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Ambassador John Bolton is a regular guest on television, radio, and writes columns for major media publications. Check back here daily to for commentary and analysis of breaking news and current events from John Bolton.

What Next After Rome?

April 22, 2025

No one was more surprised than Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu when he learned of Donald Trump’s intention to reopen negotiations with Iran over its nuclear-weapons program.  At an April 7 meeting in Washington, Netanyahu almost certainly expected to move forward on plans for a potential Israeli strike against...


Trump’s foolish Iran diplomacy

April 14, 2025

Saturday’s US-Iran proximity negotiations highlighted the choice between two very divergent futures for Tehran’s nuclear-weapons program.  One path would have Washington re-enter witless negotiations with the ayatollahs, with no evidence they have made a strategic decision to abandon their decades-long quest for weapons of mass destruction.  The alternative is...


What Trump Really Intends

April 6, 2025

What does Trump really intend?  What is bluff, braggadocio, and bargaining and what is not?  Because he does not have a philosophy or a national-security strategy, and often doesn’t seek pre-conceived objectives, observers from left to right are often confounded.  Trump is the very epitome of “transactional,” his one...


Europe could blow the west apart

March 25, 2025

Donald Trump has confirmed since 20th January that he is an aberration in American politics. That was clear in his first term, but many refused to acknowledge reality, fervently hoping his second term would be a legacy-building project. Their mistake was assuming that their definition of “legacy”—what normal political...


Ukraine, Trump and the Middle East

March 17, 2025

Donald Trump’s jarring Oval Office confrontation with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky symbolizes what is wrong with Trump’s dysfunctional approach to foreign policy.  In what seemed like a television comedy show, Trump accused Zelensky of everything from risking World War III to having no cards to play in defending his...


The Only Question Trump Asks Himself

March 11, 2025

Ukraine’s Volodomyr Zelensky is “a dictator without elections,” with only a four percent approval rating( https://www.newsweek.com/what-trump-has-said-about-zelensky-since-2022- 2039000 ). The war in Ukraine( https://apnews.com/article/trump-speech-congress-transcript- 751b5891a3265ff1e5c1409c391fef7c ) is “madness” and “senseless.” While it is true Russia is currently “pounding” Ukraine, “probably anyone in that position would be doing that right now(...


Review of Kaplan, Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis

March 4, 2025

T.S Eliot would not have minded Robert Kaplan expropriating the title of his most famous poem for his latest book, Waste Land. Kaplan’s focus on the decline of the West and the birth of modernism were among the poem’s themes(175), and his latest tour de force on the unhappy...


How to Protect NATO and Other Alliances From Trump

Responsible advisers and GOP lawmakers should redirect his focus to other targets, especially the EU. Last week’s Trump-Vance-Zelensky train wreck proved that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is on increasingly shaky ground. Starting with Donald Trump’s Feb. 12 phone call with Vladimir Putin about the Ukraine war, things got...


After the Oval Office Debacle

March 3, 2025

Vladimir Putin was the only winner in last week’s Oval Office grudge match between Donald Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.  Trump harmed US national security by ignoring our profound, long-standing interest in European stability, which we learned through the 20th Century’s two hot world wars and one Cold...


Trump’s Gaza Dreaming

February 10, 2025

Donald Trump’s remarks on the Gaza Strip after his February 4 meeting with Israeli Prime Minster Bibi Netanyahu precipitated enormous controversy and confusion.  They were not idle musings, but written in advance.  Typically, Trump wandered off-script, speculating about using US military force in Gaza, which White House handlers walked...


ABOUT JOHN BOLTON

Ambassador John Bolton, a diplomat and a lawyer, has spent many years in public service. He served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations in 2005-2006. He was Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security from 2001 to 2005. In the Reagan Administration, he was an Assistant Attorney General.