Romania’s Accession to NATO: Strategic Realignment, Security Transformation, and Regional Responsibilities

Alexandra PORUMBESCU
Senior Lecturer, PhD.
University of Craiova, Faculty of Social Sciences
E-mail: alexandra.porumbescu@edu.ucv.ro

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4976-6878
DOI: https://doi.org/10.59277/CSNPISSH.2025.14

Copyright (c) 2025.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Published on December 28, 2025

Abstract
Romania’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), formalized in 2004, represented one of the most important strategic decisions of the post-communist period. The study analyzes the stages of this process, from the historical and political context immediately after 1989, to the structural reforms implemented by the Romanian state to meet the accession criteria, to the current impact of membership in the Alliance. It highlights both the benefits generated by collective security guarantees and the modernization of defense capabilities, as well as the obligations assumed by Romania as an active member, especially in the context of new security challenges in the Black Sea region. The article proposes an assessment of Romania’s strategic role within NATO, in parallel with the need to develop a security culture and a coherent vision on the future of the Euro-Atlantic architecture.

Keyword
Romania, NATO, collective security, foreign policy, Black Sea region

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