General Wesley Clark works for Bucharest

Romania's Foreign Policy reveals that since last May, Wesley Clark, a former commander of NATO’s forces in Europe from 1997 to 2000, has been working as an advisor on questions of strategy and national security to the Romanian Prime Minister. “But why does the Ponta government need such an advisor? wonders the Bucharest monthly. “Appointing advisors to the government of another mature and responsible state is as unusual for the United States as it is for Romania.”

Romanian authorities first came in contact with General Clark when Bucharest took part in the NATO operations in Kosovo and Serbia, which he directed in 1999. For Foreign Policy, Clark’s emergence next to Ponta is proof that the United States, which, until now, has “pampered” President Traian Băsescu and his right-wing supporters, would now like to see a powerful centre-left government in Romania —

The Americans want a government that is in favour of the development of shale gas by Chevron [the US firm’s exploration concession in the country was withdrawn under pressure from public opinion in the spring of this year], as well as an administration that will buy their F-16 jet fighters. (…) In his role as a lobbyist, we can expect that Clark will do his utmost to counterbalance the growing influence of Germany and the EU in a region that is also dangerously close to Russia.