Defining the Current and Foreseeable Operating Environment and the Role of the Romanian Armed Forces on the Eastern Side of the North Atlantic Alliance

The character of the battlefield is becoming more nuanced and even different as new emerging and disruptive technologies are discovered and developed. Defining the operating environment as an integrating term for all that is represented by armed combat has been and will remain a necessity, especially now that the international defence system and, by consequence, the military system is experiencing a flood of innovative concepts. The operating environment cannot be sufficiently defined without reference to the actors that participate and generate its dynamics. In this regard, we consider it necessary to provide a new perspective on the main forms of threats to the security of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in which we will focus the attention of this study on the security environment on the eastern side of the North Atlantic Alliance, with specific focus on highlighting the place and role that Romania has in the NATO architectural framework, aiming at the geostrategic area already mentioned. In order to meet the above-mentioned objective, we will resort to methods specific to military sciences, such as historical analysis, study of documents and comparative analysis, aiming to validate the working hypothesis that Romania is a member that contributes essentially to NATO’s defence mission in the current security environment and the threats to it, at present and in the future.