Threats, risks, vulnerabilities – a trio that unfortunately makes more and more sense.

Investigating public opinion regarding security risks, vulnerabilities, and threats does not mean responding to them. People, for example, may fear for a variety of reasons: some fear because they understand the dangers, others fear because they do not understand them. Etc. The sociologist's job is to understand the source and rationale of fears, not just to quantify them. You must be unaware to deny that we are in a limited situation both regionally and globally. But we, as a country, have limited participation in this, and certainly, the major disturbances surrounding us are not our fault. But to say that our participation in international arrangements like NATO makes us vulnerable is a rare kind of stupidity. There are analysts who say such things, but it is enough to check online that two or three years ago they were saying exactly the opposite, or that they made some real flip-flops regarding President Trump's pacifist attitude.

Are there risks associated with NATO membership? Of course. A lot, especially in such a political context and considering the characteristics of the American administration. Would there be risks if we were free, unbound, and alone in relation to NATO and the EU? No. Absolutely not.

We joined NATO during a long period of quasi-universal peace and cooperation, in an era that the literature in international relations said was the end of history and conflicts. Following the end of the great ideological war between East and West, of course. It was almost as if you were led to believe how Tovarășu's prophecy was fulfilled, strangely (let's make tractors out of cannons / and plows out of nuclear weapons). Well, more recently it seems that others have also been fulfilled, if we look at the spectrum of circulation, one week with an even number, the other with an odd number at the machine, against the backdrop of threats with the energy crisis. But we talked a lot about nostalgia for communism in the second half of last year, also in the context of some very eloquent data from INSCOP research.

As a result, let’s leave Trump what belongs to Trump and public opinion what belongs to public opinion. And let’s be interested, I say, in what our Romanians say and through what filter they pass the not very encouraging developments in the international system in recent times.

Between 2010 and 2014, almost no one here feared war anymore. And certainly, no one saw a possible war in the area. War was something from the stories of grandfathers (but who still believed the poor man?), something from documentaries on history TV channels (but who watched those, when there were so many other channels with other things on offer?), or something from the increasingly frequent reruns of Saving Private Ryan. After 2015, things changed gradually. Paradoxically, in 2020, the whole world seemed united in the fight against the pandemic. Of course, in the end, it turned out badly, including politically, but at one point it seemed that the whole planet was doing the same thing. And that everyone was looking for solutions. Russia offered vaccines to Ukraine, Israel to Palestine, China to everyone. The biggest scandals came out then, where else... in the EU and in the USA. I beg you... in the end, 2022 came and everything we believed about war, the balance of power, and international negotiations ended. Next came the sovereignist wave in Europe and the second coming of Trump in America. Despite the promises, things seem to have complicated at the international level.

Last week, INSCOP launched, in a prestigious partnership, as usual, the National Security Barometer. I did not write last week because it was (isn't it?) budget week, which for us is so tense that it would eclipse even the Apocalypse.

So how do Romanians see the current security challenges, in the first operationalization of these appropriate to the difficult moment we are going through? I will not get excessively tied to the numbers, their presentations being already a week on informat.ro and inscop.ro. I will draw some conclusions and build a bit on them.

Half of Romanians (let's say 51%) consider Romania a safe country from the perspective of national security. Fewer consider it unsafe, and the difference is given by non-responses. Is it good, is it bad? As I said above, we are not talking about war journalists, nor about diplomats or military decision-makers. We are talking about people at the level of the entire population. They do not describe reality, but describe what they feel. What they feel may not be exact, but it is the basis for what they will do – what they will vote for, what they will buy, where they will go... Voters of AUR and PSD are the most anxious in this regard. It is somewhat strange, considering that this area was rather permeable to ideas like Trump wants peace, not war, Trump solved everything in Alaska last summer, Trump does not talk to the current leadership of Romania because the 2024 elections were canceled, etc. On the other hand, the belief of PNL and USR voters that we are not in danger is not a geostrategic assessment, but rather an indicator of trust in European institutional and security arrangements, as well as in Romania's decision to be faithful to them and to maintain, as much as possible, the partnership with America.

Interestingly, direct military and non-military aggressions are not, however, the main concern of our public: corruption, disinformation campaigns, and economic instability are our major problems. Of course, there is also a projection of the type the war is far away, we are attacked through false news. Somewhere there is also a coping mechanism in the middle.

About two-thirds of Romanians are worried about our involvement in a possible war in the coming years (we are talking about involvement in a rather vague sense, not necessarily that we would be attacked) – and we are talking about figures collected immediately after the outbreak of the Iranian crisis.

About 77% of Romanians say that our country should remain politically and militarily oriented towards the West. This majority is good, but it needs to be explained where the 10% who say we should get politically and militarily closer to China and Russia come from. Rather AUR voters, young and middle-aged (somewhat shocking...), private sector employees, Tik Tok users. Nostalgic? Not really: the mentioned data do not show direct links to the golden age. To make a joke, it is more nostalgia than nostalgia. In total, 84% of Romanians do not want us to exit NATO. But 11-12% say they will: rather AUR voters, rather middle-aged (not very young), rural, private sector employees. And here, it seems more like anger at life than at NATO.

Interestingly, there are twice as many Romanians who want us to exit the EU compared to the figure regarding leaving NATO. The great exit, as a famous advertisement said. The ratio between these figures starts to tell us a lot.

Only 33% of Romanians consider that attacking Iran, in the context of nuclear concerns, has a dose of legitimacy. This low score does not surprise us. At a first level, it is based on the principle what do we have to do with them and why should we bear costs for something that does not concern us. Of course, we have encountered such situations before – for example, at the beginning of the 2000s, regarding the invasion of Iraq. Just that now the burden is much stronger. Back then, hardly anyone (in the sense of other relevant powers) contested President Bush Jr.'s decision. Today, the entire landscape of the international security environment is different. And it seems we have a slightly too high density of conflictual situations and crises. Plus, let’s not forget that President Trump was perceived as trying to delegitimize Ukraine's defensive war. Doing this, it is hard to "sell" (to use the American president's terms) the war in Iran to the public in Eastern Europe – especially since it does not seem to have gone very well.

That's all for today – we will save for next time an extensive discussion regarding France's nuclear package and arms acquisition.