The Washington Post:

Max A. Boot is an American author, consultant, editorialist, lecturer, and military historian. 

National security adviser John Bolton published a fire-breathing memoir in 2007 called “Surrender Is Not an Option,” in which he detailed all of the steps he had taken as a government official to protect U.S. sovereignty. Most of the threats he fulminated against were trivial, such as the remote possibility that the International Criminal Court would bring charges against U.S. troops. Yet he regarded them as matters of high principle worth alienating U.S. allies over.

Now imagine how Bolton would react if a foreign power demanded that the United States give up its nuclear arsenal. Or drop its support for allies such as Israel. Or stop its subsidies to major corporations such as Boeing and Alcoa. Or end its spying on other countries. Or even usher President Trump out of office before his term expires.

Yet those are the rough equivalents of the demands the Trump administration is making on North Korea, Iran, Venezuela and China — simultaneously.

Trump and his hard-line advisers have no strategy to achieve their ambitious objectives beyond acting tough and hoping for the best. And yet somehow they appear surprised that those countries are resisting U.S. pressure. Trump and his aides can’t imagine the United States surrendering on important issues of sovereignty, but they expect other countries to do so.

Now, I am not drawing any moral equivalence between the United States and these dictatorships — as Trump himself does. I think we are right to demand that North Korea end its nuclear program, Iran its support for regional proxies, China its intellectual property theft and Venezuela its illegitimate dictatorship.

But I believe those things because I believe in the importance of human rights, free trade and international law. Trump and Bolton don’t.

Go to link