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.
On matters of foreign policy, the differences between Trump the campaigner and Trump the president could not be more stark. As a presidential candidate, Trump outlined a broad approach that sought to break from the failed bipartisan foreign policy consensus of previous administrations, where the term “global leadership” was used as an inaccurate label for using U.S. military force to fix problems that had no bearing on America’s capability as a superpower and international player.
“Unlike other candidates for the presidency,” Trump told a group of national security experts in April 2016, “war and aggression will not be my first instinct. You cannot have a foreign policy without diplomacy. A superpower understands that caution and restraint are really truly signs of strength.”
Truer words could not have been spoken, especially at a time when the majority of Americans were burned out by regime change missions in Iraq and Libya and a war in Afghanistan that continued to swallow up American lives and dollars with no end in sight. It was a compelling message to deliver because so many Americans supported it, registering a desire for a return to more restraint as the first reflex rather than intervention.
As president, however, Trump’s call to end the strategically bankrupted regime change business in favor of shrewd, pragmatic diplomacy fell by the wayside. Despite Trump’s previous comments, there is not much in the Trump administration’s foreign policy that realists would support.
One of the first principles of realism is setting priorities and investing national resources on the issues that directly impact America’s national security interests or challenge America’s leading role in the world. Chinese ascendancy in Asia, nuclear proliferation, and the possibility of a single country dominating their regions would all fit under that category.
Increasing the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan and extending a failed strategy in search of an impossible series of objectives would not fit the definition of principled realism. Neither would bombing a Syrian government air base without congressional approval such to send a message about America’s displeasure, or for that matter sending anti-tank missiles into Ukraine. Most realists would also opt to preserve an effective nuclear agreement instead of threatening to tear the deal up with nothing to replace it.
John Bolton becoming national security adviser is not the main issue. The issue is a steady shift away from Trump’s earlier impulses. With a team of neoconservatives, militarists, and humanitarian interventionists surrounding him, President Trump is implementing the very foreign policy he lashed out against as a candidate.
One can only hope the president undergoes a course correction before it is too late.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a fellow at Defense Priorities.
