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 inst