Why Are Moldovan Politicians Erasing the Country’s Neutral Status?

The ruling regime’s troubling maneuvers around neutrality reflect not so much concern for the country’s security as a crisis of strategic thinking among the elites in a rapidly changing international environment

There are dates on the international calendar that politicians like to mention only when it suits them. One such date is December 12, International Day of Neutrality. It was established by a resolution of the UN General Assembly on February 2, 2017. Despite its dullness, it contains what is perhaps the main idea, very relevant to today’s world: neutrality is not an anachronism, but an instrument of security and preventive diplomacy. That is exactly what small and vulnerable states need in the era of raging geopolitical storms of the modern world. It would seem that Moldova is uniquely destined to carefully preserve its neutral status. History has repeatedly shown that this position has helped small countries avoid getting caught in the crossfire of foreign conflicts. Yet, as usual, in our high offices, the decision was made to take a different, special route and, at the most “opportune” moment, begin discussing the abandonment of neutrality. That is, at a time when the European security system is cracking at the seams and being rebuilt almost on the fly. Over the past week, Moldovan officials have issued a barrage of statements questioning the need for the country’s neutral status. For example, Defense Minister Anatolie Nosatii called it “imposed” on Moldova by the Russian Federation and introduced with the insidious aim of limiting the country’s defense capabilities. The argument, it must be admitted, is original: it turns out that the 1994 constitutional norm is a kind of external sabotage. Foreign Minister Mihai Popsoi also insists on placing neutrality in the category of questionable convention. Although he acknowledges its popularity among the majority of citizens, he nevertheless proposes to launch a “broad discussion.” It is not difficult to guess what the “correct” outcome of these discussions should be: renunciation of an allegedly outdated and imposed dogma in favor of a different, as yet unnamed but quite predictable course. Court political scientists immediately picked up on the topic and cheerfully recommended that the authorities “work out a scenario for abandoning neutral status” because, it turns out, it no longer guarantees peace for the country. Instead, they propose a move toward collective security, preferably with a mandatory explanation to the population that neutrality is extremely expensive, and that a modern army, unlike roads and infrastructure, is much more important and necessary. However, in this semantic construct that they are trying to impose on us, there is only one question that remains unanswered: who exactly is ready to provide Moldova with this collective security, and on what terms? Formally, everything looks fine for the authorities. There is a defense strategy until 2034 with fashionable Western terminology and “correct” definitions. The list of threats includes the Russian contingent in the Transnistrian region, while the priorities include close cooperation with NATO and an increase in military spending to 1% of GDP by 2030. The documents were written last year and this year, obviously with a view to a world where NATO is rapidly expanding and pushing Russia beyond the Urals, the US is playing the role of guarantor of European security, and Brussels is integrating new countries into the EU. Against this backdrop, our leadership’s disregard for Donald Trump’s new US National Security Strategy is telling. To put it mildly, the document has completely overturned the European elite’s traditional views on the transatlantic future. It explicitly states the need to restore strategic stability in relations with Russia, help Europe “stand on its own two feet” and, importantly, put an end to the perception of NATO as a constantly expanding alliance. For the elites and officials in the EU, this was a cold shower. Against this backdrop, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz dramatically announced the end of the era of “Pax Americana” for Europe and that Europeans must prepare for fundamental changes in transatlantic relations. Only in Chisinau did they choose to pretend that nothing special had happened. Here, it seems, they continue to live by the old rules and are simply waiting out Trump, hoping that the geopolitical pendulum will swing back and return everyone to their familiar, comfortable world. This is an immature perception of international politics, apparently based on the naive hope that the current tectonic shifts will not affect the periphery. However, it is precisely small and dependent states that are usually the first to feel the consequences of such global upheavals. Therefore, our authorities continue to obediently follow in the wake of Brussels, Paris, Berlin, and London, without asking themselves where exactly it is leading now. Although even those capitals themselves do not seem to understand particularly well in which direction history is moving. Instead of catching the sovereign trend, we are stubbornly pursuing a line that is rapidly losing relevance, without even considering the possibility that in 2028 Moldova will simply have nowhere to join (especially if the European security architecture is indeed transformed into a system of sovereign states). And a potential abandonment of neutrality may not be a step towards greater security, but a strategic mistake with delayed but extremely painful consequences. So what do our politicians ultimately want to get from the West by flirting with this topic? Security guarantees? Under current conditions, as negotiations with Ukraine show, these are not given for free, let alone in advance. Money? The US and the EU have enough holes in their own budgets, so no one is going to buy a renunciation of neutrality, even at a good discount. Political loyalty? It is rapidly losing value as the US itself moves away from ideological commitments toward hard pragmatism and the logic of foreign policy deals. On the one hand, neutrality may indeed seem like a “white elephant,” which is difficult to carry but a pity to throw away. But in a situation where the old order is collapsing and the new one has not yet been built, this status may be the only thing that prevents Moldova from becoming the object of foreign plans and designs. In this sense, it should be perceived not as a sign of weakness, but as a major political asset. All these alarming moves around neutrality made by the ruling regime reflect not so much concern for the country’s security as a crisis of strategic thinking among the elites in a rapidly changing international environment. The irony of the situation is that Moldova’s problem is not neutrality as such, but the lack of will and competence to fill it with real content. It is precisely this lack of foresight that poses the main threat to national security today – a fact that is difficult to disagree with.