The multi-domain deadlock in the context of Romania and the Black Sea
Analysis of the Maritime Security Forum
The fragmentation of the space and cyber domains in the face of emerging regional threats
The Black Sea region is one of the most dynamic and contested geopolitical spaces in Europe, where conventional, cyber, space, and information operations constantly overlap.
In this context, Romania faces a structural challenge regarding the artificial separation between the space and cyber domains, a division that creates what strategic literature calls a “multi-domain deadlock.” In multi-domain operations, the modern approach to armed forces integrates operations in all environments (land, air, sea, space, cyber) to overcome a tactical deadlock.
An emerging vulnerability: converging effects on Romanian infrastructure
Seemingly disparate scenarios—simultaneous blocking of payment systems, power grid instability, GPS jamming in Danube ports and the Dobrogea region, interruptions in maritime or military communications—may be manifestations of a single integrated hostile campaign.
In the Black Sea basin, these phenomena are not hypothetical. Russia has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to execute convergent space-cyber-electronic operations against Ukraine, Georgia, and other states. In these contexts, GPS jamming, satellite disruptions, coordinated cyber attacks on critical infrastructure, and information operations have been used as a coherent arsenal, not as separate tools.
Romania, located on NATO’s eastern flank, becomes vulnerable when distinct institutional treatments applied to space and cyber prevent the generation of a common operational picture.
Historical and institutional determinants of fragmentation
The separation of operational domains in Romania—particularly between cyberspace, space, and traditional military structures—does not stem exclusively from technological constraints, but is the result of a complex set of institutional, procedural, and cultural factors.
At the institutional level, the fragmented distribution of competences between ministries, civil agencies, military structures, and bodies with partially overlapping mandates generates systemic difficulties in cross-domain cooperation. The lack of a single strategic coordination mechanism creates gray areas of responsibility and delays in information flows, which affects both decision-making and the ability to respond to situations involving hybrid or multi-domain threats.
At the procedural level, unharmonized classification protocols, distinct information security standards, and the existence of independently developed command and control systems contribute to a structural fragmentation of the security architecture. This lack of interoperability translates into difficulties in sharing sensitive data, delays in identifying cross-sectoral signals, and the emergence of “visibility gaps” between domains that should, in fact, function in an integrated manner.
From a cultural-organizational perspective, the different traditions of professional communities—among cybersecurity specialists, naval actors, intelligence structures, and European and NATO space communities—have generated strong institutional identities but also communication barriers. Each of these communities operates on the basis of its own paradigms, technical languages, and priorities, which limits the creation of a common culture of operational integration.
Although Romania has developed robust cyber defense capabilities over the past two decades and has actively participated in European and allied space programs, the actual level of integration between these domains remains low. This situation leads to deficiencies in anticipating complex threats, which, in the current security environment, evolve simultaneously in the cyber, electromagnetic, naval, and space domains.
In the absence of a coherent framework for data fusion and an integrated command architecture, Romania remains exposed to forms of strategic vulnerability, particularly in the regional context of the Black Sea, where adversaries can combine cyber, space, and electronic effects in a synchronized manner.
The interconnected threat in the Black Sea
The region provides an ideal environment for adversaries operating below the threshold of armed conflict. Russia, in particular, uses:
- GPS and GLONASS jamming on commercial and military vessels near Crimea;
- cyber attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure and government networks in NATO states;
- information operations targeting the Romanian population and ethnic minorities in the region;
- temporary disruptions to commercial satellite communications used by coastal states.
For Romania, the cross-border, simultaneous, and synchronized nature of these actions raises two issues:
- the need for a multi-domain detection architecture,
- the ability to respond coherently in real time.
Treating domains separately leads to fragmented interpretations of the operational environment.
Fragmented awareness in Romanian security architecture
1. Doctrinal and legislative dimension: the gap between norms and operational reality
From a doctrinal perspective, Romania’s security architecture reflects a successive accumulation of strategic documents, laws, and sectoral regulations, developed in different stages and in response to external pressures or specific crises. The National Defense Strategy, sectoral strategies (cybersecurity, critical infrastructure protection, public order, defense), and associated military doctrines recognize, at least at the declarative level, the multidimensional nature of contemporary threats. However, these documents operate primarily through delineations of competence, not through functional integration mechanisms.
The Romanian legislative framework tends to establish distinct institutional responsibilities, with few explicit obligations for operational interoperability or systematic real-time data exchange. Inter-institutional cooperation is often formulated as a general principle, not as a normative requirement supported by procedures, common architectures, and clearly defined authority for decision-making synthesis. In the absence of doctrinal structures that impose cross-domain integration, each institution optimises its own internal processes, leading to structural fragmentation of situational awareness at the national level.
This approach is insufficiently adapted to the realities of modern confrontation, where the rigid separation between “peace” and “conflict,” between “civilian” and “military,” or between “internal” and “external” is increasingly less relevant. From a doctrinal point of view, Romania still operates predominantly in a sequential response model, while potential adversaries use simultaneous and adaptive models.
2. Comparative perspectives: lessons from other NATO
A comparison with other NATO countries highlights that the problem is not one of resources or competence, but of strategic governance.
Countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom have evolved towards explicit doctrines of multi-domain operations and a whole-of-government approach, supported by permanent integration structures. In these cases, intelligence, planning and decision-making cycles are designed to function transversally, and data exchange between domains is an operational requirement, not an option.
France has invested significantly in the doctrinal integration of cyberspace and information space into national strategic planning, through centralized analysis and anticipation structures under clearly defined political authority. The emphasis is on strategic synthesis and the ability to quickly correlate signals from different domains.
The Nordic countries, especially Finland and Sweden, offer a relevant model for Romania through the concept of total defense. This involves deep integration between civil and military institutions and the private sector, with clearly defined responsibilities for information sharing, joint planning, and coordinated response. The culture of integration is supported doctrinally, legislatively, and through regular inter-institutional exercises.
In contrast, Romania remains in a predominantly institutional-centric model, where integration depends on individual initiative, informal relationships, or exceptional contexts, rather than permanent and standardized architectures.
3. The Black Sea as a stress test for security architecture
The Black Sea region amplifies all these vulnerabilities. Here, strategic competition manifests itself simultaneously in the military, cyber, electromagnetic, information, and space domains, at a pace that drastically reduces the time available for analysis and decision-making. Cyber attacks, influence operations, electromagnetic jamming, and the use of space capabilities are not isolated events, but components of integrated campaigns.
In such an environment, the lack of a common situational awareness, updated in real time and supported by a unifying doctrine, can lead to critical delays, divergent interpretations of the same situation, and uncoordinated responses. The major strategic risk is not the lack of response, but the fragmented response.
4. Strategic recommendations
To overcome the current limitations of the security architecture, measures are needed that target not only capabilities, but also the doctrinal and institutional foundations of the system:
a. Strengthening a national doctrine of multi-domain integration
Romania should develop an explicit multi-domain security and defense doctrine applicable to the entire state apparatus, not just military structures. This should clearly define the mechanisms of integration, the responsibilities for synthesis, and the relationship between operational domains.
b. Revising the legislative framework to enforce interoperability
Security legislation should be revised so that interoperability, data exchange, and operational cooperation become normative obligations, supported by common technical standards and clear procedures.
c. Create a central structure for strategic awareness and anticipation
A permanent entity with clear authority should be established, responsible for integrating information from all relevant domains and providing a common operational picture to strategic decision-makers.
d. Institutionalize multi-domain interagency exercises
Joint exercises should become regular, mandatory, and focused on complex hybrid scenarios, not limited to bilateral or strictly sectoral cooperation.
e. Developing a culture of integration and cross-domain leadership
The professional training of security leaders must explicitly include skills in strategic integration, systemic thinking, and operating in complex interagency environments.
Strategic implications for Romania and NATO in the region
The fragmentation of space and cyberspace has three major consequences for Romania:
a) Vulnerability to strategic surprise
Adversaries can combine cyber attacks on Romanian energy infrastructure with satellite interference in air and maritime space, causing chaos without formally crossing the threshold of armed conflict.
b) Operational inefficiencies
Romanian structures risk developing redundant or incompatible tools in the absence of a common integration architecture.
c) Delayed decision-making cycles
In a major regional crisis, separate analysis of signals from space, cyber, naval, and energy domains can delay political and military response.
Towards an integrated Romanian strategy for space and cyber in the Black Sea
To eliminate the multi-domain deadlock, Romania could adopt the following strategic lines:
1. Building a common operational picture (COP) for space, cyber, and maritime
Real-time integration of data from:
- EU, ESA, NATO, and commercial satellites;
- coastal sensors, naval radars, unmanned aerial systems;
- cyber flows (anomalies, intrusions, attacks);
- critical infrastructure (energy, oil and gas, transport networks).
2. Harmonization of classification protocols
As a member of NATO and the EU, Romania would benefit substantially from a strategy of gradual decompartmentalization of institutional, doctrinal, and informational architectures, designed to enable rapid and secure information exchange between institutional communities. Currently, fragmentation between domains—whether spatial, cyber, naval, energy, or military—limits the state’s ability to generate a common operational picture and respond in an integrated manner to multi-domain threats. The implementation of such a strategy would not involve a sudden reorganisation, but a phased transformation, aligned with both NATO standards and European requirements for critical infrastructure security.
Why is a strategy necessary?
- Threats in the Black Sea region are simultaneous and interconnected, combining cyber attacks, satellite interference, electromagnetic jamming, information operations, and military pressure. Without rapid data exchange between institutions, the response remains fragmented and delayed.
- Romanian structures still operate on the logic of sectoral boundaries, while adversaries use integrated operational models. Decompartmentalization thus becomes an imperative for strategic adaptation, not just an organizational option.
- NATO and EU standards are moving towards total interoperability (MDO, JADC2, Total Defense), and Romania must adapt its internal architectures to these requirements in order to remain an effective partner on the eastern flank.
Concrete solutions for implementation
1. Creation of a central multi-domain coordination mechanism
A permanent body with clear strategic authority, integrating data from all relevant domains—space, cyber, naval, energy, military. This would provide decision-makers with a Common Operational Picture (COP) updated in real time.
Benefit: eliminates “visibility gaps” and accelerates institutional response.
2. Harmonizing classification protocols and security standards
Romanian institutions operate with different protocols regarding classification, access to information, and technical standards. A decompartmentalization strategy should promote:
- common classification protocols, compatible with NATO and the EU;
- procedures for rapid access to data between institutions;
- a coherent framework for secure real-time information exchange.
Benefit: increases operational interoperability and reduces delays in data processing.
3. Interconnecting digital systems and adopting a common data architecture
The transition to an integrated digital infrastructure should include:
- the fusion of spatial, cyber, and naval data;
- multi-source analysis systems;
- interoperable data centers;
- the use of common operational visualization platforms.
Benefit: enables early detection of cross-sector patterns.
4. Regular multi-domain inter-agency exercises
Inspired by Nordic models (Finland, Sweden), multi-domain exercises should become:
- regular;
- mandatory;
- focused on complex scenarios, such as hybrid attacks or simultaneous cyber-maritime disruptions.
Benefit: builds common reflexes and strengthens the culture of integration.
5. Training specialists with hybrid skills
A decompartmentalization strategy cannot work without adequate human resources. The following are necessary:
- training professionals with combined expertise (e.g., cyber-space, naval-cyber, space-energy);
- developing multi-domain university and post-graduate programs;
- institutional rotations to strengthen a common culture.
Benefit: eliminates linguistic, technical, and cultural barriers between institutions.
6. Adjusting the legislative framework to enforce interoperability
True decompartmentalization requires legislative changes that make interoperability a regulatory obligation, not just a general principle.
- Introduction of clear responsibilities for data exchange;
- Regulation of multi-domain operational cooperation;
- Establishment of a central authority with supervisory powers.
Benefit: Reduces institutional fragmentation and clarifies chains of command.
7. Aligning the national architecture with NATO and EU models
Gradual introduction of the principles of:
- Multi-Domain Operations (MDO);
- Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2);
- the Nordic concept of Total Defense.
Benefit: Romania becomes a coherent strategic node on NATO’s eastern flank.
In conclusion, a strategy of gradual decompartmentalization would represent one of Romania’s most important institutional transformations in the field of security. By gradually integrating the space, cyber, maritime, and energy domains, the state could generate a real capacity for simultaneous response, strategic anticipation, and operational resilience in the face of hybrid threats in the Black Sea.
3. Joint multi-domain exercises in the Black Sea region
NATO and Romania can simulate:
- cyber attacks on the port of Constanța combined with satellite jamming;
- maritime communications disruptions synchronized with information campaigns;
- integrated scenarios for the defense of submarine cables and offshore infrastructure.
4. Development of specialists
Training specialists with dual expertise—cyber and space, cyber and maritime, space and energy—is essential for strengthening a truly integrated security architecture. In an operational environment characterized by high interdependence between domains, singular expertise is no longer sufficient to anticipate, interpret, and counter complex threats.
Hybrid specialists can act as “operational translators” between distinct technical communities, facilitating interoperability, reducing institutional barriers, and accelerating the fusion of data from heterogeneous sources. For example, an expert who combines expertise in cybersecurity and space can understand both the technical vectors of an attack on satellite infrastructure and its implications for military communications, navigation, or maritime operations.
Similarly, specialists with both maritime and cyber expertise are indispensable for protecting ports, logistics chains, and integrated navigation systems, which are currently under pressure from hybrid attacks and electromagnetic interference. In the space-energy sphere, training professionals who understand both the vulnerabilities of satellite systems and the critical dependencies of energy infrastructures (electricity grids, gas distribution, offshore systems) is crucial to preventing the cascading effects of a multi-domain attack.
Such combined skills can support the transition from a sectoral architecture to one based on integration and synchronized response, in which analysis, detection, and decision-making occur in a common flow. Investment in multi-domain education, interdisciplinary training programs, and the development of careers that span different professional communities is fundamental to modernizing Romania’s security posture and increasing strategic resilience in the Black Sea region.
Conclusions
In the highly volatile strategic context of the Black Sea, where operational confrontation takes place simultaneously in space, cyberspace, the maritime domain, and the information spectrum, Romania can no longer tolerate the persistence of structural boundaries between these domains. In a competitive theater where hostile actors use hybrid techniques and deliberate synergies between space, electronic, cyber, and psychological instruments, fragmented approaches equate to a loss of strategic initiative.
This phenomenon reflects what the literature refers to as a multi-domain deadlock: a critical area of emerging vulnerability, where the inability to integrate information and operational flows from different environments reduces situational awareness and slows down strategic response. For Romania, located in a geopolitical space where Russia is systematically testing the limits of the Euro-Atlantic order, this deadlock is not just an analytical concept, but a real, structural, and actively exploited vulnerability.
In parallel with NATO doctrinal developments and the emergence of the Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) paradigm in the Euro-Atlantic space, Romania must move from a sectoral institutional architecture to a model in which the spatial, cyber, maritime, and information domains are integrated into a common combat matrix. In this regard, JADC2 (Joint All-Domain Command and Control) operational approaches offer a relevant conceptual framework: persistent connectivity, real-time data fusion, exploitation of distributed sensors, and the creation of a Common Operational Picture (COP) that crosses domain boundaries. Without this type of architecture, Romania risks remaining trapped in slow decision-making processes that cannot keep pace with the dynamics of hybrid actions in the Black Sea.
Moreover, in the contemporary logic of multi-layered deterrence — which combines kinetic, non-kinetic, informational, and cognitive effects — Romania’s ability to articulate a credible deterrence posture depends on its ability to synchronize space, cyber, and naval instruments in a coherent manner. The current institutional fragmentation limits both anticipation and reaction, allowing adversaries to exploit systemic asymmetries through operations below the threshold of armed conflict.
In a region where satellite jamming, GPS spoofing, cyber attacks against critical infrastructure, disruption of maritime communications, and information campaigns are orchestrated in a convergent manner, Romania cannot afford to maintain doctrinal or organizational dividing lines. The ability to counter and anticipate these actions depends on aligning internal processes with Western models of full interoperability and developing robust mechanisms for data fusion, integrated command, and multi-source analysis.
Overcoming the multi-domain deadlock therefore requires a transformative triptych:
(1) deep operational integration, through the adoption of architectures compatible with MDO and JADC2 principles;
(2) institutional harmonization, through the standardization of protocols, the reduction of fragmentation of competences, and the establishment of permanent coordination structures;
(3) the emergence of a new strategic culture, oriented towards anticipation, synthesis, and understanding conflict as a cross-domain phenomenon.
By internalizing these directions and adapting them to the specificities of the Black Sea, Romania can transform its current vulnerability into a strategic advantage.
Such a transformation would strengthen the country’s role as an essential vector of the allied posture on the eastern flank, amplifying NATO’s ability to project stability and maintain credible multidimensional deterrence in one of the most contested regions of the contemporary international order.
Legally accessible bibliographic references used in the text.
Relevant international works and studies
- NATO (2020). NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept (NWCC). Brussels: NATO HQ.
- US Department of Defense (2022). Joint All‑Domain Command and Control (JADC2) Strategy. Washington, D.C.
- UK Ministry of Defence (2021). Integrated Operating Concept. London.
- European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) (2023). Cybersecurity Threat Landscape.
- European Space Agency (ESA) (2019). Space Security and Resilience Report.
- Biddle, S. (2021). Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods of Guerrillas, Warlords, and Militias. Princeton University Press.
- Kello, L. (2017). The Virtual Weapon and International Order. Yale University Press.
Relevant works on cybersecurity and multi-domain integration
- Clark, W., & Knake, R. (2019). The Fifth Domain: Defending Our Country, Our Companies, and Ourselves in the Age of Cyber Threats. Penguin Press.
- De Spiegeleire, S., Maas, M., & Sweijs, T. (2017). Exploring the Future of Multi-Domain Command and Control. Hague Centre for Strategic Studies.
Sources on Black Sea security and the Romanian context
- IISS (2023). Strategic Survey: The Annual Assessment of Geopolitics. International Institute for Strategic Studies.
- Stoicescu, K., & Jermalavičius, T. (2019). Deterrence and Defense in the Baltic Region. ICDS, Tallinn. (useful for comparisons with the eastern flank).
- European Institute of Romania (IER) – Studies on regional security and hybrid threats.
- Euro-Atlantic Center for Resilience (2022/2023). Thematic reports on resilience and hybrid threats.
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