Oh my. This morning I woke up to read this:

Socialist Party chairman Igor Dodon accused Washington of pressing for the “terrible scenario” of the unification of Moldova and Romania and urged a return “home” of tiny, politically fraught Moldova “back in the U.S.S.R.” through membership of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union.

Well, no. Let’s not forget that Radio “Free” Europe (which wrote the above story) is a paid propaganda tool of the United States. So the paragraph above is “spun”, or presented with a slanted perspective.

What really happened was that Igor Dodon gave an interview to Komsomolskaya Pravda (KP), which has a local Moldovan edition (in Russian), and he more or less screwed up the interview. He meandered from subject to subject, constantly reversing himself, and seemed utterly unprepared to present his talking points in what was clearly a softball interview.

What he actually said was something along the lines of “The stabile economy of the days of the Soviet Union were much better than what we’ve got today. I know it’s a fairytale now, and we’ll never go back to those days, but I’m in support of Moldova joining the Customs Union [Russia’s “EU-like” trading bloc]. That’s why I say I’m not pro-Russia but pro-USSR.”

Dodon, despite his completely undisguised warm feelings toward Russia, is actually a politician who would not be out of place in Romania. He’s a simple-minded guy who has strong passions (including love for his country Moldova) but not exactly much of a strategist or good at forward thinking.

Dodon is the leader of the Socialist Party, the most popular party in Moldova, but he’s not the real mastermind. That position is held by Zinaida Greceanu, who narrowly lost a bid to become the mayor of Chisinau last year and is far, far more cunning and intelligent than Dodon. Her “problem” is simply that she’s a woman, and smart, cunning women aren’t very appealing (politically) in this part of the world, so she’s reduced to being the “power behind the throne” in the Socialist Party.

For a related case, see Adrian Nastase’s wife Dana Miculescu, who is a thousand times smarter than her husband, and was clearly behind many of his decisions (including the faked suicide).

In other news, Pavel “Mr. Midnight” Filip, the ostensibly pro-EU politician and tenuous holder of the title of Prime Minister of Moldova, is now pushing for closer ties with Russia. What?

“In view of traditional friendly ties between the two states and given that a huge number of Moldovan residents reside in Russia, our country wants to develop constructive cooperation with partners from Russia,” the cabinet of ministers’ press service quoted Filip as saying.

Earlier this week, Filip’s cabinet was holding meetings with the Russian import regulator Rosselkhoznadzor to allow more Moldovan agricultural products to be exported to Russia. Much of this trade was blocked on (bullshit) “technical reasons” after RM signed the Association Agreement with the EU in 2013.

It’s hard to sum up the difficult position that RM is in right now but essentially there are several forces at play. First, there is TREMENDOUS pressure to join the EU, most of it from exterior forces (especially Romania, acting as a proxy for the USA). Secondly, the RM economy needs to pick a side and stick with it, meaning either exports go to the EU (as is happening now to a limited degree) or they go to the CU (Customs Union), but they can’t go to both. Third, Moldovans have immensely strong ties with Russia that include speaking/understanding the language, historical ties due to the USSR days, and a huge percentage of Moldovans are now working in Russia, sending vital remittances back home.

As Dodon stated in his interview (not included in the English analysis), a few years ago just 6% of Moldovans wanted to “reunite” with Romania while now that level is much higher (he said 22%, other Romanians I’ve seen say it’s in excess of 33%). All patriotic and brotherly feelings aside, the cold hard truth is that neither Romania nor the EU have the resources to step into the gap and provide all the services and (economic) support that Russia is RIGHT NOW giving to RM.

That’s why I hate to read stupid stuff like this, an interview (in Romanian) with Vasile Dancu, now both the deputy PM of Romania as well as a cabinet minister. I’ve met Mr. Dancu many times, and he’s one hell of a good writer (fiction and otherwise) but he’s been locked up in his Transylvanian ivory tower too long and looking at everything academically.

But Dancu is right about one thing – Romanians don’t have much enthusiasm for a political union with RM. The whole idea of unification had some currency in 1990, when a rabidly pro-Union government in RM backfired spectacularly with the loss of Transnistria, but in the past decade the idea is almost entirely a fantasy indulged in solely by political elites in RM and Romania.

Basescu (Romania’s president from 2004-2014), Dorin Chirtoaca, Chisinau’s lunatic mayor (2007-present), and a handful of others have been pushing for the “reUnion” for a long time, but the idea has gained some urgency since 2014 when the American government began developing a new anti-Russian strategy for complicated reasons that ultimately stem from a need to ensure military and economic dominance of the planet.

This is best summed up by this press statement released by George Maior (in Romanian) after a meeting with a shadowy “thinktank” this week. Maior, who was the long-time head of the SRI (Romania’s intelligence agency), is now the Romanian Ambassador to the United States. Earlier this week, the Pentagon revealed its future strategy of “countering Russia” with a ton of military equipment, troops and ships in eastern Europe, and most definitely that includes Romania.

Therefore, connecting the dots, we see:

• The USA has a strategic reason to exaggerate the threat from Russia
• In order to increase the American military presence in Romania
• Which will include a massive increase of naval power in the Black Sea
• And if a political union with RM can be achieved then awesome
• Because it will put American troops that much closer to Russia’s border.

The USA needs to boost up Romania’s naval presence in the Black Sea due to the Montreux Convention which heavily restricts how many American warships can be in the Black Sea, and for how long. Romania on the other hand, has an exemption to this treaty because it borders the Black Sea, so that’s why the USA is now pushing for a permanent NATO presence in the Black Sea.

Therefore poor old doddering Dodon is right – there really is a plot afoot to align the stars to make a re-union of RM and Romania happen in 2018 (symbolically 100 years after it first happened) thanks to complex geopolitical tectonic forces in play, but it’s not really due to native sentiment in either RM or Romania.

But if we’re really being honest, it isn’t a few old-timers in RM who miss the USSR the most, it’s actually the United States government, which needs to recreate the good old days of having an “evil empire” (Russia) to scare the American people into forking over hundreds of billions of dollars to in order to continue destroying, occupying, and conquering the entire world.