What's next?, next war Romanians could be part of

Moldova is in no position to ask anything from Ukraine. Moldova is in no position to militarily recover Transnistria either. In fact, the Russians and Ukrainians in Moldova itself oppose a hypothetical union with Romania. In this context the actual barter would be along the following lines - we give up our claim on Transnistria, you let us unite with Romania without stirring any internal trouble.

This post has been edited by Imperialist on February 14, 2010 04:58 pm

Andreas, thanks for info, maybe will let me know the sources.
But this figures are only about the Russian ones, former XIV'th army, converted to "peace keeping units". (a little strange, that one part in conflict become peace keeping force, like in Abkhazia or Southern Ossetia).
But there are some Transnistrian forces, military (army and police, including Special Forces, like Dniestr and Alpha battalions, who fought in Abkhazia in 1993, after the end of war in Moldova, 1992) and paramilitary, like many cossacks, retired from Russian Army who estabilished there, who can be ready for combat in very short time. Some sources (I'll check and came with quotations) estimate over 200 000 the men who can be put under arms (many of them second rate troops, but arms are so many in Transnistria, like the Colbasna deposit, from Cold War).

And what about Tighina (Bender)? It is the most important city on right bank of Nistru (Dniestr) occupied by Transnistrian forces, since the war in 1992. Moldova estabilished and mentain, since the war, two important (tacticaly) positions on the left bank, Cosnita and Cocieri, who can be a danger for Dubasari city, in case of an escaladation.
Transnistria is a strip of land, about 20 kilometres wide. It cannot resist without reinforcements in case of a conflict. And this reinforcements cannot pas than on Ukrainean soil, like in 1992 war.

Next, who will guarantee that Russia or others will not stirr internal trouble, and other things. It was a Russian who said that treaties not worth even the paper where they are written. (Stalin)
During the wars in early '90, in Sothern Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, Checenya, Russian army comes with cease-fire arrangements, and next day were violated by their puppets, or even by them, with large scale offensives.

The bottom line is, do the Moldovans care more about getting back a Russian/Ukrainian-majority strip of land filled with decrepit industries or about uniting with Romania and thus becoming EU/NATO members? The latter is only hypothetical, but if there is one way to rule it out forever then that is to up the military ante with Transdniester and end up in the situation Saakashvili found himself in.

look at the composition of the population in that area. in the region we're talking about there are more bulgarians than romanians. and ukraineans outnumber both combined.
any referendum there will fail.

I know about bulgarians (gagauzi) in that area, and about lipoveni (Russians). Can you give me your sources about population composition? I'm interested to see many sources possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budjak

Hallo contras,
My source for units and equipment of the 14th Army (extremely detailed to the battalion level) is from 2002 and was posted on a german military forum -now closed as I verified- and it was taken -as the author claimed than - from the inspection taken according to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) in summer 1991. I remember I was surprised than that such data could be found regarding the Soviet Union -even only the western and southern Military Districts, including Odessa -where the 14th Army was dislocated. Even if the ex-soviet forces dislocated in Transnistria were not impressive in numbers (but were still equipped with first class weapons -compared to ours!!), they were more than able to crush the weak moldovan police and army units (even occupy the capital Chisinau!). Without tanks and artillery (and especially qualified personnel) the moldovan troops (betrayed by many of the senior officers in Chisinau -from the new born Ministry of Defense) had no chance to resist. The recent status - 2006 -of the Operational Group of Russian Forces in Moldova I found about two years ago on the website of the moldovan Ministry of Defense -in a military situation analysis of Transnistria.

Let's dont get drunk ourselfes, romanians, with cold water. We are a small state and small states are never taken into acount when the interests of big states are discussed. We received nothing during history from big states (or small states), even if we were right. We cant win something by war if big powers doesnt sustain us. We cant win something by peacefull negociations if big powers doesnt sustain us. We are expandable.

In 1859 the Union of Moldavia with Wallachia was made by romanians speculating the permision of big powers to elect a ruler, which permision didnt mentioned that it has or not to be diferent persons in both provinces. Romanians elected Cuza, who took power only because big powers of time agreed so. The big powers of the moment created this union due to their own interests at the mouth of Danube, not due to romanian's wishes for a state.

In 1877 romanians entered ruso-turkish war, gained their independence and lost at the end of the war Cahul, Ismail and Bolgrad to russians and big powers agreed that in the favor of russians.

In ww1 Romania entered war on Allied side, having the ensurance from big powers to unite with Romania all teritories inhabited by romanians from AH empire. Allied powers agreed that to Romania cos they had hard times on western fronts, not for the sake of romanians. In early 1918, after Buftea peace, Allied powers didnt recognised anymore the promises to romanians cos they lost interes into them. In 1919 also Allied powers didnt fullfiled their agreements and the same was at Paris peace conference in 1920, were romanian had a real struggle with allies to gain their promised rights. We won only because big powers wanted so.

In ww2 romanians fought at the begining on Axis side pressed also by big powers and after 23 august 1944, even fighting on allied side, Romania was treated as a defeated country, cos big powers wanted so. In the same time, Italy, which alsoo fought on both sides, was considered on "good" side at the end of ww2.

We are insignifiant quantity for big powers.

I don't know if they wanted that, their aim was to estabilish a separatist region with blackmail role against Chisinau leaders. This region will treat every tentative to approach Bucarest. It works until today. Same model will be used in Georgia, with Abkhazia, Southern Ossetia, and Adjaria, last one was occupied by Georgians in 2004.
Otherwise, I don't think that in 1992 Transnistrians and 14th Russian Army had the logistic and operational capability to seize Chisinau. When they stormed Tighina with 20 tanks with Russian flag on them, they losed 6 in street fightings against Moldavians, who hadn't artilery or tanks, just with small weapons and RPG. Moldova even has an army, just police forces and volunteers.

Very well said (and valid not only for Rumania). Just remember the (in)famous piece of paper where Churchill and Stalin divided Central and Eastern Europe in a matter of minutes:


[Source: richardlangworth.com]

This fact is often not taken into consideration when discussing the root cause of certain events.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on February 16, 2010 12:36 pm

21 inf,
There were two major currents in Romanian media last 20 years. One was that we, romanians, were the bravest and the fiercest, and just others don't let us became what we deserved, etc.
The second is that we don't deserve anything, we are to weak, all the games were already settled, etc.
Sometimies, the same person pass from one to another current, and viceversa, in a short period of time.

The truth is somewhere in the middle.
Your examples:

But were recognised our rights for Dobrogea and Serpent Island, who were under Turkish occupation, and were incorporated in Romania. We obtain sealand, ports, and enourmus comercial beneficions, just because we obtain sea shore, with Constanta port and other.

Of course, we obtain more than we ever expected (Bassarabia), but lesser we deserved. If we stands with crossed arms, do you think we would obtain anything more. I'm sure we would obtain lesser. Because if we don't have Transilvania taken by Romanian army in 1919, and Maramures and others, Romania would be smaller a lot.

In January 1919, Ukrainnea forces invaded northern Maramures. One regiment (Reg 14), come from Dej and defeat Ukrainean forces, and eliberate northern Maramures, and later, with new troops, Romanian army continue to Hust, etc. We do it ourselves, not waited to great powers decisions.

If we stayed and waited the decision of great powers, who would reject Bela Kuhn? Who would eliberate Transilvania? Great powers decisions?

And because in 1919, with bayonets, we obtain more that enyone expected, great powers tried to reduce our gains, and where they could, in Banat. Because a too Greater Romania, later could be a danger for Eastern Europe, they suposed. They divided Banat, but we gave to Czecks two thirds of Maramures istoric (historical Maramures), now inside Ukrainean borders.

But were recognised our rights for Dobrogea and Serpent Island, who were under Turkish occupation, and were incorporated in Romania. We obtain sealand, ports, and enourmus comercial beneficions, just because we obtain sea shore, with Constanta port and other.

Of course, we obtain more than we ever expected (Bassarabia), but lesser we deserved. If we stands with crossed arms, do you think we would obtain anything more. I'm sure we would obtain lesser. Because if we don't have Transilvania taken by Romanian army in 1919, and Maramures and others, Romania would be smaller a lot.

In January 1919, Ukrainnea forces invaded northern Maramures. One regiment (Reg 14), come from Dej and defeat Ukrainean forces, and eliberate northern Maramures, and later, with new troops, Romanian army continue to Hust, etc. We do it ourselves, not waited to great powers decisions.

If we stayed and waited the decision of great powers, who would reject Bela Kuhn? Who would eliberate Transilvania? Great powers decisions?

And because in 1919, with bayonets, we obtain more that enyone expected, great powers tried to reduce our gains, and where they could, in Banat. Because a too Greater Romania, later could be a danger for Eastern Europe, they suposed. They divided Banat, but we gave to Czecks two thirds of Maramures istoric (historical Maramures), now inside Ukrainean borders.

nicely said

the great powers ORDERED us to sit our arses on the mures river and not take all transilvania,
if we would have done that now we wouldnt recognise Romania today.

and we should have done the same with Banat

lets not foerget that in 1916 the allies said they would give us the ENTIRE banat, at that point there was no romanian banat and serbian banat, there was only BANAT.
but we wanted to be good boys and we left half of it into serbian hands. big mistake.
right after WW1 we were in a position where we could do pretty much anything we wanted in our region, especialy after we conquered hungary we were the top dogs in the balkans, could have took the netire Banat, the northern maramures, the Timok region ( from both serbia and bulgaria ), and lets not forget the area between Tisa and our curent border, which at that time was still inhabited by 200.000 romanians who were eventualy maghiarised after our withdrawl.

and the best part is that the great powers could do shit about it ( france and england were exhausted and their people wanted peace ) , russia was in tormoil ( whites vs reds ), bulgaria was always weak ( only had a word to say when they were allied with our powerful enemies ), hungaria was already under our ocupation, the serbs have recently freed their country and were ill organised, plus they could not properly defend a patch of land, the moment our armies would have attackjed the serbian army guarding banat would have found themselves with the backs to the danube and nowhere to retreat.

we had our oportunity and we only took it less than half.
sometimes politicians must take a step back and let the army do its business.

To contras and Typhon:

I didnt said that we romanians are extraordinary or very weak people.

Of course we had gains and loses during time.

I just tried to point out that even if in some times we gained something with our own powers, we needed the aproval of "big brothers" in order to keep what we gained. If we lost sometimes, we lost sometimes only because we were told by "big brothers" "Behave yourselfes!" and we had to comply.

We romanians can do good things or bad things, just any other nation on this earth, we are no better or worse than majority of other nations. But we are a small nation and like all small nations, we always were at the good will of greater powers when something decisive had to be decided for ourselfes.

I documented as much as I could to make to myself a documented idea about our nation, romanian, in order to see if we are so cool or so bad as we use to depict ourselfes. My late opinion is that we are normal and regular people, like others. "Cool" or "bad" it's just depending what one wants to see.

It is just like on the saying with the optimistic or pesimistic guy: one will see the full part of the glass filled with water, the second will see only the empty part. But there can be a third option. Maybe the glass is too big or too small