The victory of a far-right, pro-Russian candidate in Romania’s presidential election would obviously not merely be a domestic event. It would have profound implications for Europe and beyond. It would be another stark example of the way in which divided democratic forces can be defeated by united authoritarian movements who mobilise new voters in alliance with their hardcore supporters. Every European country has had a hard core of fascists since at least after the First World War. Russian money and social media mobilises this base and swells its numbers with many people who have not voted before and many others who are just pissed off at the failures of the EU project since the fall of communism. It is all yet another stark warning about the potential consequences of failing to address the genuine economic grievances that fuel the spread of Russian backed authoritarianism designed to feed global geopolitical instability.
There are two things that can be done. The first is that NATO needs to actually embrace the information space as a domain of warfare and a domain in which there is already total war being waged by Russia against the west. That means taking the gloves off and taking the information fight into the heart of Russia. It means a unified and integrated OSINT capability to share information across NATO members in real time on all Russian information campaigns. Such a system would have picked up the TikTok campaign that propelled the far right Romanian candidate to the top of the ballot. But it cannot only be reactive, it has to be proactive and information warfare needs to be actually waged and not played at.
Second, we need to hope that Romanian political parties can form a popular front movements on the French model to win in the run off.
During the Cold War, the domino theory warned of the sequential fall of nations to communism, each loss threatening the broader security and stability of democratic states. Romania obviously occupies a strategic position in Europe, bordering Ukraine and acting as a critical bulwark against Russian influence in Eastern Europe. It is a base for significant NATO forces.
The election of a pro-Russian president would signal a potential pivot away from Western alignment, creating vulnerabilities within NATO and the EU. A Romania sympathetic to Moscow could undermine sanctions against Russia when they rely on unanimous voting, weaken NATO’s eastern flank, and embolden other pro-Russian movements in neighboring countries like Moldova, which at the moment the West is holding. It could also join in alliance with the pro-Russia regime in Georgia. In this sense, the domino theory feels disturbingly relevant: the erosion of one state’s democratic integrity can ripple across a region, creating a chain reaction of destabilization. Hitler’s ascent was marked by his ability to exploit widespread economic discontent, nationalist fervor, and anti-democratic sentiments, ultimately leading to the collapse of democratic institutions in Germany. The victory of a far-right candidate in Romania would reflect an even more widespread erosion of democratic norms, fueled by economic grievances, societal polarization, and disillusionment with the existing liberal political elite. That the West must take some of the blame for this turn, as the Democrats complacency helped Trump, it is clear that democracy is not sleep walking into oblivion by accident, this is happening by design.
Much like the Nazis, today’s Russian backed far-right movements thrive on populist rhetoric, targeting minorities, opposing liberal values, and promising to restore national pride. Russia provides the finance and the technical support. Moscow leverages each victory or even partial victory to sow division within the EU and NATO.
The Russian propaganda machine has played on several underlying factors that have made Romania particularly vulnerable to these dynamics:
1. Economic Inequality: Persistent poverty and income disparity have fueled frustration with the EU’s promises of prosperity.
2. Corruption Fatigue: A perception of systemic corruption within Romania’s political elite has opened the door for far-right populists to present themselves as alternatives.
3. Cultural Conservatism: Deep-rooted nationalism and traditionalism provide fertile ground for far-right ideologies and Russia has played into US style culture wars in a European context.
The implications of this election extend far beyond Romania. A pro-Russian government in Bucharest would weaken the coherence of NATO’s strategic posture at a time when unity is critical in countering Russian aggression in Ukraine.
In the absence of a unified and fully funded information warfare offensive by NATO, with the gloves off, the only hope for the survival of the current political architecture of Europe is the Popular Front, the unity of democratic forces to preserve plural democracies and the ideal of a cosmopolitan Europe.
The Charlwood Review Books 