President Obama and Romania: How Future Political Leaders and Diplomats Are Made

A great Italian doctor at the beginning of the 20th century who had been called to a patient’s sickbed confessed that he didn’t know what disease she was suffering from. Hearing this, the patient cried: “I’m paying you a great deal of money for what you do know, not what you don’t know!” The doctor’s reaction was swift and correct: “Madam, you pay me a great deal for what I do know, it is true, but if you were to pay me for everything I didn’t know, you wouldn’t find enough money in the whole world!”

That is why we must from the beginning draw attention to the limitations of this text: It is not a photo — i.e. the exact reproduction of Romanian-U.S. relations for Barack Obama’s first term in office. Moreover, many of the facts of this relationship are hidden from curious eyes, because the internal workings of the state can only be transparent to a degree.

Thus, any text will really consist of the author’s vision of this political relationship; a certain amount of subjectivity cannot be excluded, and to limit it would require at least a few conversations between the author and the main elements of this binomial, for now not possible. But, oh mighty reader, I assure you of my good faith.

President Obama’s Speech

President Obama recently addressed the American nation, in the specific way of the country across the ocean: spectacular, but predictable, with mandatory references to certain topics, from gun control to social security, from fiscal deficit to American values. We must get used to understanding that to some countries, fiscal deficit is a national value, and the best examples for this are found in Greece and Italy.

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However, we will not focus on this speech, because it is only a first part of the last four years of office, which somehow must ensure Obama’s place in history since the rigid law of power says that it isn’t being remembered in the books that is important, but how you are remembered.

Still, he must be understood as part of a personal project: “Me, Barack Obama, President of The United States of America.” Here an addendum is due: Each state knows its limitations — and their leaders more so than others — as an entire system of political, administrative and military command reports daily on what was done right, where there are shortcomings and where there are external obstacles.

Likewise, we must make note of another fact: When somebody begins the long climb to the supreme position in a state, they know fully well that without positive results, they will be eliminated without mercy from any position they have, and their place will be taken by any other candidate who is more effective in reaching those objectives that are an expression of national interest objectified through high-ranking political decisions.

This is a law that does not know exceptions. However, the problem appears relative to the size and strength of a state.

The smaller the state, the better the results, the more its strength will grow, and the leader’s prestige with it.

In this context, quod licet lovis, not licet bovis — what is permitted to a great power is not permitted to a weak state, and if the great power doesn’t have permission for a certain type of behavior, it’s not the end of the world because it grants it to itself many times over, or negotiates for it with other great powers.

The Characteristics of US Internal Policy

That is why to understand the politics of U.S. presidents in any area of the world we must understand this ancient law, but also the fact that U.S. internal policy is one with specificities different from any other country in Europe or Asia. The internal pressure from different lobby groups, active committees or citizens that take to the streets if it’s necessary in order to protect their interests — all these tighten the maneuvering capabilities of the U.S. president.

Obviously, these things are known, but many times they are forgotten; the man in the White House is not all-powerful, as the media shows, but neither is he alone. Thus, he must make quick decisions that will have a high success rate — otherwise, he will not be re-elected. And the media sometimes stirs things up by revealing things he might not want revealed, things that question a significant number of his administrative qualities. A last characteristic of the activities of any U.S. president is related to geographic areas: With the exception of a few truly important countries, he must think in terms of areas because he doesn’t have the time to know as much as possible about all world countries, which now number over 200.

The Lack of Research Centers of Major World Powers

Romania, as much as we tell ourselves otherwise, is important geopolitically, but it is not the most important state in the area. Russia’s interests are more thoroughly analyzed daily by the dozens of American think tanks and agencies, and Bucharest will never have the same international influence that Moscow has. Like it or not, there are more often calls from certain levels of Washington to Moscow, no matter the hours and despite the eight-hour difference between the two capitals.

Here there is a paradox: The two geopolitical giants know and respect each other, they sometimes collaborate, but, by large, have different objectives by essence, and not by nature, which forces them to make different moves inside any geopolitical area in which they face each other. One is a thalassocratic power, the other telluric, and the two environments have essentially different forms of manifestation.

Still, in the streak of blunders that Romania is having in its relationship with the U.S. — as with all other great powers — the most important, in our opinion, is the fact that it isn’t developing analysis groups dedicated to American studies.

Thus, we must reveal that we do not have those strong research centers to thoroughly analyze each major power. This is because on one hand, there is no desire to form specialists in these areas, and on the other, because when such a specialist appears, he is drawn by the money of Western research institutes, and a mind is lost, and with it, a large part of the expertise.

How could we today interpret the fact that there is no single powerful research center for American studies from where future diplomats might be selected?

Where then are the research centers that thoroughly look at China, the great rising power? It is a known fact that those who aren’t studying the great rising powers today will have to limit themselves tomorrow to translations from the countries where this law wasn’t broken.

Again, because we are in the south: Where is that strong research center that analyzes the geopolitical space between the Caucasus, the Suez Canal and Brindisi? Or, where is the research center — with real results — that studies the geopolitics of the greatest power in our area, Russia? Can we really believe that ignorance will be useful to us?

Our universities create European study centers, but they don’t really know what Europe is — Germany’s or the United Kingdom’s geopolitics are not discussed. France remains just a memory of the books by Dumas and Feval, and the interests of Austria or Italy remain unknown. Why the Scandinavian Peninsula is important is not clear to us because the resources of Romanian education are grabbed by different groups of the universities, and the relevant ministry doesn’t understand that it plays a significant role in forming the nation’s elite, which will have to perform in a highly active global village.

Thus, we cannot understand why Brazil isn’t benefiting from the proper level of attention of Romanian scholars, why the Arab states are abandoned and Southeast Asia is almost nonexistent on the map of our interests. And if the argument of distance can put off the decision-makers of today, our own neighbors aren’t getting the deserved attention — and this is being done with severe future consequences.

Our ministries with interests in these areas aren’t at all helping this project; in other countries, the study of major powers is done through strong research centers — the exception in our area being in Russia and, very importantly, in Poland. There, however, the presence of state power is real — in both countries I’ve participated in events organized by their research centers, and the presence of specialists from the foreign ministry was an ordinary occurrence.

That is why we must understand that our country must come up with more than what it does now if it wishes to draw the attention of the major powers. They are strong enough to decide our future, and to preempt any negative event; our only possibility of earning their real respect is done through respecting the obligations we’ve taken up and through education. Even if sometimes we can’t know Germany or South Africa entirely, making good on our obligations will help us be known and appreciated.

Politicians in Bucharest Think of Themselves as Innkeepers

Thus, President Obama has had in front of him — when he has had the time — the negative reports on our country made by the U.S. diplomats from the State Department and from the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest. Is this fact settling? Without a doubt, no. The correlative doesn’t exist because the work of Romanian diplomats in the U.S., in the U.N. or other important areas is wiped out by the “less than pathetic” performances of the different ministers or so-called politicians in Bucharest, who probably consider themselves in charge of an inn, not of their state’s interests.

Moreover, the internal war in Bucharest has come to have the U.S. as a direct target. Honorable blockheads; you might want to think 30 times before you say bad words to countries that really matter in this world. If you’d like, I will give you the first five countries: the U.S., Russia, China, Germany and/or the U.K. This, because each of these countries has the power to punish bad mouths, and sometimes I’ve glimpsed regret among those who understand international relations that these five countries aren’t doing it (sooner).

By consequence, President Obama has time for Romania as part of the analysis of the entire area. Certainly in the discussions that he has with different leaders of other great states, sometimes our name comes up. But let’s not fool ourselves: His perceptions are influenced more by the perceptions of U.S. diplomats in Bucharest than by the different think tanks on the East Coast.

The U.S. president has taken up more plans of action in these four years. Obviously he wishes for a better world, but it must reach that good situation in which the U.S. must obtain the most important benefits. Every state has the same agenda, and this is not cynicism: Every country wishes its benefit first, and within possible limits, the benefit of other states that interest it.

But on the other hand, in Washington there has been the alert of a huge fiscal deficit — thank God we are not in the eurozone, to feel even more strongly the pressure of this year’s imminent currency war. And here there are no illusions: If the U.S. sneezes one more time, like in 2007, the results will be so devastating that it will take years for every state to work to regain at least 75 percent of their economic potential.

President Obama will be more concentrated than ever — but with the vision specific to the number-one power of the planet — on financial matters. This issue is not, however, one only internal to the U.S., because the U.S. matters a great deal on a global scale, and neither of the states that are contesting its hegemony can yet pay the bill in the event of a possible collapse.

Solution for Romania with Regard to the Relationship with the US

Romania here only has one option in its relationship with the U.S.: to develop economically, through fair and hard work, and especially to lower taxation; to begin to eliminate the so-called politicians that aren’t loud-mouthed, but merely cretins — political illiterates — to respect their obligations under international treaties; and to prepare a new generation of political leaders, capable of understanding correctly the equation of these five major powers.

That is why I would ask the following rhetorical question: Why, out of all those that have tendencies toward truly high office in our country, the only man to present in writing his opinions on the latest real speech of the U.S. president was Mircea Geoană?

Do the others believe that this lack of strategic vision is not visible from the Potomac?

Everything is seen, and everything can be understood, but not everything can be accepted — it’s time that the lowly political environment here learn its limits, otherwise, if not from Berlin or Beijing, then certainly from Washington or Moscow there will be quick but effective lightning strikes — and our country will suffer more than it should.