Romania is worried about Russian actions in the Black Sea and is stepping up defense spending to meet the 2% goal agreed to by NATO members years ago. Only five other countries spend at least 2% of their GDP on the collective defense.
Donald Trump is meeting the NATO leadership in Brussels on May 25th. This will be the first face to face meeting with alliance leaders and the American president is sure to again call for more defense spending by the alliance.
Romania shares a long border with Serbia which has grown much closer to Russia over the recent years. The Balkan nation has bought many weapons from Russia as Balkan tension once again heats up.
Moscow also declared that Romania was in its ‘cross hairs’ after the former Soviet satellite established a NATO missile defense installation on its territory. The country also announced it will be buying the Patriot missile defense system to further bolster the alliance’s southern capabilities.
“We need a serious posture of deterrence,” Romania’s ambassador to the United States, George Maior told FP. “Crimea is being militarized by Russia and it can be used as a platform for power projection not only into the Black Sea, but to the southeastern Mediterranean,” reports Foreign Policy Magazine.
