NATO Enlargement: Is Romania Ready to Join the Alliance?
Abstract : Romania's efforts to overcome the legacy of its communist past have been more painful and have proceeded with far less dispatch than in most other East European countries. The autocratic and often cruel brand of socialist ideology practiced by Nicolae Ceausescu left the population physically and mentally malnourished. While Ceausescu and his wife were quickly disposed of on December 25, 1989, following a violent popular upheaval, the residual effects of years of enforced political inactivity and over-centralized planning left the country's social and political elites ill-prepared to manage the new paradigm with which they were faced. As a result, the transition to a true democratic form of government and functioning market economy has proceeded at a halting pace. Through it all, Romanians cast their gaze westward, transfixed on the notion of one day earning the right to be a full-fledged member of NATO.