Ted Galen Carpenter
President Trump’s appointment of John Bolton as national
security advisor is his final betrayal of anything resembling a
realist foreign policy. During the 2016 presidential run, Trump’s
statements were a curious, contradictory mixture of realism and
extreme nationalistic belligerence. In the former category were his
comments about NATO being an obsolete institution characterized by
shameless free riding on the part of allies, the foolishness of
Washington’s regime-change and nation-building wars, especially the
Iraq intervention, and his criticism of the
Obama administration’s hostile attitude toward Russia. But those
sensible observations coexisted with alarmingly hardline positions
on Iran, North Korea, and the overall war on terror. It was a
matter of conjecture …read more
Source: Cato Institute