Donald W. Bernier

In 1971 Romania was a member of the Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact), but it was not fully cooperating in its activities nor in total agreement with the Soviet Union's interpretation of the organization's mission. Romania saw little threat to its territorial boundaries or to its ideology from the West. On the other hand, since the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 by other pact members, various Romanian leaders have expressed concern about the danger to individual sovereignty from within the pact itself.

Much of the nation's military history has been that of an alliance partner. It has not fought a major battle in any other capacity. How well it has fared at peace tables has depended in large part on the fate of its allies or how the peacemakers believed that the Balkan area of the continent should be divided. In this tradition Romania aligns itself without significant reservation with the Warsaw Pact.

The military establishment consists of ground, naval, air and air defense, and frontier forces. They are administered by a defense ministry, which in turn is responsible to the chief of state. At topmost policy levels, party leaders are interwoven into the controlling group. Political education throughout the forces is supervised by a directorate of the ministry, but the directorate is responsible to the Romanian Communist Party.

Military service has become a national tradition, although the tradition is based largely on the continuing existence of sizable armed forces. The people accept the military establishment willingly enough even though conscription removes a great part of the young male population from the labor force for periods of from sixteen to twenty-four months. The military services are not an overwhelming financial burden and, in local terms, the forces undoubtedly have value to the regime. They support it and give it an appearance of power. Also, the discipline and political indoctrination given the conscripts during their military service is considered beneficial to them and to the country.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The armed forces have been dependent on some major power for arms supply during most of the country's independent history. Equipment and assistance were furnished by Germany between 1870 and 1916. During that time, although the country's population was hardly more than 10 million, with German help it was able to support a large army. It fielded about 500,000 men against Bulgaria in 1913 during the Second Balkan War, for example. In 1916 Romania joined the World War I Allies, but its forces were defeated within a few months and were idled until a few days before the armistice in November 1918. From then until just before World War II they were assisted by France and, to a lesser degree by Great Britain (see ch. 2).

Because of the political situation at the time, Romania was unable to offer resistance when the Soviet Union, by terms of its agreement with Germany in 1939, annexed Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. In June 1941, however when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Romania joined the Germans. Its forces fought the Soviets until 1944 but, after the battle for Stalingrad in 1943, they became too war weary to perform at their best. In 1944, as the Germans were being pushed westward, Romania was overrun by Soviet armies and joined them against Germany.

Nearly all of the military tradition cited by communist regimes since World War II starts at this point. On occasions honoring the forces they are reminded that they mobilized more than 500,000 men for this campaign, suffered 170,000 casualties, and liberated 3,800 localities while helping to push the German armies about 600 miles from central Romania.

A postwar buildup of Romania's forces began in 1947. Since then all major weapons and heavy equipment have been of Soviet design, and organization and training largely followed the Soviet model.

When the Warsaw Pact was formed in 1955 its members were given alliance responsibilities, and new procedures were introduced to enable them to perform as an integrated force. More modern equipment was furnished, basic units were brought closer to authorized combat strengths, and training was undertaken on a larger and more exacting scale. Romania's forces were expanded to nearly the maximum that could be readily sustained by universal conscription. Strengths were greatest before 1964, especially during the Berlin and Cuban crises of the early 1960s. Reduction of the tour of duty in 1964 to sixteen months for most conscripts necessitated a slight reduction in the overall size of the forces.

GOVERNMENTAL AND PARTY CONTROL OVER THE ARMED FORCES

The Ministry of the Armed Forces is the governmental agency that administers the military forces, but policymaking is a prerogative of the party hierarchy. Top ministry officials are always party members and often concurrently hold important party posts. In 1971 Nicolae Ceausescu—as president and chief of state, supreme commander of the armed forces, and chairman of the Defense Council—was, in each case, the immediate superior of the minister of the armed forces. At the same time, the minister of the armed forces was an alternate member of the executive committee of the party and, as such, not only was an important party leader but was again responsible to Ceausescu, this time in the latter's capacity as the party's general secretary.

One of the deputy ministers of the armed forces is secretary of the Higher Political Council. Although administered within the ministry, this council is responsible to the party's Central Committee. It is in charge of political education in the military establishment and has an organization paralleling, and collocated with, that of the regular services. It penetrates into the lower service units to monitor the content and effectiveness of political training in troop units.

The Union of Communist Youth (Uniunea Tineretului Comunist—UTC), the junior affiliate of the Romanian Communist Party, has responsibility for premilitary training and for active political work among the troops in their duty organizations. The UTC's premilitary programs prepare youth for military duty by introducing them to basic training and technical skills in addition to political indoctrination. Within the military organization, UTC work includes political educational programs conducted on duty and sports, cultural, and recreational activities conducted off duty (see ch. 12).

ORGANIZATION AND MISSION

The regular forces, which include the frontier troops, are under administrative and tactical control of the Ministry of the Armed Forces. The minister has a number of deputies, including the chiefs of the main directorates for training, political affairs, and rear services (logistics) and the chief of the general staff. The heads of operational or major tactical commands are also immediately subordinate to the minister. The highest level of the tactical organization includes the headquarters of the naval and air forces, the frontier troops, and the military regions (see fig. 10).

Area organization includes two military regions, with headquarters at Cluj and Iasi, and the Bucharest garrison. Regional headquarters, which are simultaneously corps headquarters of the ground forces, control support facilities for all services.

Figure 10. Romania, Organization of the Armed Forces, 1972.

All commanders and force personnel subordinate to the minister are part of the regular military establishment, although appointments to the higher commands may be determined in varying degrees by political considerations. The minister is a political appointee but, whether or not he has had a military background, he assumes a senior military rank. The Romanian practice deviates from the usual in such situations, however, where the minister is expected to have an actual or honorary rank superior to any officer in his forces. The minister of the armed forces in 1971, for example, was appointed in 1966. He was promoted from colonel general to army general after about four years in his position and, during the early period, was technically subordinate in rank to an army general who commanded the General Military Academy in Bucharest.

In 1972 there were about 200,000 men in the regular forces. About 75 percent were in ground force or in support units common to all services. About 5 percent were naval; 10 percent, air force; and the remainder, frontier troops. The air force percentage included air defense forces.

When the mission of the armed forces is being described in relation to the Warsaw Pact, it is pointed out that the forces are structured and trained for major operations in concert with their allies against a common enemy. Because organized Romanian forces have not been involved in a major conflict except as junior partners in an alliance force, this experience makes the concept of participation in the Warsaw Pact mission easy to accept. Since about 1960, however, leaders have expressed ambitions to act somewhat independently of the Warsaw Pact. In this context the pact mission is occasionally downgraded or passed over in nonspecific terms. The forces' mission is then described as defense of the country only, and their use is said to be allowable only to resist aggression against Romania.

Ground Forces

The ground forces are commonly referred to as the army, although the Romanian People's Army comprises all of the regular armed forces administered by the Ministry of the Armed Forces. The ground forces proper have two tank and seven motorized-rifle divisions and a few other smaller combat units, including mountain, airborne, and artillery outfits of varying sizes. Combat units are thought to be kept at about 90 percent of their full authorized strengths. Most of the support agencies that provide services needed by all service organizations are manned by ground force personnel. Strength of the ground forces in 1972 was estimated at between 130,000 and 170,000.

Divisions are organized on the same pattern as those in the other Warsaw Pact countries. Tank divisions have one artillery, one motorized-rifle, and three tank regiments. Motorized-rifle divisions have one tank, one artillery, and three motorized-rifle regiments.

The division is the basic combat unit, and all of them have their own essential service and support outfits. They are, however, subordinate to corps headquarters of the military regions rather than directly to the Ministry of the Armed Forces.

Air and Air Defense Forces

The commander of the air and air defense forces occupies a position parallel to that of the commanders of the military districts and the naval and frontier forces. His immediate superior is the minister of the armed forces. His tactical units include about twenty fighter-bomber and fighter-interceptor squadrons and a squadron each of transports, reconnaissance aircraft, and helicopters. These units have a total of about 250 aircraft; there are about the same number of trainers and light utility planes.

Of the combat aircraft, MiG-17s would be used in the ground support role; MiG-19s and MiG-21s are interceptors that would be used in air-to-air combat. The reconnaissance squadron has Il-28 twin jet-engine light bombers. These airplanes are obsolescent, if not obsolete, and their crews are trained for reconnaissance only. A limited transport capability is provided by about a dozen twin-engine, piston-type transports. They are old and slow but are adequate for the short-distance work required of them. The helicopter squadron is equipped for air evacuation, for delivery of supplies to inaccessible areas, and for short-range reconnaissance.

Interceptor squadrons are presumably integrated into the Warsaw Pact air defense network, which is designed to function as a unit over all of Eastern Europe. The small numbers of fighter-bombers are probably capable of providing no more than marginal support for Romania's own ground forces.

Air defenses include surface-to-air missiles, antiaircraft artillery, and early warning and aircraft control sites. Surface-to-air missiles and their launching equipment, larger antiaircraft guns, radars, and most of the complex communication equipment are furnished by the Soviet Union.

Air defenses in all of the Warsaw Pact countries are integrated into a common network. Romania's are important because the southwestern border with Yugoslavia is the point at which an attack from the western Mediterranean Sea could be first detected. Within the country, Bucharest and Ploiesti have point missile defenses.

Naval Forces

The naval organization includes headquarters, schools, a major base at Mangalia, a minor base at Constanta, and stations on the Danube River. Mangalia is a Black Sea port about twenty-five miles south of Constanta and just north of the Bulgarian border. Naval personnel in 1972 numbered somewhat fewer than 10,000. The force has almost 200 vessels, but they are an assortment of old and miscellaneous ships that have little capability outside their local environment. None of them is designed to operate more than a few miles from the coast line and definitely not beyond the Black Sea.

Ships include minesweepers, escort vessels, patrol and torpedo boats, and a large assortment of small miscellaneous craft. Five of the patrol boats are of the modern Soviet Osa class and carry a short-range surface-to-surface missile. A few of the torpedo boats are fast, although they are not the latest models. Minesweepers have limited offshore capability but, if protected, could clear the Danube River and essential parts of its delta.

Frontier Troops

Borders with Bulgaria and Yugoslavia have defenses and are guarded, and there is some effort to patrol the Black Sea coastline. Borders with the Soviet Union and Hungary are not controlled except at highway and rail crossing points. Because the Danube River forms the greater share of the controlled borders, much of the patrolling is done by boat.

During the 1950s and early 1960s frontier or border troops were subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and were difficult to distinguish, except in their deployment, from that ministry's security troops. During the latter part of the 1960s authority over the border forces passed to the Ministry of the Armed Forces, but the move was apparently accomplished over a period of time, and the decree formalizing the transfer was not published until September 1971. The commander of the frontier troops is one of the major operational commanders under the minister of the armed forces and is on a level with the chiefs of the military regions, the air and air defense force, and naval forces.

Regulations defining border areas to be controlled and describing the authority of the forces were amended in late 1969. The border strip is a prohibited area, which is fenced in some places and often patrolled. On level, dry ground, it is sixty-five-feet wide but, where the borderline crosses marshy or rugged terrain, it may be widened enough to afford the troops easier access and control.

A border zone varies in width but extends into the country from the strip and includes towns and communes. Frontier troops have overall control within the zone. They are instructed not to interfere more than necessary with usual human activities in it and to cooperate with the local police, whom they do not supplant. Although they are paramount in the zone, they are not restricted to it and may work fifteen or twenty miles into the interior if necessary.

Troops are charged with controlling people, goods, and communications at the border and preventing unauthorized passage and smuggling. The major port city of Constanta, on the Black Sea coast, is listed as an exception to most of the border control regulations. Its city territory does not have a border strip, nor is it within a border zone. The regulation is presumably intended to facilitate port and shipping operations and to keep the more stringent controls inland from the port so that they do not interfere with international trade or tourist traffic.

FOREIGN MILITARY RELATIONS

Romania is a member of the Warsaw Pact, having joined when the pact was created in 1955. It also has bilateral treaties of friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance with each of the other pact nations. Since each pact member has signed one of these treaties with all other members, all are bound to come to the assistance of any other that is attacked. In practical terms all are bound to the defense of any pact member in any conflict in which it might become involved since, no matter how it started, the other country would be branded the aggressor.

Pact members commit a substantial portion, or all, of their fully trained and equipped units to the pact's use. Committed units are considered to be part of an integral force. Romanian forces have a role in pact plans but, because they have failed to participate in several recent pact maneuvers, Western observers have expressed doubt that the organization would depend upon effective Romanian cooperation during the first phase of a major conflict or for any participation in an action such as the Czechoslovak invasion of 1968.

At the time of the pact's inception, leaders of the various member states were preoccupied with the security of their countries and their regimes. A threat from the new North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was real to them, as was danger from dissident elements within their own borders. It is doubtful whether in 1955 any one of the leadership groups seriously considered that its regime might—by itself or in deference to the wishes of its people—undertake economic or social practices or deviate from the ideology in ways that could be considered dangerous to the solidarity of the alliance. By 1965, however, Romania had embarked upon an independent course, to the extent that it, like Czechoslovakia, had reason to fear that it could be the object of retaliatory pact action.

In his Bucharest Declaration of July 1966, Nicolae Ceausescu—who at that time was head of the party but had not yet taken over as chief of state—announced that he considered the Warsaw Pact a temporary alliance and that it would lose its validity if NATO were to cease functioning. Then, in 1968, Romania openly supported the Czechoslovak government, denounced the pact's invasion of that country, and did not participate in it. Since that time Romania has not permitted other Warsaw Pact forces either to hold exercises on its soil or to cross it for maneuvers in another country. As a result, Bulgaria can send forces to other Eastern European countries only by air or by way of the Black Sea and the Soviet Union. Pact exercises held in Bulgaria during the summer of 1971 were performed by Bulgarian troops; other countries, including Romania, sent observers.

In addition to holding its military relations with the Warsaw Pact to a minimum, Romania's armed forces have attempted to make contacts with the military establishments in other countries. A military delegation visited Yugoslavia in 1971, and feelers have been put out to arrange other such conferences. A ranking military spokesman has stated that the army was developing friendly relations with its counterparts in all the countries of the socialist system in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. He added that Romania is increasing its relations of cooperation and collaboration with the nonsocialist states, as a contribution to the development of mutual trust.

MANPOWER, TRAINING, AND SUPPORT

Manpower

There are approximately 4.86 million men in the military age group, that is, the male population between the ages of eighteen and forty-nine. About 3.4 million—70 percent—are considered physically and otherwise fit for military service (see ch. 3).

A somewhat larger percentage, however, of the 180,000 young men who reach the draft age annually are physically able to serve. The preponderance of armed forces and most security troop personnel are acquired during the annual draft calls. Because of the short duty tours required of conscripts, it was necessary in 1971 to call up most of the eligible group in order to maintain the forces' strengths.

Men released from active duty, whether they served voluntarily or involuntarily, remain subject to recall until the age of fifty. Although nearly 100,000 men have been released from the services each year since about 1950, only a small portion of them are considered trained reserves. Only those recently discharged could be mobilized quickly and go into action without extensive retraining. There is insufficient emphasis on periodic reserve training to keep many of the older men in satisfactory physical condition or up to date on new weapons and tactics.

Young men of draft age are potentially good soldier material. There is almost no illiteracy within the adult population under fifty-five years of age. A large percentage of conscripts have rural, village, or small city backgrounds and are in better physical condition than the average urban youth. On the minus side, because the country has a low standard of living, conscripts have little familiarity with mechanical and electronic equipment.Based on the numbers of males in lower age groups, the size of the annual military manpower pool will remain at about 1971 levels throughout the 1970s. It will then drop by nearly 25 percent during the first half of the 1980s but will rise sharply—and again temporarily—in the latter half of that decade. With the exception of the high and low periods during the 1980s, governmental population experts expect little overall change in available manpower during the remainder of the century.

Training

Since about the mid-1960s little public attention has been focused on the armed forces. Their capabilities, reliability, and preparedness have been taken for granted or have not been the subject of undue concern. Unit training and small exercises have been given little coverage in local media. Training programs, however, are dictated in large degree by organization and equipment and have changed little since 1960.

With the standardization of units, weapons, and tactics accompanying the formation of the Warsaw Pact, training was accomplished in Romania as directed in translated Soviet manuals. In the Warsaw Pact system the training cycle starts when a conscript arrives at his duty organization for individual training. This includes strenuous physical conditioning, basic instruction in drill, care and use of personal weapons, and schooling in a variety of subjects ranging from basic military skills and tactics to political indoctrination.

Individual training develops into small group instruction, usually around the weapon or equipment the individual will be using. As groups became more proficient with their equipment, they use it in exercises with larger tactical units under increasingly realistic conditions. Romanian forces have not participated since the late 1960s in the Warsaw Pact exercises that are usually held at the conclusion of the training cycle.

During early individual training, men are selected for a variety of special schools. Short courses, in cooking and baking or shoe repairing, from which a man emerges ready to work, do not require volunteers and do not extend the mandatory duty tour. Longer courses may involve schooling for most of the conscript tour or require time on the job after the school is completed to develop a fully useful capability, leaving no time for the newly acquired skill to be of value to the service. In such cases, selections to a school are made from volunteers who are willing to extend their period of active duty.

The most capable and cooperative conscripts are offered the opportunity to attend noncommissioned officer schools. They must accept voluntarily and agree to a longer period of service.Frontier troops receive much the same individual training as ground force conscripts. Their later instruction involves less large-unit tactics and more police training and special subjects dealing with order documents and regulations. Larger percentages of naval and air forces personnel are required in mechanical or electronic work. Most of those who attend technical schools are required to serve for two years.

Reserve training receives little publicity and probably has low priority. A few reserves are sometimes called to active outfits for short refresher training, but there is little, if any, formal reserve training in local all-reserve types of units. The militia (a paramilitary organization subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs) would probably be drawn upon to augment the services in an emergency. It could be expected to provide better trained personnel, in better physical condition, than would be acquired calling up untrained reserves (see ch. 12).

The General Military Academy in Bucharest—usually called the Military Academy—is a four-year university-level school whose graduates receive regular officer commissions and who are expected to serve as career officers. It also offers mid-career command and staff types of courses. An advanced academy, the Military Technical Academy, requires that its applicants have a university degree; they may be military officers, but they are not required to have had military service or military education of any sort. The academy offers advanced degrees in military and aeronautical engineering and in a variety of other technical areas.

Morale and Conditions of Service

The mandatory tour of duty for basic ground and air force personnel was set at sixteen months in 1964. Naval conscripts and some air force personnel are required to serve two years. The length of extra service required of those who apply and are accepted for special training or who wish to become noncommissioned officers varies with the amount of training required, with the rank attained, or with the added responsibility of the new duty assignment; but it is accepted or rejected on a voluntary basis.

Officers and noncommissioned officers serve voluntarily, and morale is usually satisfactory within those groups. The service experience of the noncommissioned-officer applicants and the long training period required of officer candidates assure that both leadership groups understand and freely accept the conditions of service before they assume their duty responsibilities.

Conditions are reasonably good, and morale in the armed forces is not a source of unusual concern to the national leadership. There are few exhortations to put extra effort into political indoctrination; a large, heavily armed security force to counter a possibly unreliable army has not been created; and there are less elaborate ceremonial affairs involving the forces than is typical of the Eastern European countries.

Romania has had compulsory military service at all times within the memory of the draft age group, and it is accepted as a routine fact of life. Exemptions from the draft are few, and a large proportion of them reflect upon the man because he cannot meet the qualifications for service. The tour of duty is brief. The standard of living in the country is low, and service life may offer some of the back-country young men the best opportunities for travel and excitement that they have yet experienced.

Medicine

Physicians required in the armed forces are ordinarily recruited from medical schools but may be called from their practices or from hospital residence assignments. They then attend a military medical institute in Bucharest for specialized instruction in procedures and practices that are peculiar to military medical work.

Emergency treatment is given military personnel in the most convenient facility, whether or not it is a military clinic. The same is true for the civilian population. Inasmuch as military facilities are equipped to cope with wartime casualties, they are often better able to deal with emergencies or disasters than nonmilitary hospitals, although they are seldom kept at wartime strengths during peacetime. They were especially commended for their assistance during the great floods that occurred in the spring of 1970.

Military Justice

The national penal code enacted in 1968 applies both to military personnel and to the public at large. A special section of the code, however, deals with military crimes. These are crimes committed by military personnel or by nonmilitary personnel on military installations or infractions of military regulations. In theory, any court may pass judgment on a military crime, but the military court system employs specialists in military law who are better able to understand the seriousness of crimes committed in relation to the military establishment. Military courts seldom surrender cases over which they have jurisdiction to civil courts.

There are two types of military courts: military tribunals and territorial military tribunals. The former are the lesser of the two and are established at major installations or are attached to large tactical units. They are the courts of first instance in all cases that come before them. The chairman, or judge, must be a major or higher ranking officer and have a degree in law. The judge is assisted by two people's assessors who, on military courts, are active duty officers. People's assessors need have no legal training but, as is the case for civil courts, they must be twenty-three years of age, have been graduated from secondary school, have a good reputation, and have no criminal record. In all military trials the judge and people's assessors must hold the same rank as, or higher than, the accused.

The higher territorial military tribunals are the courts of first instance for very serious crimes or the courts to which sentences of lower courts are appealed. In cases in which they are the courts of first instance, the court panel consists of at least two judges and three people's assessors. When they are hearing an appealed case, the panel has a minimum of three judges.

The Supreme Court of the land has final appeal jurisdiction over any case it may decide to hear, and it may review any case it chooses or that is sent to it by higher governmental agencies. It has a special military section that is headed by an officer of major general or higher rank. It may be the court of first instance for cases involving the most serious crimes or in lesser situations when an important legal precedent may be established.

Logistics

Military leaders state that their forces have adequate quantities of excellent and modern equipment. As is the situation with all other Warsaw Pact countries, Romania has received its heavy weapons and more complex equipment from the Soviet Union. Initially the Soviets distributed surplus World War II stocks. As these wore out or became obsolete, nearly all items were eventually replaced by postwar models. More complex and expensive weapons sometimes were used by Soviet forces first and appeared in Eastern Europe only after they had been replaced in the Soviet Union. In most circumstances, whether they were newly manufactured or secondhand, items have been supplied to other forces considerably after they were first issued to Soviet troops.

Equipment that is in short supply has not been distributed to each of the pact allies on an equal priority basis. Distribution has depended upon the strategic importance of the recipient, capability for maintaining and using the equipment effectively, and probable reliability as an alliance partner. Romania is located where it would not be involved in first contacts with any potential enemy of the pact; its conscripts' tour, and the resulting time to train individual soldiers, is short; it is an underdeveloped country; and it has been probing for ways to assert its independence from Moscow. It has not therefore been the first to receive newer equipment. The distribution of tanks is illustrative. Romania has received adequate numbers to equip its combat units and has received all models that have been distributed among the pact allies. Romania, however, has been authorized a smaller ratio of armored, as compared with motorized-rifle, divisions than is average for pact members. Poland and Czechoslovakia have many more tanks, and larger percentages of them are modern.

Ground forces have Soviet-made artillery, antitank guns and antitank wire-guided missiles, and some short-range surface-to-surface missiles. Weapons manufactured locally for the ground forces include all types of hand-carried weapons, antitank and antipersonnel grenade launchers, and mortars. Ammunition and explosives for most weapons, whether or not the weapon is locally produced, are manufactured in the country, as are common varieties of communication equipment and spare parts.

All of the air forces' combat aircraft and nearly all of its training and miscellaneous types are received from the Soviet Union. Romania produces some small utility models. A new one, designed for spraying forests and crops, was introduced in 1970 and can be used for military liaison.

Approximately the same situation exists with regard to naval vessels. The larger vessels and more complex smaller craft are built in the Soviet Union or by other members of the pact. Romania produces river craft and some smaller types, probably including the inshore minesweepers that operate in the Black Sea.

Romania is attempting to reduce its dependence upon the Warsaw Pact by producing more military matÉriel within the country. The armed forces maintain the Military Achievements Exhibit, designed to show progress in local production capability. The exhibit is visited periodically by important party and government personalities. Much is made of these visits, attempting to show all possible encouragement to the various projects.

Ranks, Uniforms, and Decorations

Ranks conform to those in armies worldwide with a few minor exceptions. There are the usual four general officer ranks. Field grades are conventional and have the three most frequently used titles—major, lieutenant colonel, and colonel. Company grade ranks include captain and three lieutenant ranks. There are no warrant officers.

Enlisted ranks also have familiar titles when translated. Basic soldiers hold the ranks of private and private first class. Conscripts serve their entire tours as privates unless they acquire a speciality or are put in charge of a small group. Corporal is the lowest noncommissioned-officer rank. Senior noncommissioned-officer grades include the ordinarily used sergeant ranks, including one (and possibly more) that is seldom seen but is equivalent to sergeant major or senior master sergeant.

Rank insignia tends to be ornate. All uniforms except the work and combat types display it on shoulderboards. Those of general officers have intricate gold designs with large gold stars. Other officer ranks have smaller stars clustered at the outer ends and stripes running the length of the boards. Stripes and borders on any one board are the same color, but the various service branches have different colors to identify them. For example, armored troops have black; frontier troops have light green.

Enlisted men's shoulderboards have no borders, and the background color, like the stripes and borders of the officers', indicates the service branch. Rank is shown by stripes that run across the outer end of the board. Privates have no stripes, corporals and privates first class have yellow stripes, and sergeants have brass. Other devices that also identify the service branch appear on the inward end of the shoulderboard on all ranks except those of the general officers and privates.

Cap insignia is more easily distinguished than that on the shoulderboard. Enlisted men wear a large brass star. General officers wear a star with a round blue center and red points mounted on an ornate round background. Other officers wear the red and blue star but without background.

There is less variety in uniforms than is common in Western and most of the other Warsaw Pact forces. Other than for extreme weather and rough work, enlisted men have one type of uniform for winter and one for summer. Material for winter wear is olive-green wool; for summer it is cotton and may be olive green or khaki.

Officers have a field or service uniform, which is similar to the enlisted men's, and a blue uniform for dress. The dress blouse has no belt, and shoes are low cut. The service uniform blouse is sometimes worn with a Sam Browne belt. Overcoats, except for buttons and insignia, are plain and conventional.

Service and dress uniforms are generally well tailored and made from durable materials. Cloth in the officers' uniforms is more closely woven and of finer texture; that in enlisted men's uniforms is warmer and more durable, but it is bulkier and does not hold its shape as well. Combat and extreme-weather clothing is heavy and loose fitting, reminiscent of the Soviet World War II winter wear.

A variety of decorations may be awarded to service personnel; a number of them may be given in three classes, and at least one of them is given in five. About a dozen have been authorized by the communist regime since 1948. Romanians may wear on their uniforms medals awarded by other Warsaw Pact countries but not those of any other foreign country.

The highest decoration is the Hero of Socialist Labor—Golden Medal, Hammer and Sickle. This is considered a dual award, although the parts are always awarded together, and the medal itself is a single one. Other awards that may be given to both military personnel and civilians include the Order of the Star, Order of Labor, and a medal commemorating "Forty Years Since the Founding of the Communist Party of Romania." The third one of the group is given those who were active in the Communist Party between 1921 and 1961 or those who did party work between the two world wars or during the early days of the country's communist regime.

Decorations designed exclusively for the armed forces include the Order of Defense of the Fatherland, the Medal of Military Valor, and the Order of Military Merit. Others recognize service during specific events, such as the Liberation from the Fascist Yoke medal and the Order of 23 August, both of which commemorate World War II service against Germany.

Despite the number of decorations authorized and the many classes provided for in several of them, medals are awarded less profusely in Romania's forces than in many armies, especially those that are made up largely of conscripts or that serve in a largely internal security role. Ceremonies that occur most often involve awards from foreign delegations at the conclusion of their visits to the country or the retirement of older, senior-ranking officers.

THE MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT AND THE NATIONAL ECONOMY

Although the labor force is smaller than the national leadership considers adequate, almost all physically fit young men are conscripted. Only a few, those who are essential to the support of a family or who have other exceptional circumstances, are deferred or exempted. On the other hand, the approximately 4 percent of men in the military age group that serve in Romania's armed forces is about the European average and is lower than average for the Warsaw Pact nations.

Some Romanian officials have suggested that the burden on the economy may be greater than that indicated by a comparison of national statistics arguing that, because labor productivity is low, the loss of 4 percent of the labor force may diminish total production. On the other hand, some Western analysts have argued that, because most of the conscripts are unskilled and underemployed, the military's drain on the manpower pool entails no great loss to productive enterprise (see ch. 14).

In monetary terms the armed forces have been somewhat less of a burden. Between 1967 and 1970 their costs averaged approximately 3.1 percent of the gross national product (GNP), which is low when compared either with the average for Europe or with the average of the other Warsaw Pact members. Beginning in 1970, however, in an effort to reduce dependence upon the Soviet Union, Romania began to stimulate local production of military matÉriel and to purchase some items from other countries. This resulted in a sharp increase in defense spending in 1970. Unless the size of the armed forces is reduced, some continuing increase in expenses over pre-1970 levels will be necessary if Romania chooses to continue its policy of nondependence upon the Soviet Union.

The armed forces engage in construction projects on a scale that local leaders say is an important contribution to the economy. They are employed in industrial construction, roadbuilding, railroad maintenance, and important agricultural and irrigation projects. Large numbers of troops participated in the disaster relief efforts made necessary by the great floods during the spring of 1970.