A CONVERSATION SHAPING WHAT COMES NEXT:

The global security architecture is being reconfigured in real time. The war in Ukraine has accelerated processes that would have taken decades: the rearmament of Europe, the reconfiguration of NATO, the redefinition of the transatlantic relationship.

The great certainties of the post-Cold War order — America as the ultimate guarantor of European security, Russia as a containable actor, Europe as a post-conflict space — are, one by one, being called into question. Romania is at the centre of this reconfiguration, not at its periphery.

This panel does not map the past. It puts on the table the questions that Romanian decision-makers and their allies must answer now — before events force hasty responses.

DISCUSSION TOPICS

Ukraine — from neighbourhood to strategic partnership
In March 2026, Romania and Ukraine signed a strategic partnership — a document that transformed a relationship built over decades on mistrust and disputes into one of the most relevant bilateral axes in the region. The two countries will jointly produce drones, launch a High-Level Strategic Commission, and hold annual "2+2" consultations at deputy foreign and defence minister level. If Russia loses the war, Ukraine becomes a regional military power with massive needs for modernisation, reconstruction, and European integration — and Romania is the neighbour with the most credible position as a partner. What does this mean concretely for Romania's foreign and defence policy?

How far will the US-Romania Partenership go?
Romania has one of the strongest bilateral military relationships with the United States in the region: the base at Mihail Kogălniceanu, the shield at Deveselu, the Patriot systems. This infrastructure represents both a security asset and a strategic dependency. Against the backdrop of the Trump administration's pressure on European defence spending and the increasingly visible transatlantic divergences over Ukraine, Romania is in a delicate position: an EU member with obligations and benefits, but militarily anchored in American logic. What is the threshold beyond which the "with America" logic needs to be recalibrated? And who decides where that threshold lies?

A European NATO — feasible or paper project?
Europe is quietly but increasingly urgently developing a contingency plan within NATO — a formula capable of functioning even without American support. Former Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis has already outlined the scenario: a European Treaty Organisation that would take over NATO's structures, with or without Canada. European strategic autonomy is not about isolation from allies — it is about the freedom to act when they cannot or will not. But autonomy without real capabilities remains symbolic. Is a European NATO feasible within the timeframe that matters for Romania? And what would be the cost for a country on Europe's eastern frontier?

How is Romania perceived by its allies?

A Transatlantic Trends survey by the German Marshall Fund ranks Romania and Turkey as the transatlantic partners with the lowest levels of trust among citizens of other allied states — an uncomfortable reality, but one that must be addressed. Meanwhile, Romania has consolidated its image as a "regional stability anchor", increased its defence budget, and signed strategic partnerships with Ukraine. Is there a gap between what Romania does and how it is perceived? And what needs to change — in substance or in communication — for Romania to play the regional role it claims?

The R&D frontier is moving faster than procurement cycles, regulatory frameworks, or military doctrines. What is technically possible today is outrunning the structures designed to evaluate, acquire, and deploy it. Adrian Popa and Victor Cozmei bring complementary perspectives across industry and technology, guiding a panel of innovators and defense technology specialists through the decisions that will define capability in the next decade.
Co-moderated by Adrian Popa ( and Victor Cozmei TBC)

DISCUSSION TOPICS — STRUCTURED BY SAFE CAPABILITY CATEGORIES
Topics are structured around the capability categories prioritised under the European SAFE instrument (Security Action for Europe, €150bn), organised by force domain — ensuring direct relevance to the current financing and procurement agenda.


LAND FORCES — Ground Combat & Soldier Systems
Armoured vehicles and ground combat systems
The transition from legacy platforms to connected, autonomous, and hybrid vehicles. What does modernising land forces require in a high-intensity war of attrition — and what lessons from the Ukrainian theatre are transferable?
Anti-drone systems and counter-mobility
NATO Class 1 drones and associated countermeasures — the fastest-evolving dimension of the land battlefield. How do you integrate drone defence into existing tactical structures without redesigning entire doctrines?
Individual soldier equipment
Exoskeletons, integrated sensors, tactical communications — the boundary between physiology and technology is blurring. Where is the realistic cost-effectiveness threshold for medium-sized European forces?

AIR FORCES — Air & Missile Defence, Strategic Airlift
Layered air and missile defence
From Patriot to IRIS-T and SHORAD — Europe's air defence architecture is being rebuilt in real time. What is the logic of multi-layer integration and who ensures interoperability between systems produced by different actors?
Air-to-air refuelling and force projection
Strategic airlift and air-to-air refuelling remain Europe's biggest capability gaps relative to NATO. How are these capabilities financed and shared within the logic of European strategic autonomy?
NATO Class 2 and 3 drones — the systems redefining air power
Medium and large drones are no longer reconnaissance tools — they are precision strike vectors at industrial scale. What does integrating them into European air forces mean in terms of doctrine, training, and infrastructure?

NAVAL FORCES — Maritime Surface & Underwater
Surface and underwater naval capabilities
The Black Sea has returned as an active theatre of operations. What lessons does the naval war in Ukraine offer for European naval architecture — and how is NATO responding to asymmetric underwater threats?
Critical maritime infrastructure protection
Undersea cables, gas pipelines, energy hubs — critical maritime infrastructure is a validated target. What technical solutions exist, what is their maturity level, and who can deliver them at European scale?

CYBER, AI & ELECTRONIC WARFARE
Artificial intelligence in tactical and operational decision-making
AI is no longer research — it is already inside decision loops. But how autonomous can an engagement decision be? Where are the ethical, legal, and operational limits of AI in defence?
Electronic warfare and the electromagnetic spectrum
Dominance of the electromagnetic spectrum is a prerequisite for dominance across all other domains. What does electronic warfare mean in a high-intensity conflict — and where does Europe stand relative to its adversaries?
Cyber defence — from infrastructure to doctrine
Cyberattacks have preceded every major military offensive of the last decade. What does a robust national and allied cyber defence look like — and where does defence end and offence begin?

SPACE & STRATEGIC ENABLERS — C4ISTAR
Space as an operational domain
Observation, communications, and navigation satellites are no longer "support" — they are critical combat infrastructure. How does Europe protect its space assets and what response capabilities does it have in the event of an attack?
C4ISTAR — command and control on the modern battlefield
Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance — the integration of these systems determines the speed and quality of decision. Where do Romania and its regional allies stand in building this capability?

Defence is no longer a political decision — it is an economic imperative with consequences that extend far beyond the military sphere. For decades, NATO's 2% of GDP target seemed aspirational. Today it is a minimum threshold, as European states are being pushed by the security environment toward 3%, 4%, even 5% of GDP allocated to defence. Figures of this magnitude can hardly be sustained through traditional budget reallocation alone, without enormous deficits, tax increases, or a fundamental rethinking of fiscal philosophy.

Romania has travelled from 1% to 2% of GDP over ten years. The next steps — from 2.5% toward 5% by 2035 — can hardly follow the same logic, because these are percentages of the national economy, not fixed sums. The money simply does not exist, and the way Romania's fiscal system operates would not allow for an allocation of this scale to defence.

The only credible path runs through growing the economy itself — in a way where a defence industry generating sufficient added value (wages, profit), and therefore greater fiscal space, gradually finances its own expansion. Defence spending thus becomes investment, through a multiplier effect.

This panel examines what "strategic investment" actually means in practice — and what the risks of a misguided approach to military allocations would be.

Moderated by Moise Guran

DISCUSSION TOPICS

Offset models — between promise and reality
Offset agreements — through which foreign defence contractors reinvest a portion of contract value into the local economy — are the central mechanism through which arms imports are currently integrated into local industrial development. But offset models vary enormously in ambition, structure, and actual outcomes. Which models generate real technology transfer and genuine local capability? Which produce only assembly of imported components, presented as "national production"? The panel maps the spectrum and identifies what Romania and the region should be negotiating at the contract table.

Beyond offset — how can a rearmament be financed?
Defence bonds, NATO financing mechanisms, European defence funds, public-private partnerships, SAFE — the instruments are multiplying rapidly. Romania has already received European Commission approval for SAFE financing — the €150 billion European instrument created for rapid investment in defence industry, defence technology, and civilian infrastructure with a strategic role — with an allocation of €16.68 billion. But each instrument comes with different conditions, timelines, and political costs. What combination of financing mechanisms is realistic for a medium-sized European economy with existing fiscal constraints?

How does the banking sector view the defence industry?
For years, ESG frameworks kept European banks and institutional investors away from financing the defence sector. That position is reversing — but unevenly and cautiously. What is the current appetite of the banking sector for financing the defence industry? What conditions does it impose? And what structural changes — in regulation, risk assessment, political signals — are needed to unlock private capital at the scale the sector requires?

The socio-economic case for developing a defence industry
A locally rooted defence industry is not only a security asset — it is a driver of employment, a research and development multiplier, a supply chain anchor for adjacent industries. States that understood this logic earliest — the US, Israel, France, South Korea — built industrial ecosystems that generate civilian effects far beyond the initial defence investment. What does this model look like at the scale of Romania and the region? What is the realistic horizon of socio-economic impact — and how is it credibly measured?

Traps to avoid
Defence industry booms attract the full spectrum of actors: serious long-term investors, opportunistic contractors, and political rent-seekers. Procurement cycles create distortions. Offset commitments go unmonitored. Industrial capabilities are announced and never built. The panel names the patterns that produce waste instead of capability — and the governance structures that separate countries building durable defence industries from those buying expensive equipment and calling it strategy.

Geopolitics and economics — when the map is redrawn, who wins the contracts?
The defence economy does not exist in a vacuum. It responds to geopolitical pressures — and none is more transformative right now than the evolution of the war in Ukraine. A scenario in which Russia loses militarily does not mean only a peace treaty. It means a reconfiguration of the regional security architecture with direct and immediate economic consequences: who rebuilds Ukraine, who rearms it, who sells it military technology in the decades ahead.

Ukraine entered this war with a post-Soviet transition army. It is exiting it — whatever the outcome — as one of the most battle-tested military forces in Europe. If Russia loses, Ukraine becomes a regional military power with massive need for rearmament, modernisation, and integration into NATO and EU structures. That means contracts, technology transfer, industrial partnerships — an emerging defence market worth tens of billions of euros, on Romania's border.

MODERATOR

Moise Guran is one of Romania's most recognised journalists and economic analysts. He does not come with prepared answers — he comes with the questions that make answers impossible to avoid. In a debate where figures can be weaponised and ambitions can substitute for plans, his moderation provides the framework for a necessary conversation: one in which data is confronted with reality, and institutional positions are tested against evidence.