Adrian-Ioan Damoc

Economist, Ph.D., the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, interested in international relations and economic diplomacy

Rumble in the Gulf – A Look at the Significance of the Saudi-Yemeni Conflict

Adrian-Ioan Damoc

Higher-order cognition in humans is one of the most commonly cited factors that separate us as a species from other life-forms on earth. It enables us to make sense of the patterns in our environment and the laws that govern nature, to think beyond our immediate sensory input and create art and beauty, to encode our knowledge, storing and preserving it, passing it down to further generations who would then use it to yield new knowledge as well as invent new tools and adapt the old into new, to reshape both the internal and the external world. Yet this gift does not come without its caveats, and human cognition is indeed often riddled with biases and shortcuts that, despite allowing us to simplify the complexity of our world, often dull our receptiveness to certain realities or, even more dangerously, offer the illusion of knowledge and understanding when, in fact, they are in short supply. More

The Grand (Binary) Chessboard: Security, Geopolitics and Geoeconomics in the Cyber-era

Adrian-Ioan Damoc

For each age that we think to define, there are words that describe the aspects or characteristics that are thought to define it best. The mid-twentieth century was known as the ‘Atomic Age’, when the results of research into nuclear physics were brought to the forefront with the detonation of nuclear bombs. Shortly thereafter, it was succeeded by the Space Age, with the drive to explore outer space and the competition between the world’s superpowers to develop technology to that end. Somewhere from the 1970s, the Information Age is believed to have begun, sprung by the Digital Revolution, with information technology playing an increasingly greater role in human affairs on an ever-growing number of levels: the economy, society, culture, language and politics. Thus, geographic distance became less and less relevant in defining human interaction, and physical contact was no longer an imperative for relations between people. More

The Matter of Persia: Discerning Meaning from Strife and Unrest

Adrian-Ioan Damoc

The year 2018 began with a renewal of some of last year’s main geopolitical clashes, the most prominent being the nuclear threats exchanged between North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un and Donald Trump, China’s President Xi Jinping delivering grim speeches to his army, urging troops to be ready for war, and analysts offering generally gloomy forecasts for this year. One other significant event that has erupted near the end of 2017 were the unexpected and violent protests in Iran that have continued up to at least the first week of 2018, with mass demonstrations held both for and against the country’s current government and an uncompromising crackdown by Iranian police. More

À la recherche de l’identité perdue

Adrian-Ioan Damoc

In most contexts, the name Catalonia is typically associated with the world of culture, arts, architecture and sports. It evokes the splendour of the Sagrada Familia, the distinctive styles of Antoni Gaudi and Salvador Dali, the venerable Montserrat Caballé and, of course, the famous Barcelona FC. Yet, in the aftermath of the declaration of independence passed by the Autonomous Community’s Parliament on October 27, 2017, the name is now also associated with the increasingly prominent trend towards fragmentation that has defined socio-political dynamics in the Western world in recent years, in particular Europe. More

Corona-blues: A Brief Reflection on the Challenges of Managing the Coronavirus Pandemic

Adrian-Ioan Damoc

That the new coronavirus has taken the world by storm is no longer a surprise, causing significant casualties worldwide as well as civil unrest and disrupting economies, with ever grimmer prognoses. Much has been said about both the humanitarian impact as well the myriad effects it had on the political, social and economic levels. From a healthcare perspective, one might expect the world’s most developed economies to fare far better than their developing counterparts. Yet a quick look at the numbers reveals a rather intriguing picture: out of the world’s over 13.5 million confirmed cases of contamination, over 4 million come from some of the world’s most developed economies, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Sweden. These same countries account for more than half of the deaths caused by the virus. Of course, these are absolute numbers that we are talking about, but even if we switch to looking at relative measures, such as the number of deaths or infections per 1 million people, developed countries still rank at the top. More

The Passions of France

Adrian-Ioan Damoc

Monday, April 15th 2019, was the third day of the Holy Week for Catholic Christians, the week that commemorates the Passion of Jesus Christ preceding His crucifixion and resurrection. The day followed another weekend of protests in France, when 30,000 people demonstrated in several major French cities against President Emmanuel Macron. It is therefore a most unfortunate coincidence that, on that day, one of France’s most recognisable monuments, the 850-year old Cathedral of Notre-Dame, caught fire and was nearly destroyed before the fire was eventually put out some 15 hours later. The cathedral’s spire was completely wrecked by the flames, and the building suffered notable structural damage; some of the artefacts stored within it were touched by fire and smoke to varying degrees. The incident took France and the world at large by storm, drawing strong reactions from the general public as well as from celebrities and world leaders. It did not take long for some of France’s wealthiest personalities to pledge vast sums to the reconstruction of the cathedral, while president Macron promised to rebuild the cathedral within five years. More

Blood Is Thicker than Oil: The Throes of Venezuela’s Crisis

Adrian-Ioan Damoc

As the smoking gun of Venezuela’s unrest clears away, onlookers wonder whether it is about to be holstered back or cocked for another shot. To most observers, the socio-political crisis in Venezuela came as a big surprise, as if out of nowhere. Owing perhaps to its remote geographic location and the prominence of more spectacular geopolitical events, it is easy to overlook the fact that we are not speaking about a recent outbreak. Instead, the current presidential scandal is but the very latest addition to a long-lasting crisis that began somewhere in 2010 due to economic shortages and worsened with the upheaval of the existing political equilibrium following the death of long-standing president, Hugo Chávez, in 2013. Venezuela has been a powder keg for nearly a decade, as the country’s unsustainable oil-reliant economy has shown its unfortunate limits, which were further compounded by the government’s ineffectual policies, strongly influenced by the anti-Western leanings common to both Chávez and current president Nicolás Maduro. More

Sicut in Caelo, Et in Terra

Adrian-Ioan Damoc

When Pope John Paul II visited Romania in 1999, he achieved a historical landmark as it was the first time the head of the Catholic Church visited a primarily Eastern Orthodox country since the Great Schism in 1054. While his papacy did not escape criticism and controversy, John Paul II was arguably one of the most charismatic and well-liked popes in recent times, having received recognition for several breakthroughs: he is widely credited for his role in motivating political movements that led to the collapse of Communist regimes and of the Duvalier rule in Haiti; he publicly addressed apologies in the name of the Catholic Church to those individuals and groups who had suffered because of it, for instance the Galileo affair, the actions of the Inquisition or the Church’s underwhelming response to the Holocaust. Another key feature of his tenure was the efforts he invested to establish and sustain dialogue among the Abrahamic faiths. Although, from a theological viewpoint, he is considered to have been a conservative, he came under criticism from both progressives and traditionalists for issues such as failing to adequately handle the sex abuse of children by Catholic prelates, his stances against artificial birth control methods or his support of religious freedom. More

No Laughing Matter: What the Presidential Elections in Ukraine Have to Teach Us about Politics

Adrian-Ioan Damoc

When the possibility arose that Ukrainian actor and comedian Volodymyr Zelensky could run for President of Ukraine and actually win, it might well have elicited a few amused chuckles and raised eyebrows, but it was no longer a laughing matter when he came to dominate opinion polls and eventually confirmed his approval ratings by winning the elections by a landslide, garnering over 73% of the votes. Zelensky soundly defeated incumbent Petro Poroshenko against the backdrop of the ongoing war in the Donbass region between anti-Russian and pro-Russian factions. More

Russia’s Trump Card Against China and Reshaping Power Dynamics

Adrian-Ioan Damoc

On 18 December 2019, Donald Trump, the current President of the United States of America, was impeached by the House Judiciary Committee following allegations of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, the third US President to be impeached after Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton (while Richard Nixon stepped down before a vote could be cast on his impeachment). The charges brought against Trump were attempting to coerce Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky into helping him win the upcoming 2020 elections by launching an investigation against Trump’s political rival, Joe Biden, and his son Hunter regarding pressure by Biden, as Obama’s VP, to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the energy firm employing his son. Trump apparently sought to ensure Ukraine’s help by withholding American military and diplomatic support for Ukraine. More

Fortress Europe under Siege: The Ongoing Refugee Crisis

Adrian-Ioan Damoc

The term “Fortress Europe” was used during World War II to denote European territories occupied by Nazi forces, as well as military operations conducted by the British military against mainland targets in Germany. It was also used by Britain’s enemy, Nazi Germany, to refer to its goal of conquering the entirety of Europe so as to create an impenetrable powerbase. After the war ended, the term was used in the context of the European Union’s policies on immigration, border control and trade matters, with positive connotations for conservative factions opposing migration and negative for the more open factions. More

South-Asian Standoff: The Broader Implications of Russian Involvement in the South China Sea

Adrian-Ioan Damoc

Sino-Russian relations are never easy to categorise neatly. Marked in equal measures by common interests and a mutual distrust, by a tendency to cooperate as well as the pressure of the competition that their geopolitical profiles consign them to, China and Russia have not had any significant clashes since the end of the Cold War, when a Sino-American alliance was forged as part of the US strategy to contain the USSR. Over the years, there have been various efforts on both camps to capitalise on their mutual interests and solidify their collaboration. Both countries are part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and China has resumed importing Russian military gear following a European Union-enforced arms embargo in the wake of the Tiananmen Square protests. The NATO presence in Central Asia and the Middle East has also driven Russia and China to seek common ground in order to avert the expansion of American influence in the region. Moreover, in 2014, China and Russia signed a 30-year deal to sell energy to China and to build the ambitiously named Power of Siberia, a pipeline which would transport Russian gas to the Far East. More

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Rumble in the Gulf – A Look at the Significance of the Saudi-Yemeni Conflict

The Grand (Binary) Chessboard: Security, Geopolitics and Geoeconomics in the Cyber-era

The Matter of Persia: Discerning Meaning from Strife and Unrest

À la recherche de l’identité perdue

Corona-blues: A Brief Reflection on the Challenges of Managing the Coronavirus Pandemic

The Passions of France

Blood Is Thicker than Oil: The Throes of Venezuela’s Crisis

Sicut in Caelo, Et in Terra

No Laughing Matter: What the Presidential Elections in Ukraine Have to Teach Us about Politics

Russia’s Trump Card Against China and Reshaping Power Dynamics

Fortress Europe under Siege: The Ongoing Refugee Crisis

South-Asian Standoff: The Broader Implications of Russian Involvement in the South China Sea