|
Romania Officer Education
In 1989 officers in the armed forces received higher
than
average salaries and extensive benefits such as priority
housing.
They had relatively high social standing and prestige.
Officers
still enjoyed fewer perquisites and privileges than their
counterparts in the other Warsaw Pact countries, however.
Yet the
officer's profession remained a path of upward mobility,
especially
for young men from remote judete and agricultural
communities.
In 1989 there were several ways of earning a commission
in the
armed forces. Romania had a number of military secondary
schools
for officer training in cities and larger towns. After
passing a
competitive admission examination, cadets could enter a
military
secondary school at the start of their ninth year of
formal
education or after completing their terms of service as
conscripts.
Military secondary schools offered a three- or four-year
curriculum
of mathematics, physics, chemistry, applied science and
engineering, geography, foreign languages, physical
conditioning,
and sports. Many, like the Alexandru Ioan Cuza Naval
Secondary
School or the Nicolae Balcescu Military Officers College,
were
named for heroic military leaders from Romanian history.
Military
secondary schools began accepting women for training as
communications, chemical defense, transportation, air
defense,
quartermaster corps, medical, and topographic officers in
1973.
In 1989 approximately 70 percent of the second
lieutenants on
active duty had received commissions by graduating from
military
secondary schools. While on active duty, approximately 50
percent
of all officers continued their professional training by
developing
a military specialty in resident or correspondence courses
at
schools for armor in Pitesti, infantry in Bacau, artillery
in
Ploiesti, missiles in Brasov, military engineering in
Lugoj in
Timis, judet, and communications in Bucharest. The
other 30
percent of officers on active duty received commissions
after
completing university-level courses of study at more elite
institutions.
The General Military Academy and the Military Technical
Academy, both located in Bucharest, were the most
prestigious
military educational establishments. An army general,
usually
senior in rank and experience to the minister of national
defense,
headed the General Military Academy. The four-year courses
of study
at the military academies, concentrating on general
military
science, military engineering, or party work and
organization, led
to a university degree as well as a commission as a junior
officer.
Also located in Bucharest, the Aurel Vlaicu Military
Academy for
Aviation Officers, named for the founder of Romania's
prewar
aircraft industry, and the military faculty of the
University of
Bucharest also produced commissioned graduates.
As captains, navy lieutenants, and majors, promising
officers
applied to attend two- to five-year advanced command and
staff
courses at the General Military Academy. Until the early
1960s,
mid-career officers were assigned to elite Soviet military
academies for higher professional education similar to
that
provided in war colleges in the United States and other
Western
countries. Graduation from either the Soviet General Staff
Academy
or Frunze Military Academy was almost a prerequisite for
advancement to general officer rank and a requirement to
become
minister of national defense in the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact
countries. When Romania began to follow a course of
greater
independence within the Warsaw Pact, however, it stopped
sending
its officers to the Soviet Union for training. This
reduced the
chance that Romanian officers would develop a loyalty
toward their
Soviet counterparts stronger than that to Ceausescu, the
PCR, and
the Romanian government. It also largely eliminated
opportunities
for the Soviet Union to recruit spies from among the
Romanian
officer corps. At a more practical level, the military had
to train
its own officers to fight according to a military doctrine
and
strategy different from that of the Soviet-led Warsaw
Pact.
Data as of July 1989
|
