International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES)[1] from Ljubljana, Slovenia, regularly analyses developments in the Middle East, the Balkans, and around the world. In the article “The ‘Russians’ Within Us – Between the Myth of Foreign Infiltration and the Reality OF Internal Capture: Anatomy of an imperfect democracy – Romania - (Part II),” Dr. Cătălin Balog, an analyst and trainer with extensive expertise in intelligence, information security, and strategic communication, continues his exploration of whether peace can be preserved without resorting to force. He offers comprehensive analysis of global reactions, European ambivalence, non-Western opportunism, and Romania’s vulnerabilities.
Between the indictment issued by the Prosecutor General’s Office and the report released by the AUR Party on the annulment of the 2024 elections, the honest citizen remains trapped in a deep fissure – the contradiction between democratic forms and inherited reflexes of submission rooted in the Phanariote (Ottoman) and Oligarchic (Russian) models. Romania remains an imported democracy: anchored in NATO and the EU, yet deprived of internal trust. The state demands loyalty; the opposition claims morality – but neither inspires confidence. The state lacks transparency, the opposition indulges in rhetoric. Between them, the honest citizen becomes “the 10th man ” – the one who refuses convenient consensus and defends the right to ask questions through a final appeal to moral integrity, for democracy cannot be defended through fear, but only through truth.
Intellectual conformism, popular distrust and the myth of foreign infiltration
For more than three decades, Romania has been living in a state of permanent tension between two apparently opposed, but in reality, complementary, forces: on the one hand, an increasingly sophisticated intellectual conformism, which mimics lucidity and institutional rationality; on the other hand, a deep, instinctive popular distrust, fuelled by successive disappointments, betrayed promises and an acute perception of injustice. Between these two registers the real process of erosion of Romanian democracy takes place.
In this space of psychological and civic rupture, an extremely convenient explanatory myth took shape, almost invisibly: the myth of external infiltration. Every time a mechanism is blocked, when an institution loses its credibility, when the elite delegitimizes itself or when the electoral process seems contaminated, the temptation arises for an external explanation: "Russians", "foreigners", "dark networks", "agents". This narrative has the advantage of being simple, emotionally effective and, above all, shifting responsibility from within the community to a distant enemy, difficult to demonstrate and impossible to control.
This second part of the paper "The Anatomy of an Imperfect Democracy – Romania" aims at precisely the opposite of this reflex: an analytical retreat into the reality of internal capture – a much more banal process, but infinitely more dangerous than any alleged external conspiracy. It is not infiltration that constitutes the dominant mechanism of Romania's degradation, but self-capture: through networks of informal loyalty, through negative selection, through rewarded obedience, and through a slow erosion of the criteria of merit and responsibility.
This structural deformation was possible not in the absence of institutions, but in their formal presence. The state continued to exist, but its internal logic was gradually converted into a form of politocracy – a domination of network political interest over legitimate public interest, a substitution of competence for belonging and individual responsibility for group discipline.
At the same time, popular distrust has not been treated as a symptom of an institutional pathology, but has been instrumentalized, pathologized or associated with extremism, populism and the "danger in the East"; This labelling has led not to a social healing, but to an even deeper fracture between official discourse and perceived reality.
The present paper does not deny the existence of external pressures, influences or operations – they have always been part of the logic of international relations – but argues, with arguments and systemic analysis, that Romania’s main vulnerability factor is of an internal nature: an accumulation of small, repeated, normalized and, finally, accepted as the norm.
Therefore, this part of the paper is not about "Romania's enemies", but about its structural weaknesses; not about conspiracies, but about responsibility; not about external culprits, but about the mechanisms by which a society undermines its own future.
Between memory, myth and strategic disorientation
Romania's relationship with the counterintelligence doctrine is inseparable from its contradictory history in the twentieth century and the geopolitical trauma of positioning between empires. Unlike other states in the Soviet bloc, Romania has never had a linear or unambiguous relationship with Moscow. On the contrary, after 1968, when the Ceausescu regime refused to participate in the military intervention against Czechoslovakia, there was a real crack within the Warsaw Pact, and the Romanian security logic began to orient itself not only against the "Western enemy", according to the official doctrine, but also against Soviet penetration itself.
The establishment of special structures – later known informally as "Unit Zero" (UM 0110) – reflected a reality rarely publicly acknowledged: the fact that, within the Romanian security apparatus, there was a constant concern for monitoring and countering Soviet influence[2]. It was, of course, a risky game, played within the rigid confines of a forced alliance, but it created a particular kind of professional reflex, one that cannot be reduced, as is done simplistically today, by generic labels.
This culture of selective suspicion – also directed at the "official ally" – generated not only a certain type of operative competence, but also a real fracture in the relations between Romania and the central mechanisms of the USSR. In public discourse and in the literature after 1989, this reality is rarely discussed in a nuanced way, most of the time, the entire apparatus being either demonized in bloc or idealized in a heroic key, without analytical discernment. The truth, as usual, is much more uncomfortable: there were professionals, but also opportunists; There were structural constraints, but also spaces of relative autonomy[3].
The rupture of 1989 did not mean, however, a coherent reconstruction of the counterintelligence doctrine. On the contrary, what was lost then was not only a political regime, but also an institutional continuity assumed with lucidity. Under the pressure of public opinion, the desire for a quick purge and the import of Western models lacking critical criteria, there was a major confusion between the state and the regime, between doctrine and ideology, between the need for the defensive function and the memory of traumas.
From this moment on, Romania's deep vulnerability in terms of information begins. Not because the structures have been completely abolished, but because they have been left without a clear philosophy, their own, adapted to national interests. It was a period in which we worked through imitation rather than reflection: imported doctrines, adopted language, concepts taken over mechanically, without real integration into the Romanian context.
This intellectual dependence produced a paradox: while the official discourse spoke obsessively of "external infiltration" and "hybrid threats", the real weakness was installed within, through the loss of criteria, of the autonomy of the professional reflex and, above all, of one's own strategic culture. Thus, Romania no longer knew clearly against whom and how to defend itself.
Hence today's rupture: a society that constantly invokes the idea of an external conspiracy, but which has abandoned precisely the most difficult hypothesis to accept, namely that the degradation of the defence capacity begins with the internal degradation of value criteria, professional courage and institutional honesty[4].
Understanding this process is essential before talking about myths, influence, or manipulation operations. Without an honest clarification of one's own institutional history and one's own strategic abandonments, any discussion of "foreign agents" remains an exercise in psychological projection, not one of strategic analysis. This is where the next stage of analysis comes from: the mythology of infiltration – the mechanism by which fear replaced lucidity, and emotional explanation took the place of rational assumption.
When emotional explanation replaces analysis
Societies that go through prolonged crises develop an almost invariable psychological mechanism: the search for a simple cause for a complex phenomenon. This need for simplification, amplified by insecurity, frustration and the lack of clear perspectives, often leads to the construction of an external explanatory figure – an occult actor, an invisible force, an infiltrated enemy – that ends up concentrating all the internal vulnerabilities of the system. In post-1989 Romania, this figure was, almost ritually, associated with the "foreign agent" and, much more specifically, with the "Russian agent".
The problem is not that external influences do not exist; they exist in all states, in different, permanent and often sophisticated ways. However, the problem arises when this reality turns into a unique and totalizing explanation, cancelling any analysis of internal causes and substituting critical reflection with an imaginary defence reflex. At this point, the discourse about security is turning into a political mythology[5].
This mythology of infiltration works according to a predictable pattern: in moments of economic crisis, political polarization, institutional degradation or failure of reforms, the explanation shifts from the responsibility of decision-makers to an alleged occult intervention. Thus, failure no longer belongs to an incompetent political class, a flawed administrative structure or a society that has tolerated compromise, but to an abstract, omnipresent public "enemy", difficult to prove and impossible to control. Paradoxically, this explanation does not strengthen civic vigilance, but paralyzes it, because it moves the problem outside any possibility of democratic control.
From a psycho-social point of view, this mechanism is perfectly explainable; Solomon Asch's classic experiments on conformism and Stanley Milgram's on obedience show how easily moral responsibility can be shifted from the individual to real or imaginary authority[6]. When a community is constantly bombarded with messages about danger, infiltration, betrayal, and subversion, it develops not a sense of vigilance, but a state of latent panic, which can then be selectively targeted.
In this context, critics of the existing order are no longer perceived as legitimate actors of public debate, but are subjected to a process of symbolic pathologization; they are no longer "opponents", but become "extremists", "agents of influence", "propagandists", "destabilizing elements". Any uncomfortable interrogation is interpreted not as a democratic exercise, but as an indication of subversion. Thus, the pluralism of ideas, the foundation of any authentic democracy, is replaced by a forced consensus, supported not by arguments, but by fear and stigmatization[7].
Through this process, a dangerous reversal of democratic logic is reached: it is no longer the one who holds power and exercises it arbitrarily, but the one who criticizes it; incompetence or corruption is no longer investigated, but the supposed "external connection" of the one who dares to criticize. Thus, the mythology of infiltration becomes a tool for protecting mediocrity and a mechanism for camouflaging internal capture.
Ironically, this obsession with foreign agents also had a serious side effect: it diverted attention from internal networks of interests, from the real mechanisms by which institutions were emptied of content and transformed into mere democratic settings. While the public space feverishly discusses invisible scenarios, the visible process of degradation goes on unhindered. Hence the next stage of the analysis: it is not external infiltration that is the core of Romania's vulnerability, but the limited ability to recognize and stop its own internal degradation. And it is this mechanism – much less spectacular, but infinitely more effective – that defines what can be called, without exaggeration, the internal capture of the state[8].
Why Romania is blocking from the inside, not from the outside
One of the most persistent illusions of the Romanian public discourse is that the vulnerability of the state comes primarily from outside: from "agents", "networks", "foreign interests", "geopolitical pressures". It is a form of self-protection and, in a sense, a natural psychological reflex. It is always easier to identify an invisible, unresponsive culprit than to look directly at the internal mechanisms that have slowly and surely eroded the institutions' ability to function.
The reality of the last 35 years, however, is much more prosaic and, therefore, more difficult to accept: Romania was not captured from the outside, but from the inside. The capture does not have as its vector infiltration, but the gradual replacement of merit with loyalty, professionalism with belonging to the network, criteria with complicity. It is a slow degradation, without spectacularity, without conspiracy episodes, but with devastating effects[9].
This form of capture is not a Romanian exception; the international literature calls it "state capture" and describes it as a process by which access to decision-making is seized by small groups, interested in their own control rather than in state coherence[10]. The difference, in the Romanian case, is that this phenomenon did not arise against a background of classic corruption, but against a background of structural fragility: institutions without real autonomy, incomplete elites, professional selection mechanisms damaged since the '90s, and a disoriented society, willing to confuse visibility with competence.
The degradation of merit did not happen all at once. It started discreetly, with the first generational changes, when each institution was forced to choose between two incompatible pillars: professional continuity and political obedience. Half-measures, improvised promotions, quickly turned into a rule, fuelled a kind of habituation to mediocrity. And mediocrity, once installed in decision-making areas, works according to an implacable logic: it promotes its own gender, its own reflexes, its own fear.
Thus, Romania has entered a vicious circle in which punctual incompetence is not the problem, but the institutionalization of incompetence. When the criteria disappear, other types of selection appear: loyalty, silence, willingness to compromise, docility to the network. And these mechanisms are propagated not by law or doctrine, but by administrative mimicry – by the fear of exclusion, by the reflex of compliance and by the lack of a real sanction for a wrong decision[11].
All this time, democratic appearances have been impeccably preserved: formal competitions, ethical declarations, procedural rules, mimicked transparency. But the contents emptied; What is left is an institutional shell that is functional only on the surface, a state that speaks European, but operates according to a network logic. This is, in fact, politocracy (see part I): not the dictatorship of a party, but the informal domination of a political caste that reproduces itself through mechanisms invisible to the public and impervious to genuine merit[12].
The internal capture produced not only administrative deadlock, but also a form of moral immunity of those in power. Once the criterion of competence disappears, responsibility also disappears. Institutions are no longer evaluated according to performance, but according to their ability to avoid scandal, to navigate the grey area, to preserve appearances. Romania is not badly run because it is infiltrated, but because it has been colonized from within by a way of functioning that structurally rejects merit and cultivates a mediocrity skilled for survival.
This form of capture is much more difficult to combat than any external infiltration, because it has no face, no leader, no formal structure; it is diffuse, modular, adaptable, transmitted through examples, rewards and silences; it is one of the few social phenomena that does not require intention to function, and its lack of courage is sufficient.
That's why the mythology of infiltration has caught on so well: it offers a simple, emotional, manageable explanation. Internal capture, on the contrary, forces us to look in the mirror. And this mirror shows us the next level of the problem: how the degradation of merit intersects with the electoral space, with influence operations and with the public perception of "foreign interference".
The grey area between reality, perception and myth
In a democratic regime, elections represent the supreme moment of popular sovereignty. In theory, they consecrate the will of the majority and legitimize political power. In practice, however, they are rarely a pure exercise in civic reason; They are spaces of emotion, fear, hope, frustration, latent manipulation and influence – a framework in which the psychological element often weighs more than the programmatic argument.
In these areas of maximum collective sensitivity, operations of influence inevitably appear; not in the conspiratorial sense, but in the broad sense of the concept: the attempt to shape perceptions, to direct preferences, to accentuate or diminish certain political impulses. Influence is inherent in any electoral process; Propaganda, political marketing, strategic discourse, calculated silence, message selection – all are part of this equation[13].
In this context, HUMINT (Human Intelligence) is often misunderstood in the public space. It is not, as the popular imagination suggests, an exclusive field of classic espionage, clandestine meetings and spectacular recruitments. In reality, in the political area, HUMINT can be as banal and subtle as the personal relationship, the informed conversation, the social connection, the direct observation of moods, the identification of the emotional vulnerabilities of the groups or the informal channels of transmission of influence[14].
The fundamental difference that Romanian society refuses to internalize is that between operation, perception and myth. An operation requires intention, resources, coherence, coordination and a clear strategic objective. Perception, on the other hand, is the disorderly flow of individual and collective interpretations, often fuelled by rumour, emotion, and snippets of truth. Myth arises when perception organizes itself in the narrative and begins to function as an explanatory reality, regardless of the evidence.
In Romania, the area of elections is dominated more by myth and perception than by proven real operations. The fact that a political actor meets with a foreign diplomat, participates in an international event, uses messages convenient to an external party, or adopts a critical discourse against the West does not automatically constitute evidence of a foreign infiltration or control operation[15], but is rather the result of a historical reflex: that of translating any deviation from the dominant line as betrayal or external contamination.
This hasty interpretation is dangerous for two reasons. First of all, it eliminates from the analysis its own internal causes of the protest vote: poverty, social humiliation, rural abandonment, chronic inequalities, lack of prospects. Secondly, it transforms democracy into a theatre of permanent suspicion, where the voter is no longer considered an autonomous political subject, but a victim or accomplice of a foreign power[16].
In reality, the area of influence is much less spectacular and much more local. It manifests itself through informal channels, through secondary opinion leaders, through old personal relationships, through economic dependencies, through small promises and silent compromises. It is a fragmentary, often incoherent process, exploited not only by external actors, but above all by internal networks that mimic geopolitical interests to justify their positions or actions.
The compromise thus becomes a bargaining chip. Not always in the legal sense, but in the moral sense: accepting silence in exchange for protection, avoiding truth in exchange for stability, renouncing criteria in exchange for belonging. And this type of compromise, repeated and summed up at the collective level, weakens the electoral process much more deeply than any external attempt to influence.
The paradox is that, through its obsession with the foreign hand, Romania has lost sight of the very domestic hand that has gradually reconfigured the rules of the game. It is not external algorithms that decide the final result, but the moral state of society, the coherence of institutions and the citizen's ability to distinguish between message and manipulation, between option and reflex.
Therefore, this chapter does not aim to minimize the risk of external interference, but to reaffirm an uncomfortable thesis: a society with clear criteria, functional elites and vigilant citizens cannot be easily hijacked by external influence. Conversely, however, a fragmented, disenchanted and landmark less society becomes permeable not because it is attacked, but because it is already cracked[17]. And this finding inevitably leads us to the last level of the analysis: the information environment after 1989, the emergence of OSINT, the amplification of PSYOPS and the erosion of the professional culture that once represented a natural defence mechanism.
From the professional reflex to informational vulnerability
After 1989, Romania went through not only a political and economic transition, but also a profound informational one. What was initially perceived as a liberation of public discourse – pluralism, access to diverse sources, the exit from the monopoly of state propaganda – gradually turned into a chaotic space, dominated by fragmentation, information overabundance and the loss of reference points for verification. In this equation, the emergence and generalization of OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) have not been accompanied by the development of a culture of filtering, interpretation and critical validation of information[18].
OSINT quickly became accessible to all, but in the absence of a real informational education, this openness did not produce an autonomy of thought, but its vulnerability. Any source was perceived as equivalent to another, any statement acquired the status of "alternative truth", and the difference between information, interpretation and manipulation completely blurred. Paradoxically, the wider the access to information, the more the capacity for discernment decreased[19].
In this confusing space, influence operations (PSYOPS) have found an ideal terrain. Not through sophisticated messages, but through the exploitation of basic emotional mechanisms: fear, indignation, belonging, negative belonging, the need for confirmation. Romania did not become an easy target because it would have been technologically weak, but because it became epistemically unstable – unsure of its own criteria of truth[20].
This informational vulnerability has been doubled by a profound transformation of military and institutional culture. During the communist period, regardless of the ideological character of the regime, there was a form of continuity of discipline, security reflexes and respect for rigour. After 1989, these elements were not reformed, but, to a large extent, abandoned or ridiculed; everything related to vigilance, strategy, doctrine or professional secrecy was associated with the old regime and, by ricochet, rejected without nuance[21].
Thus, a serious fracture occurred: as the informational dangers of the contemporary world became more and more sophisticated, Romania gave up precisely the mental reflexes that could have protected it. Discreet professionalism has been replaced by demonstrative transparency, and prudence – by media exhibitionism. Intelligent silence was no longer cultivated, but "visibility"; discernment was no longer rewarded, but conformity to the dominant discourse.
In this vacuum, what we can call the militarization of civilian discourse and the irresponsible civilianization of military discourse[22] has emerged. Terms such as "psy-ops", "hybrid warfare", "fifth column", "external interference" have entered the everyday vocabulary, but without a conceptual anchor, without clear criteria and without epistemic responsibility. Any disagreement could be labelled as an "operation", any error as "sabotage", any question as a "hostile narrative".
This confusion has profoundly affected not only the public space, but also the relationship between society and security structures. Instead of a trust obtained through competence and discretion, a double suspicion has been established: institutions suspect society, society suspects institutions. It is the ideal environment for the propagation of collective psychosis and for amplifying myths about infiltration, without real tools of validation or rejection[23].
In this context, OSINT is no longer a tool for clarification, but becomes raw material for spontaneous PSYOPS, carried out by individuals, groups, influencers, pseudo-experts or informal networks that manipulate without a coherent strategy, but with real effects on collective perception. Thus, a dangerous paradox occurs: the most efficient operations are not coordinated by foreign states, but by the internal chaos of a dysfunctional information ecosystem.
The authentic military culture – the one based on rigor, silence, discernment and assumption – would not have cancelled this chaos, but it could have limited it. Its absence, on the other hand, amplifies it. However, it is precisely this absence that is one of the major consequences of the internal degradation analysed in the previous chapters.
Therefore, the conclusion of this chapter – and, implicitly, of this third part of the series – is not that Romania would be the perfect victim of a sophisticated foreign operation, but that it has become vulnerable by abandoning its own cultural, intellectual and institutional defence mechanisms.
It was not infiltration, but the renunciation of criteria that weakened us
If previously we have described the degradation of the democratic framework and the metamorphosis of political power into a form of politocracy, in this part we have tried to answer a more uncomfortable and difficult to accept question: who actually weakened us? The answer that emerges from this analysis is not spectacular and, precisely for this reason, it is difficult to pronounce in a culture seduced by conspiracy narratives: Romania's most dangerous vulnerability is not external infiltration, but internal degradation[24].
The mythology of the foreign agent—obsessively reiterated in the public space—functioned as a psychological screen; it allowed guilt to shift outside the community, into the vague zone of the external threat, and diluted one's own responsibility. In reality, the mechanisms that have eroded institutional capacity, meritocracy and decision-making coherence belong to the process of self-capture: informal networks of loyalty, reversal of selection, reward of obedience, fear of sanctioning mediocrity and tacit acceptance of moral compromise[25].
It is not a question of a lack of strategic intelligence, nor of the absence of resources or the inability to learn, but of the abandonment of the standards that should have protected us: professional rigour, a culture of responsibility, critical thinking and the criterion of discipline. When these benchmarks are put into perspective, even the most efficient institutional architecture can no longer produce stability. Thus, the state continues to exist formally, but loses its internal coherence, and democracy becomes a mere decoration[26].
In this context, external influence – real, inevitable and present in any open system – is no longer a primary cause, but a secondary factor amplified by an internal fragility. If a solid society can absorb, filter and even turn this influence into opportunity, a disoriented society, devoid of criteria and cohesion, turns it into an existential threat[27].
This final part of the series does not propose miraculous solutions and does not promise saviours, but formulates a basic, simple and uncomfortable condition: reconstruction begins with the restoration of the inner truth. The truth about competence, about responsibility, about the courage to separate the value of belonging and discernment from obedience. Without this minimal act of moral clarity, any reform remains only a cosmetic operation and any speech becomes a wooden language.
After all, democracy does not die when it is attacked, but when it is simulated and is not lost when it is criticized, but when it is no longer defended by those who should live it, daily, through their own choices. And if there is one conclusion worth remembering from this analysis, it is this: the "Russians" are not in our institutions, but in our reflexes to avoid the truth about ourselves. And until these reflexes are recognized, any attempt at reform will remain incomplete, incomplete, ineffective[28].
1. Asch, Solomon E. (1951). Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgments. In: Guetzkow, H. (Ed.), Groups, Leadership and Men. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Press.
2. Milgram, Stanley. (1974). Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. New York: Harper & Row.
3. Zimbardo, Philip. (2007). The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. New York: Random House.
4. Hellman, Joel; Jones, Geraint; Kaufmann, Daniel. (2003). Seize the State, Seize the Day: State Capture and Influence in Transition Economies. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 2444. Washington, D.C.
5. Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina. (2015). The Quest for Good Governance: How Societies Develop Control of Corruption. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6. Levitsky, Steven; Ziblatt, Daniel. (2018). How Democracies Die. New York: Crown Publishing.
7. Acemoglu, Daron; Robinson, James A. (2012). Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. New York: Crown Business.
8. Arendt, Hannah. (1963). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Viking Press.
9. Dulles, Allen. (1963). The Craft of Intelligence. New York: Harper & Row.
10. Strano, Michele; Seerai, Darren. (2016). Introduction to Intelligence Studies. Georgetown Security Studies Review, Washington D.C.
11. Steele, Robert David. (2002). The New Craft of Intelligence: Achieving Asymmetric Advantage in the Face of Nontraditional Threats. OSS International Press.
12. Rid, Thomas. (2020). Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
13. Pomerantsev, Peter. (2014). Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: the surreal heart of the new Russia. New York: PublicAffairs.
14. Galeotti, Mark. (2016). Russian Political War: Moving Beyond the Hybrid War. Routledge Journal of Political Science.
15. Nye, Joseph S. (2004). Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. New York: PublicAffairs.
16. Sun Tzu. (~500 BC / modern ed.). The Art of War. Translated by Samuel B. Griffith. Oxford University Press.
17. Huntington, Samuel P. (1968). Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven: Yale University Press.
18. Todorov, Tzvetan. (1996). Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration Camps. New York: Metropolitan Books.
19. Friedman, George. (2009). The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century. New York: Doubleday.
20. Todd, Emmanuel. (2002 / 2011). After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order. London: Constable and Robinson.
About the author:
Col. (ret.) Dr. Cătălin Balog is an analyst and trainer with experience in intelligence, information security and strategic communication. Doctor of Military Sciences, with a thesis dedicated to the management of security risks in cyberspace, he worked for over two decades in structures of the Ministry of National Defence. Currently, he is an associate professor at the University of Bucharest, where he teaches courses on information management. In particular, he is concerned with the analysis of contemporary social and political mechanisms, with a focus on the relationship between ideology, technology and the simulation of democracy.
The article presents the stance of the author and does not necessarily reflect the stance of IFIMES.
Ljubljana/ Bucharest, 20 January 2026
[1] IFIMES – International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies, based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, has Special Consultative status at ECOSOC/UN, New York, since 2018 and it’s publisher of the international scientific journal “European Perspectives”.
[2] Dulles, Allen. (1963). The Craft of Intelligence. New York: Harper & Row.
[3] Strano, Michele; Seerai, Darren. (2016). Introduction to Intelligence Studies. Georgetown Security Studies Review, Washington D.C.
[4] Steele, Robert David. (2002). The New Craft of Intelligence: Achieving Asymmetric Advantage in the Face of Nontraditional Threats. OSS International Press.
[5] Asch, Solomon E. (1951). Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgments. In: Guetzkow, H. (Ed.), Groups, Leadership and Men. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Press.
[6] Milgram, Stanley. (1974). Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. New York: Harper & Row.
[7] Zimbardo, Philip. (2007). The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. New York: Random House.
[8] Arendt, Hannah. (1963). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Viking Press.
[9] Hellman, Joel; Jones, Geraint; Kaufmann, Daniel. (2003). Seize the State, Seize the Day: State Capture and Influence in Transition Economies. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 2444. Washington, D.C.
[10] Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina. (2015). The Quest for Good Governance: How Societies Develop Control of Corruption. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[11] Acemoglu, Daron; Robinson, James A. (2012). Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. New York: Crown Business.
[12] Levitsky, Steven; Ziblatt, Daniel. (2018). How Democracies Die. New York: Crown Publishing.
[13] Nye, Joseph S. (2004). Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. New York: PublicAffairs.
[14] Dulles, Allen. Op.cit.
[15] Strano, Michele; Seerai, Darren. Op.Cit.
[16] Rid, Thomas. (2020). Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
[17] Galeotti, Mark. (2016). Russian Political War: Moving Beyond the Hybrid War. Routledge Journal of Political Science.
[18] Steele, Robert David. (2002). The New Craft of Intelligence: Achieving Asymmetric Advantage in the Face of Nontraditional Threats. OSS International Press.
[19] Rid, Thomas. Op.cit.
[20] Pomerantsev, Peter. (2014). Nothing is true and everything is possible: the surreal heart of the new Russia. New York: PublicAffairs.
[21] Galeotti, Mark. Op.Cit.
[22] Huntington, Samuel P. (1968). Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven: Yale University Press.
[23] Todorov, Tzvetan. (1996). Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration Camps. New York: Metropolitan Books.
[24] Hellman, Joel; Jones, Geraint; Kaufmann, Daniel. Op.Cit.
[25] Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina. Op.Cit.
[26] Levitsky, Steven; Ziblatt, Daniel. Op.Cit.
[27] Friedman, George. (2009). The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century. New York: Doubleday.
[28] Todd, Emmanuel. (2002 / 2011). After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order. London: Constable and Robinson.
