한국 보수 언론, 존 볼턴에 대한 잘못된 보도.
존 볼턴은 수틀리면 전쟁불사파였다. 그는 말 염소 낙타 발굽을 뜻하는 클로븐 후프, Cloven hoof로 통하는데, '기피인물, 악마'라는 뜻이다. 시속 80 km 짜리 무궁화호 같은 기차를 132시간 타고 평양-하노이 왕복했던 김정은에게 존 볼턴은 '클로븐 후프'로 비칠까? 아니다. 다음 회담에 김정은이 존 볼턴을 만나면, 싱가포를 회담때처럼 '우리 사진 한번 같이 찍자'고 볼턴에게 제안할 확률이 높다.
1. 존 볼턴이 북미관계를 좌지우지 하는가? 역시 '아니다'. 트럼프가 결정한다. 트럼프가 강경파 상징 존 볼턴을 기용했을 때부터 나의 일관된 주장은 두 사람이 '의기투합'은 잘 하지만, 철저히 주종관계라는 것이다. 트럼프와 존 볼턴과의 관계는, "트럼프가 부르면 볼턴이 보고서를 들고서 백악관 복도를 열심히 뛰어가고 있는” 상하관계이다. 북한 김정은이 대량학살무기-생화학 무기도 내놓아야 한다고 주장하는 존 볼턴은 트럼프에게는 분명 '플랜 B'이긴 하지만, 꺼내들지 않을 '미국 내부 정치용'이다.
2. 지금 내가 내린 소결론, 트럼프는 하노이 오기 전에 비건 (Biegun)이 준비해온 북미협상안을 승인할 마음이 없었다. 영변 + '한 군데 더'는 핑계에 불과하다. 2018년 6월에 이미 조엘 위트(Joel Wit)가 영변 이외에 핵시설을 북한이 숨기고 있다고 발표했으나, 트럼프는 그 이후 그것을 문제삼지 않고 북미협상의 걸림돌이라고 주장하지도 않았다. 오히려 트럼프는 2018년 여름 이후, 하노이 회담 결렬 이후까지도 김정은과의 개인적인 친분이 두터워지고 있다고 자랑했다. (fall in love 어쩌고)
심지어 트럼프는 하노이 기자회견장에서 미국 청년 오토 웜비어 감금 사실도 김정은은 몰랐을 수도 있다고 그를 감싸는 발언을 아주 길게 기자들에게 설명을 했다.
3. 그렇다면 트럼프는 왜 김정은과의 '친분'을 강조하고 있으면서도, 하노이에서 '노 딜'을 선택했는가? 그것은 하노이 북미협상 발표가 미국내 ‘트럼프-러시아’ 연루설을 꺾어버릴만큼, 혹은 미국내 트럼프 인기를 최고점에 이르게 하지 못할 것이라는 불안감 때문이었다.
트럼프 얼굴을 자세히 봤는가?
하노이 도착 이전에 마이클 코헨 의회 청문회 때문에, 트럼프는 하노이에서도 TV 화면상으로도 1차 싱가포르 때와 구분이 될 정도로 "딴 생각"에 잠겨 있었다. 김정은은 북미협상을 스터디하려는 열공 학생처럼 보였고, 트럼프는 껄렁껄렁하게 팔짱끼고 수업 중에 딴 몽상에 빠진 것처럼 보였다.
아주 중요한 대목이 방송되었다. 회담 전에, 기자들이 “미국과 북한에 연락사무소를 설치하는 것에 대해서 어떻게 생각하는가?”라고 물었을 때, 트럼프는 “not bad, 나쁘지 않다” 그러면서 “좋은 아이디어”라고 답했다. 그러자 그 이후에 김정은은 “환영할만한 생각”이라고 굉장히 외교적으로 답했다.
트럼프는 ‘하노이 회담’에 열성이 부족했고, 김정은은 “1분이라도 아깝다”며 긴장감과 열성을 동시에 표출했다.
4. 하노이 북미 ‘노 딜’이 보여준 것은 무엇인가?
트럼프는 김정은의 '단계적 상호 신뢰 구축 프레임'에 대해 아직 전적으로 수용하지 않았다. 하노이 도착 이전에도 미결정상태였다. 그리고 북한의 비핵화에 대한 정치적 선물 크기와 질도 결정하지 못한 상태로 베트남에 왔다.
외교적으로는 미국 트럼프 팀은 철저하게 준비하지 못한 채, 하노이에 도착했다. 트럼프가 '노 딜'을 정당화하면서 고르바초프와 레이건의 레이카비크 회담 사례를 들었지만, 당시 미-소 양대 강국의 '핵감축' 협상과 현재 북한의 '비핵화'와 북미수교 사안은 질적으로 다르다.
5. 하노이 협상안 추측
비건 (Biegun)과 김혁철이 하노이 회담 직전까지 도달한 협상안 (give and take)에는, 지금까지 나온 언론보도를 기초로 해 볼 때, 북한은 영변 핵시설을 폐기하고 미국의 핵전문가 사찰을 허용한다.
그 대신 북한은 개성공단, 금강산관광 재개, 남북 철도 잇기 등과 같은 남북 경협안, 식량난을 해결하기 위한 농업과 관련된 경제 제재 해제 (이는 중국과 북한과의 국경 무역 재개), 북한의 1차 자원 수출 (광산) 허용 및 금융 경제 제재 해제 조치, 북한 해외 노동력 파견 금지의 완화 등이었을 것으로 추측된다.
정치적으로는 평양과 와싱턴에 연락사무소를 설치할 것을 북미 실무팀이 협의를 한다는 내용도 포함되었을 것이다.
그러나 트럼프는 미국 국내 정치에서 벌어지고 있는 반-트럼프 정치 (트럼프-러시아 연루설, 코헨 청문회, 국경 벽설치 반대, 셧다운, 트럼프 탄핵 운동 가능성)를 잠재우는데 '비건-김혁철' 하노이 협상안 정도로는 너무나 불충분하다고 판단했다. 이것은 하노이 도착 이전에 이미 트럼프가 '노 딜'도 염두했음이 거의 틀림 없다.
6. 하노이 ‘노 딜’ 책임 소재, 정세현의 '존 볼턴' 평가를 어떻게 볼 것인가?
따라서 남북한 사람들과 평화를 기원하는 세계 시민들에게 실망을 안겨다 준 하노이 북미 '노 딜'에 대해서 굳이 비판적인 평가와 책임소재를 따지자면,트럼프 팀에 1차적인 책임이 있다고 본다. 존 볼턴은 급조된 '엑스트라' 악당 역할이었다. 트럼프 감독이 내린 명령을 연기한 것이다.
김정은이 놀란 이유는 '영변 플러스 알파'를 주장한 미국의 정보력이 아니라, '협상 초안과 다른 미국의 요구' 때문이라고 봐야한다.
조선일보 기사는 과장이고, 사실 판단을 흐리는 제목 뽑기다. 정세현 전 통일부장관이 존 볼턴을 "재수없는 사람"이라고 했다고 조선일보가 기사 제목을 뽑았다. 이 제목을 보면 마치 하노이 북미 협상 결렬 '노 딜' 원인이 존 볼턴에 있는 것처럼 들린다.
하지만 정세현의 진단은 트럼프-폼페오-비건이 만든 하노이 협상안을 취소하기 위해서 일부러 존 볼턴에게 지령해, 북한이 수용할 없는 무리한 요구들을 했다는 것이다. 타당한 지적이다.
'북미 회담 노 딜' 이후, 트럼프 기자회견에서, 트럼프가 약간 연기를 하면서, "(미국 팀이) 영변 이외에 다른 핵시설을 언급하자, 북측이 놀랬다"고 했는데, 김정은이 놀란 이유는, '아 미국이 영변 이외에 핵시설을 알고 있구나. 정보력이 대단하다'는 게 아니라, '아니 비건과 김혁철 협상안에 기초해서 의제로 대두되지 않는 내용을 갑자기 하노이 테이블에서 들고 나오는 미국팀의 변칙 전술’에 놀랬다고 해석해야 한다.
정세현의 요지는 존 볼턴이 '재수없는 사람'이라는 것만 언급하려는 게 아니라, 트럼프가 애초에 하노이 회담에서 비건-김혁철 협상안에 서명할 의지가 결여되어 있었다는 것이고, 그 악역을 존 볼턴에게 맡겼다는 것이다.
7. 존 볼튼 영향력이 트럼프 정부 안에서 확대되고 있는가 ? 존 볼튼이 겸손하게 처신하면서 과거 '강경파' 이미지를 세탁하고 있는가?
WP 아래 기사에 따르면, 위 질문들에 대한 답변은 '그렇다'이다.
존 볼튼은 과거 조지 부시 정부 하에서 '지나친' 강경파 노선을 견지하다가 내부 비판에 직면해 곤란을 겪었다. 해고되고 실직했다. 이제는 그게 싫은 것이다.
건설 자본가 사장 출신 트럼프 정부로 다시 어렵사리 귀환한 존 볼튼은 생존전략을 바꾸었다.
자기 주장을 낮추는 대신, 트럼프의 '피고용인'으로 자기 역할을 한정함으로써 철저히 자기 '보스'에 충성하는 방식을 채택하고 있다.
아래 WP 기사에 따르면 "국가안보 위원으로서 자기 역할을 재규정했다. 행정부 내부 다양한 의견들을 취합하고 토론을 통한 조율자(synthesizer)라기 보다는, 트럼프가 알아야 할 사항들을 선택하는 결정권자 (arbiter) "로 변신하고 있다.
그리고 NSC 사무실 직원들도 존 볼튼의 이러한 변화를 증언하고 있다. 그들은 존 볼턴을 '악마 cloven hoof'로 예상했는데, 실제로 그가 기존 NSC 직원들에게 친절하게 다가갔고 '경청형 상급자'로 변모를 꾀했다고 한다.
8. 존 볼턴과 트럼프의 관계는 어떠한가?
(1) 트럼프는 존 볼튼의 북한 정책을 거부해오고 있다. 전쟁일으킬 짓은 하지 마라는 게 트럼프가 볼튼에게 제안한 내용이다.
(2) 그러나 북한 문제와는 대조적으로, 트럼프는 존 볼튼이 제안한 다른 중요한 국제 정책들을 수용했다. 군비축소와 다자간 협약들 취소. 러시아와 이란과 협약들 폐기. 국제 사법재판소 비난. 베네수엘라 좌파정권 붕괴 노선. UN 역할 폄훼 및 무시 (비효율적이고 부패했다고 존 볼튼이 UN을 비난함) 등 아주 핵심적이고 중추적인 국제 외교 노선에서는 존 볼턴의 견해를 트럼프가 수용했다.
존 볼턴이 트럼프의 비정통적인 외교 전략에 안성맞춤으로 대응함으로써 트럼프의 신뢰를 넓혀나가고 있다.
9. 존 볼턴의 업무 특징들, 겸손한 관료로 변했다.
a. NSC 내부 지역별 국가별 업무를 통합시켰다. 오바마 행정부 당시 18명 전문위원들을 이제 6명으로 축소시켰다.
b. 트럼프 취향에 맞는 안성맞춤 '요약형' 보고서 작성.
존 볼턴은 켈리와 매티스와 달리, 트럼프가 긴 보고서나 복잡한 내용 설명을 싫어한다는 사실을 깨닫고, 아주 간략한 보고서들을 제작한다. 국방부 국무부 백악관 3자 회의틀도 예전에 비해 훨씬 더 간소하게 만들었다.
전임 국방부 장관 짐 매티스 (Jim Mattis)와 백악관 비서실장격 존 켈리 (John Kelly)는 정통적인 외교틀을 고집하고 3자 회의를 자주 개최할 것을 제안했다가, 오히려 트럼프와 갈등을 겪었다.
전임 민주당 대통령들과 조지 부시 공화당 대통령과도 차별을 내겠다는 트럼프의 ‘비정통적인’ 외교 책략이다.
10. 향후 북미 협상은 어떻게 전개될 것인가?
과연 트럼프의 이러한 ‘비정통적인, 비전통적인’ 외교술이 한국에게도 도움이 될 것인가? 북미협상의 결실을 가져올 것인가? ‘하노이 노 딜’을 보면 아무도 예측할 수 없게 되었고, 냉정한 ‘계산기’만 남았다.
하지만 몇 개월 이내로 북미 협상은 재개될 것이다. 난제는 김정은의 '단계적 신뢰구축'이라는 프레임을 미국 측 (트럼프 뿐만 아니라 민주당 의원들과 여론)이 얼마나 수용할 수 있는가이다.
이번 하노이 2차 북미회담은 한국으로봐서는 '실패'다. 기차를 132 시간이나 타면서 전 세계의 이목을 1주일 내내 받고자 했던 김정은과 북측에게도 낭패다.
트럼프 팀도 외교적인 수완에서 볼 때, 미숙함을 드러냈다. 이 핑계 저 핑계 댔지만 말이다.
그럼에도 트럼프, 존 볼턴은 하노이 '노 딜'을 '성공적'이었다고 평가한다. 동시에 '내가 해외에서 중대한 외교적 담판을 하는데, 국내에서 민주당이 코헨 청문회를 열 수 있느냐'고 불평했던 트럼프였지만, 김정은의 '비핵화 시각 vision'은 점점 더 미국과 가까와지고 있다고 평가했다. 북미회담 개최 여지를 남겨둔 것이다.
북한은 알다시피 미국 트럼프보다 더 다급하다.
북한은 2018년에도 식량난에 고생했고, 자연재해와 의료품 부족으로 어린이 노약자들의 건강이 악화되었다. 북한 내부 불평등도 점점 더 커지고 있는 상황에서, 김정은으로서는 경제적 풍요와 안전에 대한 북한 주민들의 증폭하는 요구를 수용하기 위해서 북미 관계 개선 및 남북 경협 재개, 중국-러시아와의 국경 무역의 재개는 '죽느냐 사느냐'의 문제이다.
이에 비해서, 트럼프에게 김정은과의 협상은 '재선 카드' 성격이 강하다. 자신의 인기를 최고점으로 올리는 '시기'를 저울질하고 있다. 트럼프 재선에 지금 모든 북한 인구와 정치가 동원되고 있다고 해도 과언이 아닐 정도이다.
북미 협상의 성공을 위해서는, 북측이 제안한 '단계적 신뢰구축' 프레임을 미국이 더 전향적으로 수용해야 한다. 그리고 '주고 받음 give and take'의 구체적인 설계와 실천 조항들을 북미 실무팀이 합의를 한 다음에, 북미 정상회담을 개최해야 한다.
북한 김정은은 '영변 핵시설 폐기와 핵사찰'을 내걸었다. 미국이 이에 상응하는 '선물'을 어떤 방식으로 얼마만큼 줄 것인가를 결정한 후에 제 3차 '북미 정상 회담'을 해야 한다는 것이다. 이 1차적인 신뢰구축이 곧바로 '북미 수교'로 이어지지 않는다. 이 중간 과정에 필요한 징검다리 상호 실천 조항들에 대한 북미 합의가 나와야 한다.
11. 한국의 역할, 1943년~1953년 체제를 극복하는 새로운 정치 담론과 실천이 필요하다.
1943년 카이로 회담 이후, 일제에서 해방되었지만, 일본 점령지로서 조선은 미국, 소련, 중국, 영국, 프랑스 등 전승국가들에게는 '분할 통치' 대상일 뿐이었다.
2019년도 우리는 냉정한 국제적 이해관계에 직면해 있다.
한국 정부는 미국의 트럼프 뿐만 아니라, 민주당과 주류 언론들을 상대로 북미협상과 북미수교의 중요성을 알려야 하고, 설득을 얻어내야 한다. 중국은 물론, 러시아, 일본 등 이웃국가들의 협조를 이끌어 내야 한다.
이러한 외교적 노력과 더불어, 한국 내부 남남 갈등을 최소화하면서 평화체제 구축이 남북한 경제와 삶의 질을 높이는 출발점이 됨을 한국 내부 공통된 입장으로 정립시켜야 한다.
'하노이 회담'의 '노딜'이 보여준 냉정한 사실은, 남한과 북한 모두 국제 무대 위에서 완전한 독립국가가 아니라는 것이다. 전 세계 여행에서 한국 비자는 가장 막강한 '신뢰'를 갖는 프리 패스나 다름없다. 한국사람들은 180개 넘는 국가들을 자유롭게 여행할 수 있지만, 북한만은 자유롭게 걸어갈 수도 여행할 수도 없다.
AI 기술 발달, 4차 혁명 시대 정신과는 반대이다. 우리들에게는 이런 냉전체제가 지식, 에너지, 교육, 경제, 정치군사, 문화적,심리적 낭비이다.
나는 이번 '하노이' 북미 회담 과정을 보면서, 우리가 1953년 휴전 체제에 살고 있지만, 그 근원은 1943년 카이로 회담을 비롯한 '냉전 cold war' 의 출발점에 서 있음을 다시금 깨달았다. 1943~1953년 체제를 극복하는 정치적 담론과 새로운 정치적 실천들이 시민들로부터 나와야할 때이다. 트럼프를 비롯한 정치지도자들의 업무로만 남겨둬서는 안된다.
연관 주제 글: http://bit.ly/2T6pRuo 1943년에서 1953년까지 분단과정의 교훈- 외교 철학의 중요성과 국제 정치 능력
John Bolton puts his singular stamp on Trump’s National Security Council
National security adviser John Bolton attends a meeting with President Trump and the Chilean president in the Oval Office on Sept. 28, 2018. (Oliver Contreras/For The Washington Post)
By Karen DeYoung ,Greg Jaffe ,John Hudson and Josh Dawsey March 4 at 6:27 PM
캐런 드영, 그렉 제이퍼, 존 허드슨, 조쉬 도시
As national security adviser to President Trump, John Bolton has been the chief translator of Trump’s unorthodox foreign policy views to the vast U.S. bureaucracy.
To his critics, Bolton is the hawkish whisperer in Trump’s ear, nudging a president unschooled in world affairs toward Bolton’s preferred strategies.
To his supporters, he’s an adviser who knows his place, offering counsel but careful never to force the president’s hand.
An assessment of Bolton’s time in office, as he approaches his first anniversary in the job, reveals both the breadth of his influence and, in a few notable instances — such as policy toward North Korea — its limits.
The contradictions of Bolton’s tenure were apparent in the wake of last week’s collapsed Hanoi summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Bolton dutifully reiterated Trump’s assessment that the summit was a success. But he offered little support for that judgment or the president’s approach beyond saying in an interview with CNN on Sunday that Trump “remains optimistic.”
Asked whether the summit effort was worth it, Bolton took a pass.
“He obviously thinks it’s worth trying,” Bolton said of the president.
Asked about Kim’s insistence that he wasn’t involved in the death of American college student Otto Warmbier, Bolton declined to back Trump, who had said he took Kim “at his word.”
“My opinion doesn’t matter. . . .,” he said. “I am not the national security decision-maker. That’s [Trump’s] view.”
From all that is known of Bolton’s views and means of operating as an outspoken denizen of Washington’s foreign policy wars for decades — a high-level government bureaucrat, a political activist and a Fox News commentator — such self-effacement is startling.
But if Bolton has not always prevailed on issues dear to his heart, it is not for want of trying. He has redefined the job of national security adviser from synthesizer and transmitter of views across the government to arbiter of what he believes the president needs to hear, according to interviews with over a dozen current and former administration officials who discussed his record on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly. Bolton declined to be interviewed for this article.
He has cut to a bare minimum meetings in which top national security officials present and vet options for the president. In some cases, he has replaced subject experts detailed to the National Security Council from other agencies with ideological soul mates who have little experience serving at the most senior levels of policymaking.
His approach to the job, and the president’s disinclination to read lengthy briefings or consult experts, have afforded Bolton vast power over an often disorderly foreign policy process.
“He advocates a position and then challenges people to talk him out of it,” added one senior White House official who works closely with him.
Even as the president has rejected his advice on North Korea, Bolton has won on many core issues — such as scrapping arms control and multilateral treaties — that have fired his passion for decades.
On his watch, the administration has pulled out of major agreements with Russia and Iran. In September, he declared the International Criminal Court “dead to us.” He has fashioned a Venezuela policy that, in recent weeks, has been mostly about Cuba, a longtime Bolton target.
He has played a central role in the administration’s efforts to cut cooperation with the United Nations, an organization that Bolton has long derided as incompetent and corrupt.
Some officials said Trump grouses at times that Bolton has pursued an independent foreign policy that isn’t always in line with the administration’s “America First” agenda and has berated him for some of his public remarks on the Middle East and North Korea. He has jokingly warned Bolton not to start any wars. But there are no signs that Trump is considering replacing him.
Meanwhile, the departures of White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, strong advocates of working closely with allies, have bolstered Bolton’s position. The former Marine generals were said to have clashed frequently with Bolton, and the net result of their departure has been to further reduce the number of voices influencing the president.
Sprinting to the Oval Office
National security adviser John Bolton walks back to the West Wing on Jan. 24. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
One moment from the Trump administration’s chaotic Syria debate last year highlighted Bolton’s power and how he exercises it. Trump had promised in April to pull all U.S. forces out of Syria “very soon” but then seemed to drop the matter amid Pentagon and State Department outcry that the Islamic State was not defeated.
It fell to Bolton to clarify the policy for those implementing it.
In a typical administration, the national security adviser would convene a meeting of the president and his top Cabinet officials in the Situation Room, hash out differences and settle on a strategy.
But the Trump presidency is far from typical. Since his arrival at the White House, right about the time Trump’s withdraw demand was set aside, Bolton has insisted that the primary enemy in Syria was not the Islamic State, but Iran.
The key moment came out of a meeting last summer that remains shrouded in secrecy. Bolton told senior officials working on Syria policy that Trump, during a no-notes meeting alone with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in July, had insisted that U.S. troops would stay in Syria until Moscow forced out its Iranian allies — an ambitious declaration that could keep the Americans there for years. With no reason to doubt Bolton’s account, officials at the Pentagon and State Department fine-tuned a strategy that made Iran’s departure a primary objective of the 2,000-strong U.S. presence.
“We’re not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders,” Bolton told reporters in September, “and that includes Iranian proxies and militias.” James Jeffrey, the administration’s newly appointed special envoy for Syria, said Trump was “on board” with that and was in “no hurry” to leave Syria.
But Trump never approved a strategy tying troop withdrawal to Iran’s departure, according to several senior administration officials. In December, he surprised many on his foreign policy team by countermanding it in a tweet: “It’s time to bring our great young people home!”
Today, it’s still unclear what Trump actually told Putin.
Bolton’s public reputation as blunt and unyielding, at least to those with equal or lesser status, preceded his arrival last spring at the White House. “I expected cloven hoofs,” said one former NSC staffer.
But when Bolton showed up for an introductory meeting, his polite interest in what this staffer’s division was working on “flew in the face of everything I had heard,” the staffer said. Going from office to office, Bolton told all that he was in a “listening mode,” agreed a former senior official who worked for Bolton and his predecessor, H.R. McMaster.
“In person, he’s a nice guy,” this official said, although it quickly became apparent that Bolton had “a completely different leadership style.” McMaster held regular “all-hands” meetings with the entire staff — sometimes called to refute rumors he was leaving or conducted with Kelly by his side to prove the two weren’t engaged in mortal combat. With the exception of an internal staff awards ceremony in September, numerous staffers could not recall any under Bolton.
[John Bolton, famously abrasive, is an experienced operator in the ‘swamp’]
Many NSC staffers said they have rarely, if ever, spoken to Bolton since he made his early introductory rounds.
“It shifted from office door is always open to office door is always closed,” one said of the change from McMaster to Bolton. To the extent that Bolton has relied on staff, he has worked most closely with the Middle East and Asia directorates, as he focused on Iran, North Korea and China, where he has long advocated more confrontational policies.
From early in his tenure, Bolton would burrow in his West Wing office with copious binders of intelligence. Arriving hours before the president, he normally shut his door to scour the day’s newspapers and daily intelligence briefing.
When Trump beckoned, Bolton would often sprint to the Oval Office. “If you stood in the lobby outside his office, you’d see him go running by,” a senior administration official said.
President George W. Bush, left, speaks with John Bolton, then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the United Nations in 2005. (GREGORY BULL/AP)
Unlike the president, who frequently breaks from conservative orthodoxy, Bolton, 70, touts his pristine conservative credentials and traces his bona fides back to when he was a teenage supporter of Barry Goldwater. Part of George W. Bush’s legal team during the disputed 2000 election, Bolton became a favorite of incoming Vice President Richard B. Cheney, who intervened to help him land in a senior State Department job.
Bolton frequently clashed there with Secretary of State Colin Powell and described himself as a sharp-elbowed master of bureaucratic process. “That is what makes some of my critics go truly wild,” he once told an interviewer, “because they couldn’t get me on process fouls. . . . I’m proud to say I’m a good bureaucrat.”
Fred Fleitz, who served as Bolton’s NSC chief of staff until November, said Bolton’s model as national security adviser is Brent Scowcroft, who worked for presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush. Known for bringing his bosses a range of views, Scowcroft is hailed by Democrats and Republicans as the gold standard for the job.
But many consider Bolton the antithesis of Scowcroft.
From the start, a former senior official said, Bolton “told the NSC directorates that his job was to be a senior adviser to the president.” Rather than overseeing meetings and policy discussions among principals, he told them, he planned to spend as much time as he could at Trump’s side.
Not getting their way
Bolton’s unusual approach has meant that there is little coordination of policy debates above the third-tier level of assistant secretaries or efforts at the highest levels to reconcile the different approaches advocated by the military, State Department and White House.
Formal meetings of the foreign policy “principals committee,” which includes the defense secretary, secretary of state, treasury secretary and attorney general, have been rare.
Mattis had complained repeatedly about too many meetings under McMaster. But before he resigned, the defense secretary wrote a sharply worded letter to Bolton, insisting that the paucity of meetings was crippling the policy process. Mattis was particularly upset that not a single principals committee meeting had been held to discuss U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, the INF.
NSC spokesman Garrett Marquis said that it is “incorrect to say that there are fewer meetings overall.” In some cases, face-to-face meetings have been replaced with “paper meetings” in which top officials exchange policy documents but do not actually sit around a table and talk.
Bolton also has weekly breakfasts with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and with acting defense secretary Patrick M. Shanahan, but the meetings don’t produce records that could be used to inform experts elsewhere in the government, who often feel frozen out of the process.
[‘America First’ or American alone? In debut on world stage, acting Pentagon chief must answer for Trump.]
Fleitz, now a Fox commentator and president of the Center for Security Policy, acknowledged there are fewer high-level meetings but dismissed the criticism. “People who disagree assume that if there were more meetings, they would get their way,” he said.
The one area of robust consultation, officials said, is third-tier meetings at the level of assistant secretaries and geographical or issue-based NSC directors. Many such meetings were held last year to formulate Syria policy, said current and former officials. But, higher-level meetings on Syria took place largely as small, informal discussions with no process to reconcile conflicting views or produce a clear decision from the president.
Often, those higher-level discussions were disconnected from the lower-level meetings and the president’s shifting thinking. “The wheel doesn’t connect to the engine,” said a former official involved in the Syria debates.
In the absence of all sitting down together — and trust that Bolton will accurately present their views to Trump and vice versa — some Cabinet officials have sought their own lines of contact with the president. The most successful has been Pompeo, increasingly a Trump favorite, who shares Bolton’s aggressive, conservative outlook but is said to guard his “alone time” with Trump.
The activists arrive
Bolton’s efforts to restructure the NSC also have led to significant changes in personnel.
Much of the NSC is filled with career officials from other parts of the government — including State, Defense and intelligence agencies — sent for a year or two as nonpolitical subject experts.
As those assignments have expired, Bolton has either left them empty or filled them with activists.
The cuts have hit the Middle East and North Africa directorate especially hard. The division, which oversees Iraq policy and the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, consisted of as many as 18 people during the Obama administration and is now about one-third that size, said two senior administration officials.
The NSC director for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone, a longtime political fundraiser and pro-sanctions lobbyist on Cuba, replaced a career CIA officer.
On Iran, two staffers detailed from the Treasury Department to work on sanctions and nuclear issues had their jobs combined into one, for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction. The office is overseen by Richard Goldberg, who worked most recently at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he advocated regime change in Iran via economic and diplomatic pressure
Victoria Coates, who trained as an art historian and served as a top foreign policy adviser to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) during his 2016 presidential campaign, joined the NSC early in the administration and under Bolton directs Middle East policy.
At the highest levels of the NSC, Bolton has brought on people he has known for years and who share much of his hawkish worldview. Sarah Tinsley, director of a political action committee and a foundation that Bolton started to advance his policy views and political future, was tapped as director of strategic communications.
After his deputy national security adviser, Mira Ricardel, was forced out following a public spat with the first lady, Bolton hired Charles Kupperman, a former defense industry executive who Bolton said had advised him for 30 years but who last served in government during the Reagan administration.
Kupperman also served for years on the board of the Center for Security Policy, a think tank that has been criticized by groups such as the Anti-Defamation League for propagating anti-Muslim conspiracies, including the view that rampant Islamization and the spread of Sharia law threaten American democracy.
'Knows his place'
As a Fox News pundit and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute during the Obama administration, Bolton earned a reputation as one of the toughest hawks in Washington. He regularly called for bombing Iran and North Korea, where his commentary made an impression on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. During a working lunch at June’s summit in Singapore, Kim told Bolton that he was “famous” in North Korea and proposed taking a photo with him to improve his image among regime hard-liners, according to a White House official. Bolton laughed in response.
John Bolton, left, beside Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Trump, reacts at an extended bilateral meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi on Feb. 28. (Leah Millis/Reuters)
His absence at last week’s pre-summit dinner between Trump and Kim, attended by Pompeo and White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, was noted by reporters who closely monitor who is up and who is down among Trump’s top aides. But when the two sides convened the next day for an expanded meeting, Bolton was at the table.
Bolton has repeatedly said that his job is to serve the president and carry out his policies. But the tension between his conservative views and Trump’s “America First” instincts was clearly apparent in the case of Syria.
Trump’s decision to announce a withdrawal came during a Dec. 14 telephone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. When Erdogan offered to use his own security forces to clean up Islamic State remnants, allowing the withdrawal of U.S. troops, Trump gladly accepted.
Bolton, who listened in on the call, spent the next several days gingerly trying to talk Trump out of an immediate troop departure, to no avail.
By the time Bolton accompanied Trump on a Christmas visit to troops in Iraq, the withdrawal announcement had been made. “John and I agree on all of this,” Trump said at al-Asad Air Base as Bolton looked on. “And John is . . . pretty hawkish on everything having to do with the military.”
Paradoxically, Trump described himself as “more hawkish than anybody. . . . Nobody is more hawkish than me. But I also like to use it in the right place. And, frankly, I like not using it at all.”
Trump’s eventual agreement late last month to keep about 400 troops in Syria had the support of the military, particularly for the half that are to remain in the north as what the White House called a “peacekeeping force.” The other 200 will stay in the south, where they are blocking Iran’s use of a major highway between Tehran and Damascus — a priority for Bolton.
Fleitz denied that his former boss had worked to circumvent Trump’s plans. “He never steps ahead of the president,” Fleitz said of Bolton. The reversals, he said, were the product of a president who “changes his mind.”
Others cast Bolton’s role in a different light. “He’s an Iran hard-liner,” the senior White House official who works closely with the national security adviser said. “He wants to be everywhere, all the time. He’s never going to change his spots.” But, the official said, Bolton knows his place.
“He understands he’s not the ultimate decision-maker,” the official said.
