Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review

Just after declaring its independence in 1991, Moldova encountered several challenges to its national security, the most serious of which were the conflict with the breakaway Transnistria1 region and the deployment of Russia's armed forces in the territory of Moldova. Under these circumstances Moldova chose permanent neutrality as a security strategy, ignoring the fact that country didn't meet even minimal requirements for a neutral country. The strategy of neutrality, adopted precipitately, has not added to the minimization of threats to Moldova's national security. Moreover, neutrality has been an obstacle for the state to choose a more suitable and well-balanced security strategy. In addition, declared permanent neutrality could even appear as an obstacle for Moldova in the way towards its strategic goal - EU membership. In this article the peculiarities of Moldova's neutrality and the key problems of state's security strategy are discussed. The factors of Moldova's neutrality, looking from the perspectives of several different approaches of international relations, and Moldova's security dilemmas after the Russian-Georgian war, are analyzed.