The Security Dilemma of the Wider Black Sea Region : With a Focus on Russia, the United States of America, and Romania

Sammanfattning: The topic of this paper revolves around the security environment of the wider Black Sea region, with a focus on three protagonist states, and an alliance: Russia, the United States of America, Romania, and NATO. This work comes as a response to the normative demand of avoiding an inter-state conflict in this part of the world, an area already characterized by deep mistrust, frozen conflicts, separatist movements, transnational organized crime, terrorism, and great-power struggle between holders of nuclear capabilities. The objective of this paper is explanatory, namely to help pinpoint the root causes of potential conflict between regional players. By pursuing a Defensive Realist approach, it is suggested that perception of insecurity lies at the heart of the negative dynamics. It is the inter-state security dilemma that could have the ultimate effect of transforming tensions into a spiral of conflict, unless such dilemma is mitigated through its regulators. Therefore, ‘by alleviating the security dilemma, conflict in the wider Black Sea region can be avoided’. The testing of this hypothesis constitutes the contents of this paper. The conclusion of the thesis confirms the expected results, namely that there is a security dilemma operating in the wider Black Sea Region, and that the regulators have the ability to influence its escalation, yet particular specifications are to be observed.