US President Donald Trump’s selection of former US permanent representative to the United Nations John Bolton as his national security advisor represents “a positive signal for Ukraine” because of his Reaganite views that the US should be the only superpower, Vitaly Portnikov says.
Trump has been searching for people for his national security team who share his “system of political views and at the same time are capable of not contradicting” the president, the Ukrainian commentator says. “From this point of view, Bolton is an outstanding choice.
Under George W. Bush, he was known “as a tough and consistent conservative, a real foreign policy ‘hawk’” who backed the war in Iraq and opposition to North Korea.
Democrats opposed him, and Bolton responded in kind, being one of the sharpest critics of Barack Obama’s policy regarding Russia and Ukraine.
At the same time, Portnikov continues, Bolton has gained the reputation as “a conformist, an individual who seeks not to get into arguments with his bosses and is extremely tough with his subordinates … And this approach too,” the commentator says, “could be what recommended him to Donald Trump.”
But there are likely to be some problems in the relationship between the two men.
“Generally, the president isn’t interested even in political power because Trump barely understands what it is.”
He is interested “only in being well-known and he is trying to run America with the approach of an experienced builder.”
Someone like Bolton could become “a real helper for Trump but only up to that moment when the decisions of the president do not begin to threaten his own reputation and ambitions.”
Of course, it is possible that things won’t go as far as an open break. “Bolton, in contrast to Tillerson will not begin to make remarks relative to the mental capacities of the president. He will simply after a certain interval depart,” Portnikov argues. Thus he is unlikely to be Trump’s last national security advisor.
However, for as long as he holds onto this post, Bolton will represent “a positive signal for Ukraine.”
Read More:
- Trump may negotiate with Putin for the same reasons he’s talking with Kim Jong-Un, Novoye Voennoye Obozreniye suggests
- Shevtsova: Moscow far more worried about Trump than many in the West think
- Trump ‘playing for Russian side’ now, Moscow commentator says
- Putin blames West for all of Russia’s problems but refuses to criticize Trump
- Is Trump’s delay in imposing new sanctions playing into a larger Moscow game to lift them?
- Korean crisis seen opening a way for new Trump-Putin rapprochement
- Russia, not China, violating sanctions regime against North Korea, Nemets says
- Moscow analyst: Russia has made North Korea’s rocket program possible
