John Bolton Isn’t Listening

In a recent Zoom conversation with the Institute for Corean-American Studies, Former Ambassador and neocon warhawk John Bolton warned that Donald Trump’s approach to foreign policy could create a “tough time” for America. He warned against Trump’s “pattern” during his first term. Most Americans, though, remember Trump’s first term as a time of ending wars, economic growth, and prosperity for most. Bolton apparently didn’t understand that Americans voted for Donald Trump specifically because they were tired of the neocon approach, which included lying about WMD to get America into a war in Iraq, bogging the country down in an inevitably failed nation-building exercise in Afghanistan, casually igniting a civil war in Libya, and other such misadventures that cost this nation dearly in both blood and treasure. Donald Kirk reports in The New York Sun:

The imminence of President-elect Trump’s return to the White House has foreign policy critics warning of what they see as disasters from Ukraine to northeast Asia.

If America under Trump cannot stop the Russians in Europe, the former and future president’s one-time national security adviser, John Bolton, asked, “What can we do for Taiwan?”

Mr. Bolton, in a zoom conversation staged by the Institute for Corean-American Studies, said he “would be in favor if South Korea decided they wanted some of their troops to get experience in Ukraine,” just as the North Koreans forces are doing on Russia’s side.

“Our declared position is that Ukraine should get full restoration, territorial integrity,” he said. ”We’ve allowed the current situation to persist for three years.” If Trump “follows the pattern of his first term, with respect to alliances like NATO or bilateral alliances” with the likes of Japan and Korea, “we’re in for a tough time.”

Mr. Bolton was one of a number of analysts and officials, in and out of the government, who seem alarmed by the havoc they fear Trump and his team may wreak after his inauguration.

A former American ambassador to South Korea and former commander of American forces in the Pacific, Harry Harris, called for “a strong reaffirmation of the Washington Declaration.” That’s the document signed at Washington by President Biden and President Yoon of South Korea in April 2023 calling for a “nuclear consultative group” to talk about defending the South against nuclear attack.

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