It is that process Biden in bent on completing.
Moldova also has an unresolved, "frozen," conflict with Transdniester where Russia deployed peacekeepers in 1992 after thousands were killed and injured in fighting between the two states. There are still 365 Russian troops in the republic and last week a Transdniester official requested more Russian forces in anticipation of increased tensions with Moldova's new pro-NATO government.
Were Moldova to join NATO, either in its own right or as part of an expanded Romania, the Alliance would be in a de facto state of war with Transdniester, which is supported by Russia. Romania is a NATO member and if it intervened on behalf of Moldova against its neighbor could invoke NATO's Article 5 against Transdniester -- where, again, Russian troops are based.
Addressing his Romanian hosts on October 22, Biden said, "In Eastern Europe, there are countries still struggling to establish fully functioning democracies and vibrant market economies. You can help guide Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine along the path to stability and prosperity"There is much work to be done in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus." [23]
The six nations he mentioned are exactly those targeted by the European Union's Eastern Partnership program to be weaned from the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States and integrated into the EU and NATO.
Biden also touched on the main subject of his preceding visits to Poland and the Czech Republic: The European wing of the U.S.'s new global missile shield system.
His comments on that score at Bucharest University included:
"I really appreciate your government's embrace of the new missile defense architecture we are bringing into Europe. It is a better architecture. It has the benefit of protecting you physically, as well as the United States." [24]
He further touted a "new missile defense architecture" that "will protect all NATO allies, including all central European NATO members" and would provide "stronger, smarter and swifter defenses." [25] (Central Europe is the term now used in the West for most of the area referred to as Eastern Europe during the Cold War. The new designation is political and not geographical.)
That Biden laid such particular stress on this topic in Romania indicates that the U.S. has plans to extend its interceptor missile system into the Black Sea region.
The day after the American vice president left Romania a U.S. military official spoke of the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base -- where the $50 million investment is to occur and which has been used for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- near the port city of Constanta on the Black Sea and said that it "will become a permanent facility in the spring and be jointly used with Romanian forces." [26]
The progressively more aggressive U.S. and NATO military penetration of the Black Sea region has been examined in previous articles in this series [27]. A Russian report of October 23 included this background information:
"Over 4,000 US military men are expected to serve at the two bases: 1,600 in Romania and 2,500 in Bulgaria. The authorities of the two nations expect that the US military men will settle there for a long time.
"It goes along with the Pentagon's intention to cut its 55,000-strong group in Germany and redeploy a part of the troops in several countries of Eastern Europe, including Bulgaria and Romania."
The same source quoted a Russian analyst:
"The number of US military men at the two bases is not going to be large, but who can say that it will not be doubled, tripped or quadrupled in the future? Furthermore, the appearance of NATO bases on the Black Sea coast will come as an addition to the US military [deployments] in the Baltic region. As a result, Russia will find itself trapped." [28]
