becoming a EU member or a NATO member.

Another stable narrative is that becoming a member of the Western alliances in general is a threat to our cultural identity, to our religious identity, that the world is ruled by an evil elite that tries to erase us as a nation, as a culture, to erase our cultural and religious traditions. Again, I think this is a very stable narrative in Central and Eastern Europe at least.

And another narrative that definitely has to do with NATO, with our NATO membership, that has been stable since the war against Ukraine started in 2020, is that Romania is a sitting duck—what I call the sitting duck narrative—[aiming] to form the fear that in case Romania is attacked by Russia, NATO will not come to the rescue. So, it’s meant to activate the fear that we will be left alone, that we are a sitting duck, that we’ll be a victim, and that we’ll pay a heavy price because we chose to support NATO and to support Ukraine.

So, I have given you just three examples of narratives that, again, I’m sure will sound very familiar to your audience. The idea that we are a loser of European integration, that our natural resources have been plundered by the West, that the West is a threat to our cultural, national and religious identity, and this very specific narrative that we are a sitting duck because we supported Ukraine and were a good NATO member, we will be left alone and will pay a heavy price. So again, good events around topics and these quite stable narratives.

I think that’s what is very complex, because I said that at some point, these influence campaigns are very simple in the end, or the narratives are very simple and are very stable. What is very sophisticated, is the technological infrastructure that is mobilized in order to inject these narratives into our public spaces. And this is where the discussion becomes more complicated.

We do not have borders in the information public space. One of the very successful tactics is narrative laundering, which means to obscure the source of a narrative to appear as if it originated from a Western outlet, for example, whereas in nature it originated with a hostile state.

So again, the level of sophistication has to do with weaponizing the public space and not necessarily with the narratives.

NK: That’s so interesting. Going through something like this, the presidential election and it being annulled, then restarted, it’s a pretty dramatic thing for a society to go through. It doesn’t happen every day.

Do you think public trust was damaged during that presidential election? Have there been efforts by the current government to rebuild public trust? And how has this affected how Romanians’ view of NATO or Western institutions?

AB: So you touched a very dramatic and a very sensitive point. I would answer that annulling the elections was an extraordinary event, not only for Romania, but for Romania as a member of the European Union and as a member of NATO. I mean, it was not a case of an old election in just any country, but again, a country which is on the eastern flank of both the EU and NATO. So again, I cannot underline enough the dramatism of this event.

I will try to answer as diplomatically as possible because the subject is weaponized. This is why I do not entertain the usage of the term information attack, because this creates the idea that the attack happened, and now we are fine.

Now, it is about influence operations, it is about long-term campaigns, and in my understanding, this continues to the very day. Of course, the subject of the annulled elections is weaponized by the specific actors that interfered in the first place. This is why I will try to be a little not to avoid the question, but to be as soft as possible.

So, I think that Romanian society is still traumatized after this extraordinary event, and this kind of social trauma was to be expected. As a scholar in tackling disinformation and doing strategic communication,I’m not very satisfied with the answer from the decision-makers to that extraordinary decision.

I think that communication is truly a means to create trust, so maybe this is my professional bias. But again, I’m not 100% satisfied by how the follow-up of the annual elections took place. My expectation as a professional would have been to have more explanations about what happened, the reasons why the annulment took place, more evidence about how interference took place.

Probably you are aware that now there is a very interesting discussion about a general investigation by the Romanian prosecutors. But I don’t think that when talking about interference and political information warfare everything comes under prosecution.

I think it is only one part of the problem: the actions that are illegal, the actions which are funded by illegal money. But I think that the big picture of interference and political information disinformation, is much bigger than what can be prosecuted. Apart from that, I think there were not robust conversations to rebuild people’s trust in the electoral authorities, for example, to rebuild people’s trust that their vote matters.

So again, leaving the interference aside to rebuild trust, that was taken under extraordinary circumstances, and there were errors, probably some things that couldn’t be mitigated. I told you that these kinds of campaigns really fly below the radar. As a communications scholar, probably you would have expected much more vigorous campaigns to rebuild trust in electoral bodies, in democracy, in democratic processes, and also not to reduce the analysis of the interference to the legal side.

I think this is only half of the story. It’s good that the prosecutors in Romania now are trying to come up with hard evidence, but again, I think that society should have a larger discussion about things which are not necessarily illegal, but are in a gray area. This has to do with literacy, with identity, with being aware how algorithms function, how bots function. So again, in my capacity, I would have considered this moment as a huge opportunity to do a lot of literacy in Romanian society.

And I wouldn’t say that that was missed completely, but probably I would have done it in a more structured way.

NK: I really like what you said about how communication can be a means of creating trust because I think often when we have these conversations about disinformation, communication is always portrayed in a negative light. It’s all the negative and nefarious things that are being communicated versus there are opportunities for positive narratives and explaining what’s going on.

I guess I’m curious who would be leading these sorts of initiatives to explain to people what happened, explain, as you mentioned, promoting literacy, right? How do you go about teaching them?

AB: Oh, we could have a podcast only on this subject. I mean, how to tackle disinformation or information and political warfare while maintaining freedom of speech and the fundamental freedoms.

So I think that, again, trying to make a long conversation a little bit shorter, tackling disinformation and information and political warfare is a matter of leadership. This is a very complex issue. It’s not a simple, “Okay, let’s do some literacy here, let’s do some fact-checking there, let’s identify some votes there, and we’ll be fine.”

I think that the biggest mistake that was made—and not only in Romania, I would say that across the Western world—was to cherry-pick [information]. So okay, this is the toolbox for fighting disinformation: You have to come up with legislative measures, you have to come up with non-legislative measures, you have to do [media] literacy, lifelong learning, and fact-checking to invest in media, in quality of the mainstream media, you have to take down bots. So, the toolbox is very, very clear. I think that the biggest and the most frequent mistake was cherry-picking.

So, out of this toolbox, I will invest in some fact-checking initiatives because nobody will complain about this, or I will do some media literacy for the undergraduate students, and I have done something. I think that this kind of partial approach was a little bit risky for at least two reasons.

First of all, it was not effective. After five, seven years of really taking the topic seriously, I think that most Western states are on the defensive when coming to this information propaganda influence campaign. So, first of all, cherry-picking was not effective.

And the second, I think that this is the riskier part, doing something provides a false sense of security: “At least we did something so we should be safe.” Just like I said, borrowing from a famous Hollywood movie in order to fight political information warfare, this is the term that I prefer: “You have to do everything everywhere all at once.” If you do it in one country, and if you don’t do it in another country, it is irrelevant at the NATO level.

Fighting this kind of political warfare is not a beauty contest. Finland is the best and I do not know what country is the worst, because it is not the average that matters, but you only need one country to break ranks. So again, I think that cherry-picking was dangerous or risky to be more neutral. It was risky because it didn’t solve nor mitigate the problem.

And second, it provided a false sense of security. But we have done a lot of fact-checking on why it doesn’t work. My understanding at the moment is that fighting political information warfare should be a matter of policy, and by policy, I mean vision to understand the problem that you are trying to tackle, to have leadership, to have institutional mandates, to make it in a transparent and legal manner, and to have a budget for this, which again should be a matter of transparency.

Just saying the word disinformation very, very frequently doesn’t solve the problem. Probably on the contrary, it only raises the fear that something bad is happening.

NK: Yeah, that’s really interesting. Thinking about these kinds of campaigns, these disinformation campaigns, Russia aims to exploit existing, preexisting fissures in society with the long-term goal of undermining, in this case, we’re talking about NATO, so Alliance unity. You mentioned, it’s not a beauty contest, it has to be all encompassing.

But in Romania specifically, who do you see as the most vulnerable to these kinds of narratives? Is it a generational kind of divide? Is it a rural versus urban divide?

AB: Yeah, first of all, I will pick from what you said about the Russian Federation playing with our own internal vulnerabilities. The very apt metaphor is that it’s like a bad doctor. I mean, really, I’m being masterful at identifying the weaknesses, the illnesses, but providing the wrong remedies.

NK: Right.

AB: I’m not trying to offend anyone, but the point is that internal vulnerabilities and controversies are the best raw material with which to influence campaigns.

So, influence campaigns do not come up from above. There are no leaflets that are spread all over our society, but again, it is the weaponization of our internal vulnerabilities. Coming back to your question about Romania, my understanding, which is backed by various research projects that I coordinated, is that it’s probably different from other countries. In Romania, the information and political warfare is a little bit mainstream. What do I mean by this?

The susceptibility to this kind of influence campaign is not necessarily predicted by age or by the level of school attainment. I think that these are some public myths that are propagated in the public sphere.

“Oh, the less educated are more vulnerable to this information, or the younger generation are digital natives and they can withstand propaganda.” I think that these are myths. And if we talk about interventions, mitigations, we cannot start with myths.

According to my research, the propensity or susceptibility to this kind of information and political warfare is predicted more by the time spent on social media, for example. The more you consume, the more vulnerable you are.

Another predictor is a certain mood of being left behind, being betrayed by the system, not being respected. So very strong emotions, again, disrespect, humiliation, being left behind, and not necessarily age. So, these are two things: time spent on social media or in the information environment in general, and these feelings of being left behind, humiliated, not treated with respect.

And the one thing which I think has to do with it is something more specific to Romania. I think that the Romanian diaspora communities have been weaponized because they experience all these kinds of feelings of being humiliated by the authorities in the countries where they live. I’m not saying that they are, but I’m saying that the fact that they feel that they are left behind, that there are fewer opportunities for them, that they cannot adapt to a new cultural and religious environment, for example.

I think that this weaponization of diaspora communities is a thing that differentiates the Romanian case a little bit compared to other countries, and also how the weaponization of these diaspora communities was possible: these feelings, this public mood, this mood that they are humiliated, treated with disrespect. And the second [thing is when] their only connection to the mother country, to Romania, is via social media. These are two factors explaining why the Romanian diaspora communities have been a little bit more vulnerable to these kinds of influence operations.

Other than that, again, age is not necessarily a factor, the level of educational attainment is not necessarily a factor. My larger point is that when trying to mitigate the effects of political information warfare, you should be very evidence-based. You cannot be successful if you entertain myths: “Oh, I have an impression that the younger generation are more resilient.” I mean, based on what? So, the last point here is I think that political information warfare seeks to create polarization or to amplify polarization in society. If we entertain this idea, of the youth versus the old, the urban versus the rural, we become part of the problem. So the interventions, the mitigation responses should target the entire society or should be systemic, in order to use another term.

NK: I want to go back to something you said earlier, which I really liked, how there are no borders in the information space. And I think this is something you actually touched upon back during FPRI’s event in February on this topic, was that the influence operations, whether it’s in Eastern Europe, in NATO member or non-NATO member countries, they’re still using the same tactics. They’re still able to exploit the same kinds of divisions.

I think up until recently, there has been this kind of out of sight, out of mind attitude, where it feels like these things are just happening in far-off places, in places that are not part of the so-called Western neighborhood. And perhaps the West perceives certain societies as predestined to be susceptible and vulnerable to these narratives. But of course, that’s not true. As you have mentioned, these kinds of narratives have no borders.

Do you think that there is an opportunity here for Romania because it has experienced such a wide variety of these kinds of attempts of influence in the NATO context. Is there an opportunity for Romania specifically to inform other NATO members about recognizing these things, countering them?

AB: I wish it were possible because I go back to how we started our conversation: that the Romanian case is a gold mine to study foreign influence, coordinated information campaigns, the combination between cyber attacks and cyber influence, for example. And also, I will pick up from what you said: that when talking about political information warfare, we are all frontliners.

I mean, it is [true] in the Romanian case and in the Polish case, the fact that we are so close to Ukraine and to the Russian Federation matters. But I wouldn’t validate this argument of geographical proximity when talking about information and political warfare. The same things can happen in Japan, for example.

And I was really amazed about the fact that some narratives hitting Japanese society look very similar to those targeting Romanian society. And really, I cannot think of a society which is more different than the Japanese one compared to the Romanian one. The only point of similarity is that we are open societies, that social media is a visible presence, but other than that, again, I do not see any similarity between these two societies.

And yet, I was struck by the fact that some of the narratives in Japanese society looked very similar to the ones in Romania. So, my point was that geographical proximity matters, but it’s not the only factor. I told you that one of the narratives targeting the Romanian public space was that we should reclaim our territories, which are now part of the Ukrainian state. So of course, this is a very Romanian thing, and it has to do with territorial proximity.

But other than that, I think that the feature of contemporary information and political warfare is that narratives are transnational, that audiences are both local and global, which is a very interesting thing, that we all eat from the same globalized information space. So again, there really are no borders, and this is why the tactic of narrative laundering was, in my understanding, at least one of the most successful tactics, because it was a means to weaponize our pro-American feelings in the case of Romania. I mean, to create the appearance that a certain narrative is so problematic is promoted by an American figure.

The fact that it actually originated from the Russian [information] space was obscured by the fact that it was spread in a global environment. And here I have a, no fascination is not the right word. But really I have professional respect for the fact that the actors of disinformation, in some cases, understood better than we did the characteristics of the contemporary information space.. They understood that the public space is globalized. They understood that the most potent asset in a war is the human mind.

These are realizations that came to the NATO space a little bit late. Again, I’m trying to stay on the positive note. But again, in strictly professional terms, I think that our adversaries were quicker to understand that information and political warfare is a long-term game.

They were quick to understand that the public space is globalized, and they were quick to understand that the most fertile background in order to deploy these kinds of operations was with internal vulnerabilities.

NK: Yeah, that’s really interesting. And you mentioned briefly, I think at the beginning of your statement here about cyber defense. Romania has been heavily involved, but also coordinating with Ukraine on a kind of cybersecurity infrastructure. Can you shed some light on Romania’s participation or leadership in these NATO cyber defense initiatives and exercises?

AB: It was not only Ukraine, but according to my knowledge, it was also the Republic of Moldova.

So I think the cooperation in the field of cyber defense was a very fruitful one, both with Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova. So apparently the Romanian institutions were very agile in providing this kind of regional leadership at least.

My point would be that it is important to connect cyber defense with influence campaigns. This is why a term that I particularly like is cy-fluence. But I think that there are limits in extending the lessons from cybersecurity to influence campaigns.

With cyber attacks, you can do attribution a little bit more easily. You can detect the infrastructure and the notion of an attack is an accurate one. I mean, the attack has a beginning and an end. But again, trying to extrapolate what is happening in the field of cyber defense to the topic of cy-fluence information, I think could be a mistake, and we should be a little bit cautious to not be over enthusiastic about the fact that what can we do in a very, very proficient way in the field of cyber defense can be reproduced in the field of mitigating influence campaigns.

Attribution is much more complicated. As I said at the beginning, the top technical attribution is one thing, and political attribution is a completely different thing. Influence campaigns are embedded into cultural sensitivities, into local sensitivities. So again, this is a completely different thing from attacking a hard infrastructure.

And also about attribution, attribution is not necessarily persuasive. This is a thing that probably people from the FIMI (Foreign Information and Manipulation Interference) community, from the disinformation community are not necessarily aware of because we are striving for attribution: “Okay, so let’s point the finger with hard evidence toward a specific actor.”

But in social terms, this is not necessarily persuasive. Or if you do not do attribution at the beginning of an influence campaign, if you do it at the end, it is almost useless because people have already been convinced doing attribution may breed suspicion: “Oh, you are Russophobic,” for example.

So again, I’ll embrace the similarities between cyber defense and cy-fluence defense in terms of being prepared, coming up with procedures, doing attribution, but there are limits to this. So, Romania could play a role, could play a much more pronounced leadership role both in cyber defense and also in terms of cy-fluence giving its exposure to it. But again, here we deal with a lot of cultural sensitivities, historical sensitivities, geographical grievances, religious sensitivities.

The human mind is such a precious and fragile thing and sometimes I’m amazed that democracy relies on the resilience of the human mind, which is both fragile and both resilient at the same time.

NK: Well, that’s a perfect kind of segue here to my next question because this podcast project is partially geared to being a bit of a reflective exercise. And you mentioned these cultural and historical sensitivities.

You mentioned that parts of Romanian society did feel either left behind or perhaps exploited by Western institutions.

So, Romania joined NATO in 2004. At the time, leading up to that, can you tell us about that moment in time and perhaps there was excitement, was there kind of trepidation? Because I think in the American perspective, we often forget that these processes, when Eastern European and Central European countries joined NATO and joined the EU, it wasn’t just, “Oh, now we’re part of a club.” It was a painful time of transition. And I think Americans don’t really grasp how big of a seismic shift in societies this was after the experience of decades of the Cold War.

So what was that moment in time like in 2004? What did it mean then? And perhaps how has it changed now?

AB: So I was very young back then, and I was not professionally active, let’s say, so I was not studying communication or influence campaigns, lucky for me at least. And of course, that was some sort of self-irony regarding the fact that a lot of time has passed since then. But I remember the true enthusiasm.

I mean, really, I think that becoming a NATO member and later becoming a European Union member was received by the Romanian public opinion with true excitement.

If I am to judge myself, to position myself as a very regular person, somehow open to what is happening in this society, I can say with a lot of confidence that that was a true moment of excitement, both becoming a member of NATO and a member of the European Union.

Interestingly, the two things collapsed at the level of public opinion. The Romanians were talking about Euro-Atlantic integration. For the Romanians, it is very important—this is an anchor of stability, including for public opinion, the resilience of the transatlantic relationship.

I think that this is very, very important today. So again, I don’t think that the public opinion [necessarily] discriminates—and I’m saying it as a positive or in a neutral way—between NATO and the EU. But again, at the level of general public opinion, we were very, very happy to become part of the transatlantic world.

I don’t think that becoming a NATO member and a member of the EU was not challenged, and I think this is an accurate description.

What has happened? What is the situation right now? The level of public support both for NATO and for the European Union is quite high. So, when you measure the public opinion in a very traditional way, the level of support is very, very big, impressive.

What I noticed is that public opinion is a little bit confusing, because, for example, in the public opinion polls, people, when they are asked, “Do you still want to be a part of NATO?” 80 percent of Romanians say “Yes, definitely yes.”

When you ask the question, “Do you think that Romania has been robbed of its resources by the West?” 70 percent of the people say yes. So, I think that this is new at the level of public opinion, and I still haven’t figured out what people are trying to say with this, that they want to become part of NATO, but they are dissatisfied that they are treated as second-class members or that we were a loser of this process.

So, people are starting to hold very contradictory opinions. And I think that us researchers, including me, haven’t yet figured out what people are trying to say with this contradictory public opinion. Because this is the effect in my understanding of influence campaigns, disinformation, propaganda, narrative attacks, cy-fluence, you name it. But I think it is also something deeper than that. So I wouldn’t place this only on propaganda and disinformation. I think that this will provide only half of the story.

Maybe these kinds of opinions express some dissatisfaction with Romanian decision-makers that we should have a louder voice in the decision-making process, for example, that we should come up with our own visions, that we shouldn’t endorse everything but present alternative points of view.

But again, what has changed: The level of declared enthusiasm is the same, but people hold contradictory [views]. I mean, if I were to ask a person, “How can you say that you want to be part of NATO and the next minute say that you are completely dissatisfied with the West and with these global elites that are plundering us?” I mean, really to understand how cognition happens.

And it depends on how you look at these figures. If you want to be on a very, very optimistic note, you say, “Oh, but people are 80% in favor of NATO,” and you end up with that story.

But I don’t think that we should be complacent about this. I think that there are some things happening at the level of public opinion, institutional mistrust, distrust with decision-making, distrust with how we managed to capitalize on being a NATO member.

So, the dissatisfaction is there. In December during the annual elections, I was very afraid that this kind of dissatisfaction with the Romanian institutions could try to infect the institutions in NATO.

This didn’t happen, this hasn’t happened yet, and I would not put the emphasis on the fact that it didn’t happen, or at least this is how I see things. We shouldn’t be complacent because coming back to the theoretical discussion about influence campaigns, they may be long-term, they may be long-intensity, low in volume, but at some point, they can create dramatic effects.

So I wouldn’t be complacent.

NK: Definitely.

AB: People are saying, “Okay, we are part of NATO and this is it.” I think that there are complex things happening at the level of the Romanian public opinion too.

NK: I liked how you said there was just a general sense that Romania wanted to be a part of the transatlantic community, and that encompasses membership in several different clubs.

But I think what you mentioned about this dissatisfaction or this skepticism perhaps that has evolved is that it seems, and I think this has been echoed in my conversations with other guests in this series, that while the role of frontline states such as Romania, such as Poland, has only increased in strategic value, in logistical value to the Alliance, it still feels like there is a disconnect between representations in the moments that it matters at summits, at key decision-making moments, that there is very little representation from this part of the Alliance.

So my final question, which I’m asking all of our guests is, what would you like Americans to understand about Romania’s role in the transatlantic community and why preserving alliances such as NATO is so important?

AB: I think that Romania is one of the most pro-American countries, which I think is widely known.

And I would add that this pro-American feeling transcends different administrations. And again, I do not want to step into sensitive territory, but really, for Romanians, it doesn’t matter, and I’m saying this in a most positive way, as the kind of administration in the White House varies, for example.

So it is truly a respect for the American society overall, for its model, for its innovative pace, for its technological prowess. So again, the pro-American feelings transcend the politics as such. And I’m saying this in a factual manner, and I think it is a positive thing, but again, the American audience should decide whether from their perspective this is a good thing, that the pro-American feelings are real and transcend politics.

The second point that I will try to make is that Romania has a very interesting geographical position. I was in the United States, and for me, Romania looked like a very far away place while I lived in the United States. So, it is very hard to sell the argument that what happens in Romania happens to an American audience.

But again, I think that the geographical position is interesting. I cannot underscore enough the importance of the Black Sea, which is important because here there is Turkey, there is Ukraine, there is Bulgaria, there is the Russian Federation, and there is Georgia.

So, it is not an isolated sea, but rather a sea that serves as an entryway to Western Europe in general. And the third point, I think, is that, again, the argument of geographical proximity doesn’t matter so much. I think that one of the errors of the current strategic communication at a very, very high level is to somehow validate the argument of geographical proximity: “Because Ukraine is far away, maybe we should be more careful with our attention.”

We are living in a truly globalized world, whether we like it or not, where there are winners and losers of globalization. I’m using the terms winners and losers. Globalization is a thing, and it is a very real thing. So again, the argument of geographical proximity is only partial.

I was trying to explain this to an expert from South Africa, because he was saying, “Why should I care about what is happening in Ukraine?” And I said that probably it should matter as a matter of principle. The topic of territorial integrity is a matter of principle that is valid for any country, irrespective of its position on the globe. So again, I would say that the pro-American feelings transcends politics.

At least this is how I see things in Romania. The second is that the Black Sea matters. It is a very interesting hotspot. And not only in terms of warfare, but in terms of economic opportunities, for example. And the third point is that globalization is very, very real. Just like during the pandemic, there are no frontliners. And I mean, we are all on the frontline.

Probably, this could create some renewed global solidarity, that again, we consume information from the same globalized environment. Most of the time we are facing the same challenges. So, maybe this could be a basis for some renewed transatlantic solidarity.

NK: Yeah, I really like what you said about the geographic proximity argument, because that feels like such a 20th-century way of thinking about risk in a time where we see very 21st-century, quickly evolving threats to our modern way of life.

So, Alina, thank you so much for sharing so many fascinating insights today. I feel like I’ve certainly learned a lot. I think we could have a whole other kind of conversation about strategic communications, maybe some other time. But thank you so much again for joining us today on The Ties That Bind.

AB: Thank you very much.

Image: Facebook | Nicușor Dan