President Trump’s appointment of former U.S. Ambassador John Bolton to the post of national security adviser has landed like a thunderbolt inside Washington and around the world. While Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster—who is set to depart the White House on April 9—was solidly in the hawkish camp of America’s foreign policy lexicon, there was a general recognition that the former battlefield commander saw diplomacy as a viable tool in certain situations. John Bolton, however, is not a big fan of negotiations or of multilateralism in general. Rather than the asset it is, diplomacy is seen by the former Bush administration official as a liability.

As disconcerting and downright frightening as it is to picture Bolton whispering his hawkish proclivities into the president’s ear, his nomination is just one part of a much bigger story—that of a president increasingly disassociating himself from his more anti-interventionist view of the world. The time when Trump was on the campaign trail railing against foolish military interventions and wasteful regime change missions—themes that differentiated him from his opponent— feel like light-years away. Trump’s self-described doctrine of “principled realism,” a term codified in the very first White House National Security Strategy, is now being discarded and replaced by a group of advisers who profess an unwavering commitment to unilateralism.