John Bolton’s World Tour

>> Andrew Roberts: Having served as Ronald Reagan's assistant attorney general from 1985 to 1989 and as an assistant secretary of state. John Bolton was the US ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006 and national security adviser from 2018 to 2019. John, you were US ambassador to the United Nations and national security advisor in both of those roles there were 25 or 26 people, Americans, who'd held those roles before.

How important was history and a sense of the past to you when you were holding down those extremely important jobs?

>> John Bolton: Well, of course, I had read a fair amount about them in earlier general reading. But it was always my practice, when I got a new job in the federal government, to call as many of my predecessors as I thought I could.

In some cases, politics made it impossible to do so, but certainly to talk to them about their experiences, what they had tried that worked, what they had tried that failed. What I should watch out for, just to get their personal experiences. In some cases, they had written, if not full memoirs, at least some things I was able to read.

And it's been part of my reading history, really, to focus on biographies, autobiographies and memoirs. And I like to say they all start the same way and they all end the same way. It's the middle part that's interesting and particularly more modern history. So getting a sense, for example, for me, of decision making in international relations and how it works, how it's worked in the United States through history.

How it's worked in other countries, has always been a subject of particular interest. My senior essay as an undergraduate at Yale was on the Suez crisis of 1956, and what I thought the Eisenhower administration had done wrong, how the British, the French, and the Israelis reacted. So this goes back a long way with me, and I do find it extremely important to read generally in history, but particularly biographies of key decision makers.

And I can't necessarily point to more than a handful of things that really affected my experience, but I do think the general impression and the learning over time has been very important.

>> Andrew Roberts: You've been one of the senior people to warn about Iranian nuclear ambitions. How important has history, in a sense of the past, been in that area, both in the sense of the history of Iran, but also the history of nuclear proliferation?

 

>> John Bolton: Well, I think if you look back to what happened after the first use of nuclear weapons in 1945, watching what different countries had done aspiring to nuclear weapons. Which countries had actually acquired nuclear weapons, how they fit these weapons into their overall strategy was central to understanding the cold war.

Now, that was largely a bipolar standoff, but there were important other nuclear powers Britain, France, China, Israel, then Pakistan and India. So as the cold war ended, the threat of nuclear proliferation was very real. And seeing what prior nuclear powers had done, how that capacity had fit into their strategy, what use they had made of it.

For example, in the case of Russia assisting India in its nuclear program, China assisting Pakistan and North Korea. All helped to shape my understanding of what the rogue regimes like Iran, like North Korea today, have in mind and where they got their help and where they might look for assistance in the future.

This, to me, is just part of understanding any problem in foreign policy. Unfortunately, it's a big world and you can't be an expert in all of it. But these situations arise again and again in history, and you can read back from the ancients and see patterns that emerge today.

And so I find it useful to have that background of knowledge. There are so many people, I'll just say, in the United States, but I expect other countries who, especially in the younger generations, who just don't know history at all. And it shows in experience, in naivete, not having anything to call back on.

You build up your own experience as time goes by. But if you don't know what's happened in history, you miss an awful lot.

>> Andrew Roberts: Is it a useful guide history? A useful guide on how to handle North Korea?

>> John Bolton: Well, I think when you look at that circumstance, you can see an ideologically driven regime, yet also one that's based on heredity.

It's the only hereditary communist dictatorship in the world. Let's hope there's never anything like it again. It's in a divided country. The two Koreas are obviously not the same as the two Germanies, but it's not so dissimilar that what we learned during the cold war about dealing with the two Germanies has some applicability.

Other countries that have been divided in the past, and I think also the psychology, the decision-making approach of a near absolute dictator, which is what the various Kim family rulers have been there. How they oppress their people, what the possibilities are to use dissatisfaction in the country against the ruler, these various techniques.

I think what we've seen in other countries has been helpful. When we faced, for example, the opposition in Venezuela in 2019, making an effort to overthrow the Maduro dictatorship, we were not able to do much to help them, but we certainly encouraged them. We tried to build support around the world, and that was based on watching other popular movements overthrow dictatorial regimes.

So it's something I still think about a lot, both in the case of North Korea and Iran.

>> Andrew Roberts: You, of course, were ambassador to the UN. You once joked that if you'd been able to bill at that hourly rate for partners in Washington, Orlando, New York, law firms during all the discussions you had on UN reform.

You'd have left the United Nations a rich man. But, and I'm not gonna be paying you at that rate. You know that, John, but can I have your wisdom on UN reform? You've been very caustic, of course, about the UN. You once said that the General Assembly only consumes oxygen and paper.

And what the trajectory of the UN is a fascinating one, isn't it? Since 1945, it was started with such great utopian hopes, and now it's the morass that it is. What do you think? Have you any hopes or do you just throw up your hands in despair?

>> John Bolton: Well, the UN is a huge organization.

It has many specialized agencies, many different pieces, and some of the specialized agencies do good work when they avoid being politicized. Today, for example, the International Atomic Energy Agency can be helpful. There are obscure agencies that do work that. Is important in health or scientific matters. But all too frequently, even the specialized agencies become politicized.

The World Intellectual Property Organization, for example, for many years had a Chinese director general, not the kind of regime you want to see overseeing safeguarding intellectual property. We saw during the COVID pandemic that the World Health Organization, which had had a two term director general from China, and the successor in office when Covid broke out.

Chinese supported, totally politicized by the Chinese, and thwarted international efforts to find out what truly happened at Wuhan and how the disease spread in China and hurt the rest of us. Other specialized agencies do better. They don't get much public attention. The International Maritime Organization, frankly, the less public attention they get, it means the better they're doing their job.

The real problem with the UN is the political decision-making bodies, the Security Council, the General assembly, the human rights council, which are broken, I think, beyond all repair. And I don't see any real prospect for that changing. I think it goes back to the original idea of the UN.

There were many Americans, many in Europe. Who felt the League of Nations had been hopelessly compromised by the senate's rejection of the Treaty of Versailles when Woodrow Wilson brought it back. So Roosevelt and his administration took the Wilsonian idealism and said, this time we're gonna get it right.

This time, the US will be a central player, and we will avoid the mistakes of the League of Nations. So, as you say, it started out with enormous optimism, but ran into trouble almost immediately. We think of the Korean War is the place where it really kind of broke down.

But it had broken down even before that. And when the cold war, the dimensions of the cold war became clear, it was essentially gridlocked until the collapse of the Soviet Union.

>> Andrew Roberts: Yes, it had broken down by Korea, because if Russia had been sitting in the Security Council at the time of Korea, it would have vetoed the UN action against North Korea.

 

>> John Bolton: Right.

>> Andrew Roberts: You wrote in 2007 of the United Kingdom's slow disappearance into the EU, losing autonomy and independence in determining foreign policy. Since we've left the EU in January 2020, Britain's led the way in the vaccine rollout and been the first country to send lethal aid to Ukraine after the Russian invasion.

With the political establishment certainly in here and also in places like the New York Times already denouncing Brexit as a failure, it seems that you're taking a different view. Is that right?

>> John Bolton: Absolutely, I am the world's strongest proponent of Brexit. There's nobody-

>> Andrew Roberts: Second, actually, after me, John.

 

>> John Bolton: No, in the United Kingdom? I would certainly right up there near the top there's no doubt about it.

>> Andrew Roberts: Okay, first equal. Let's agree on first equal, shall we?

>> John Bolton: That's fine. What I saw was the dissolving, really, of the British parliamentary system as more and more decisions were made in Belgium by bureaucrats far removed from the people.

Far removed from any kind of political constraint. And I saw the major motivating factor behind those who wanted Brexit was to regain control of their own government. To remove it from a distant, uncontrollable capital in Brussels and return it to the people. Others, I think, in the UK, in Europe, in the US, who thought the European Union was the path of modern history, couldn't understand that living under bureaucratic rule, to them, wasn't terribly troubling.

They were certainly trying to do that in the United States. But I think I understood what motivated the Brexiteers right from the beginning. And it was inarguable that you're in a polity. The polity has existed for a long time. It's perfectly capable of making its own decisions. Certainly it may want freer trade with some countries, certainly it may want closer political military relations, but it didn't have to dissolve itself and lose its identity.

And I felt, especially as Europe became more and more bureaucratic, that the chances of escape for Britain to regain its independence would mean a renaissance. And I still believe that's true. Now, I was in London on the day of the referendum in 2016, and I'd come from another trip in the Middle east.

But I wanted to be there, and I was doing broadcast for various media outlets and whatnot, but I just wanted to be there on that historic day, win or lose. It was a very historic day for Britain, and I was absolutely thrilled to be there to see the victory and to see, in particular.

That it was part of the Labour party breaking away from labor to support the Conservatives out in the countryside, not the parliamentary conservative party. But the people of the conservative party, to declare British independence again. Now, since then, we're almost seven years from the referendum. What has happened is that the remainders have refused to accept the results of the referendum.

And they have fought a rearguard action that has slowed down all of the necessary and admittedly complex, difficult steps that had to be taken. So those who complain that Brexit hasn't brought purely sweetness and light are the same people who didn't want Brexit to begin with. And I think, as we get the last little bits done, and I believe the Northern Ireland protocol issue is the last maintain difficulty here.

There's a way to resolve it. I think it will be resolved, and then the remainders are just gonna have to decide if they love the EU so much, then buy a house in Paris and good luck to you for the rest of it. And leave the people who want Britain to be independent to run the country and get on with it.

 

>> Andrew Roberts: This is a history podcast. And since the US led invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan now, 20 years ago, years ago, what do you think the historical verdict will be on those operations and their aftermaths?

>> John Bolton: Well, I think we're in a period now where both Iraq two and Afghanistan are not seen in the best light.

But I think that's a mistake. I think in the case of Afghanistan, it's important to take them together because they occurred as part of the same administration in the US, part of the same historical context. What we did by overthrowing the Taliban and ultimately moving Al Qaeda out of the country was prevent the possibility of another terrorist attack from Afghanistan into the United States.

Which we succeeded in doing for 20 years before the Biden administration ultimately withdrew the US and NATO forces. Meaning we're now subject to attack by terrorists from Afghanistan. Again, it wasn't perfect. I don't think the nation building project that followed the overthrow of the Taliban was the right way to go, but I think a continuing NATO presence in Afghanistan would have made the world safer.

And I think, unfortunately, we're gonna learn that lesson so that the original decision to invade right after 911 will look better and better. Iraq is more complicated, I acknowledge that. I will say in retrospect, 2020 hindsight, it should have told us that we should have overthrown Saddam Hussein in 1980.

1991, after the invasion of Kuwait. The restoration of the status quo ante bellum, well known in history, I don't think, stands the test today. When a dictator can commit aggression and end up simply being repulsed because the dictator is still there. And that was the problem with Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

I think what went right in the decision to overthrow Saddam was the military victory, which occurred very quickly, very, very well done, with light casualties. And the mistake was trying to set up an American Coalition Provisional Authority to govern Iraq. I think the best thing would have been what the initial plan was, keep American and other coalition forces in the country to handle external threats.

And provide some internal stability, but put government back in the hands of the Iraqis as soon as possible. Because I think political maturation comes from giving people political decisions to make. You don't get political maturation by making decisions for them. If we had done that, I think the outcome would have been better.

But I would note nonetheless that by 2008, 2009, people thought Iraq was on a stable basis. So stable that Barack Obama withdrew in 2011, which was a big mistake. We had successes, we threw them away when Obama withdrew, and ISIS emerged, and we had to go back again.

So from the perspective of the long look at history, I think we accomplished what we needed to do in overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Iraq is never gonna have weapons of mass destruction. That's one less country to worry about. We still have Iran to worry about. We have not handled that correctly, in my view.

But you can't do everything all at once. And what we did do in the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq, two, I think, were the right thing to do.

>> Andrew Roberts: You and I are both members of the Splendid Friends of Israel Initiative. Tell us about your view of the Middle East today, especially in the light of the Abraham Accords.

 

>> John Bolton: Well, I think the Abraham Accords are a reflection of the historic shifts, really tectonic shifts in politics in the Middle East. And I think they've been brought about largely by the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran, many other things as well. But clearly, that threat, which applies both to Israel but also the oil-producing monarchies of the Persian Gulf, has caused a realignment from the post-creation of the new Israel in 1948.

From the Arab-Israeli conflict that dominated current events from really even before the state of Israel was created in 1948 right through until today. For some people, the new split was between the Ayatollahs and Tehran and everybody else in the Middle East. And the oil-producing monarchies came to see that Israel's perception of the Iranian threat was precisely the same as theirs.

Israel feared most the Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile programs, but also the threat of Iranian-backed terrorism. Whether from Hezbollah or Hamas or other terrorists that Iran armed and trained and financed. The Gulf countries worried, obviously, about the nuclear issue, but much more the threat of regime change emanating from the Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

And the terrorist activities that Iran carried out or assisted, such as by arming the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Who had been firing drones and cruise missiles at civilian targets in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. And finally, it dawned on everybody that the Gulf Arabs and Israel had a lot in common.

And in fact, so did many of the other arab countries in Israel, with the wealth accumulated from the sale of oil and gas. The investment opportunities because of Israel's entrepreneurial habits and creativity. And frankly, fear of a United States that was feckless too many times, not recognizing the threats that these regimes faced in the Middle East.

Trying to get into a nuclear deal with Iran without involving at the negotiating table the Arabs and Israelis who were right next to Iran, literally, geographically, and had the most to lose. So they have found, in current circumstances, that the Emirates and Bahrain, and really, under the surface, pretty much all the Gulf Arab states have more in common with Israel, see the Middle East more like Israel than they do with the United States.

Now, I hope that will change in due course, but that's what led to the Abraham Accords. It was a culmination of these tectonic shifts that really, ten years before, nobody would have predicted.

>> Andrew Roberts: And also, it shows that the Israeli-Palestinian struggle is not epicentral to everything that's going on in the Middle East, isn't it?

I mean, that's a really important aspect of it.

>> John Bolton: Yeah, very important. I mean, it was said, until you settle the Palestinian question, there's not gonna be any progress toward more general peace. The Middle East, that turned out to be 100% wrong. I'm sure you recall Abba Eban's famous statement that the PLO never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

And sadly, for the radical Palestinians, history has really passed them by. There's still very difficult questions remaining what to do with the territories and how to handle that. I think as more Arab countries, more Muslim countries come to recognize Israel, I think ways will be found to work that out.

I think if we could have regime change in Iran, if the people of Iran, the resistance that's developed just in the past four months among the women of Iran. If that were to succeed in getting a new government there, then the chances for even broader peace in the Middle east would grow accordingly.

 

>> Andrew Roberts: You think a democratic Iran wouldn't want to pursue a nuclear weapon?

>> John Bolton: My talking to a lot of Iranians in the diaspora is that they perceive that seeking to achieve nuclear weapons actually puts them more at risk. Because the way proliferation works is that each new country gets a nuclear capability, simply inspires their adversaries and near neighbors to say, we want a nuclear capability, too.

So that in the Middle East, over the past several years, you've had regimes in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey all say we want civil nuclear programs. Well, that's a convenient first step to a weapons program as well. The better solution is for a country like Iran simply to withdraw from the nuclear pursuit of nuclear weapons, as Brazil did, as South Africa did, South Korea and others.

It's possible that it can happen, and I think it very well could happen, should happen in the new Iran.

>> Andrew Roberts: You, in your book, Surrender Is Not an Option, that you wrote after your time as ambassador to the UN. You wrote criticizing those who criticize Israel for disproportionate use of force.

And pointed out that actually, did anyone say after Pearl Harbor that America shouldn't use disproportionate use of force to defeat the Japanese? Do you see those kind of arguments Arguments still being put? They seem to be, don't they? Has anything really moved on in the debate between Palestine and Israel?

 

>> John Bolton: No, I think it has been left by the wayside. I think the terrorist activities of Hamas, particularly in the Gaza Strip, but increasingly on the West bank and even inside Israel, have all but sidelined the possibility of a two-state solution. My own view, despite the fact that's been the project of the Palestinian Liberation Organization since it was founded in the 60s.

And Hamas and others, is that there's never going to be a two-state solution. Israel will never accept a Palestinian state that's run by terrorists. And who among us would faced with that as an option? So I think that's why people have got to think of other alternatives either.

I've recommended what I call the three-state solution, which is the Gaza Strip is given to Egypt and it becomes part of Egypt and Israel and Jordan work out a modus vivendi on the West bank. Possibly with some of the West bank, under certain conditions, becoming sovereign Jordanian territory again, as the whole West bank other than Israel proper was.

And I think that's not neither one of those is very popular, certainly not in Egypt. They're not eager to have the Gaza Strip. I think Jordan would need a lot of help in working that through with Israel. But if somebody doesn't like my three state solution, and if the two state solution is dead, then what else is there?

Israelis, some say, well, there's a one state solution, which is we take over the entire West bank. Nobody seems to want Gaza. So I still think that's gonna have to go to Egypt. But it's pursuing a solution just because you've been pursuing it for 40 years, which has failed at every hurdle, and simply saying, well, that's still our policy is a route to continued failure.

 

>> Andrew Roberts: Do you think that Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has also led to an argument that smaller countries should have their own nuclear weapons? If Ukraine hadn't got rid of its nuclear weapons in the mid 1990s, Russia wouldn't have invaded it, would they?

>> John Bolton: Well, I think the decision by Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan to give the weapons back to Russia was essentially forced on them from the outside.

By the US, in particular from both the Bush 41 and Clinton administrations. And in actual historical fact, those weapons were held at all times by the soviet rocket forces. They were never really in the hands of a civilian ukrainian government. And one of the things we worried about was that if Ukrainians or others had moved to take the weapons, that would have brought Russian troops back in force to get the weapons out.

But what the Ukrainians and the others did rely on was the promise that we, the UK and Russia made to respect their territorial integrity. And that that was the basis on which they could say, all right, we're not gonna contest this question of the nuclear weapons any further.

And manifestly, that turned out to be incredibly foolish. Whether the Russians under Boris Yeltsin ever intended to honor the obligation, I don't know. I think, cynically, neither the US nor the UK really thought much of it one way or the other. They wanted the nuclear weapons back inside Russia, and the whole thing turned out to be a big mistake.

But the point of your question, I think, is important for people to understand, because it does go really to the nature of proliferation itself. The temptation to get nuclear weapons is always there. And so, for example, when people say, well, perhaps Japan should get nuclear weapons to deal with China, to that, I say, no.

The US nuclear umbrella, our capacity for extended deterrence has to be clear, because the greater the proliferation of nuclear weapons, to me, it's just a matter of the law of large numbers. The more weapons there are out there, the more countries that have them, the more likely it is that somebody will use them.

And that's what we all want to avoid. The best way to avoid that, there's an option called nuclear zero that Henry Kissinger and others have espoused, where everybody gives up nuclear weapons. I'm actually pretty close to that. I believe in nuclear one. I believe only one country should have nuclear weapons, I happen to be sitting in it.

That's about as realistic as nuclear zero. But the general proposition is the fewer that get nuclear weapons, the better.

>> Andrew Roberts: And another thought about this is really a history podcast. We think about the past, but I want to try and get you to look into the future. What effect do you think a Trump presidency might have on the continued sovereign independence of Ukraine?

Could you see him altering American policy to the extent that it would damage the Ukrainians?

>> John Bolton: Well, as of now and of course, it depends on what time of the day you ask Trump about questions like this. He's been saying, if I could get Putin and Zelensky into a room together with me, I would solve this in 24 hours, which shows how little he understands, really, what's going on.

But I think there are a couple factors that we know from the history of his first administration that would be important in a second administration if it were to occur, which I don't think will happen. But the two factors are, one, he believes Ukraine was the source of anti-Trump campaign activity in both 2016 and 2020.

There's simply no evidence for that proposition at all. But he has poisoned the minds of a number of people in the Republican Party, in particular, against Ukraine. And I don't think his attitude has changed. That's obviously a very different view than what I think most people in the US and the UK have today about Ukraine.

But second, and even more important, Trump was an opponent of the NATO alliance. And I really believed, and I wrote about it in the room where it happened, that he came very close to withdrawing from NATO. And I think in a second Trump term, undeterred by any public accountability, never running for reelection again.

I think it's very likely that he would weaken NATO, perhaps by withdrawing, perhaps by simply ignoring it. And in fact, I think that's what Putin may have been waiting for. The second Trump term, when NATO may have suffered a mortal wound and obviously, invading Ukraine or almost anything else in Europe would have been a lot easier.

 

>> Andrew Roberts: And if he did get reelected and he did get Zelensky and Putin into a room, what would he say to them? What is that? What possible good outcome could there be for Donald Trump in this? Can you see a, not just Donald Trump for America in this?

 

>> John Bolton: Yeah, well, just based on my knowledge of Trump, I'm afraid what he would say is something like a version of what I've heard before, which is, man, Ukraine's really Russian. Come on, why don't you just carve the eastern third off and give it to Russia? Russia promises never to attack again.

Why don't you just take that as the solution? Now, I think the chances Zelensky or, frankly, anybody else from Ukraine accepting that are less than zero. But I think that's what Trump would have in mind. I think from America's point of view, the only satisfactory outcome is still far in the future, and that's the removal of all Russian troops from Ukraine.

And I say that not simply for what happens on the European continent, but because I don't think anybody is watching this more closely outside of the parties themselves than the Chinese. And if they see that the West as a whole cannot deal with unprovoked aggression on the continent of Europe, that that prospect along China's long Indo-Pacific periphery becomes that much more likely.

Whether it's Taiwan first or someplace else, the danger grows.

>> Andrew Roberts: And by Ukraine, you mean Crimea as well?

>> John Bolton: Including Crimea, that's what the presidents of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia agreed when they broke up the Soviet Union. And remember, the person who signed on behalf of Russia was Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first and perhaps only freely elected president in the country's entire history.

 

>> Andrew Roberts: Now, on our podcast, we ask, I don't know why I'm using the rule of we here, I ask every guest what book or usually biography or history book they're reading at the moment. What, what's yours, John?

>> John Bolton: Well, I'm reading a couple, one of which is kind of embarrassing, because I have to admit, I'd never read the whole thing before.

And during COVID when there was a certain amount of enforced free time, I made the vow that I would do a number of, read a number of things that I had read bits and pieces of over the years, but had never read the whole thing. And I will admit that before I go any further, I read them in English translation, not in the original Latin or Greek, but I read Plutarch's lives, I read Caesar's Commentaries, and I'm just now finishing Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War.

As I said, on the one hand, it sounds pretentious, but I'm actually embarrassed, I should have read this in grade school or something, but I am just getting around to it.

>> Andrew Roberts: It's not pretentious in the slightest, it's a fabulous book. We actually did a podcast with Victor Davis Hanson some time ago on Thucydides, and that fits in completely perfectly with the whole drive of this podcast.

When you read, especially, of course, book two of Thucydides about the corsair and the Civil War and the median dialogue and so on. Does it remind you of any moments in your own career when you were US ambassador to the United nations or Donald Trump's national security adviser?

 

>> John Bolton: Well, these are the kinds of issues, to this very day, that major powers face. And of course, although Thucydides didn't finish, but the lesson of the Athenian decision to go after Syracuse and the catastrophe that that brought with ultimately the defeat in the war is something that's well worth learning.

And I read with particular interest the speeches that Thucydides assigns to various generals and statesmen, and with all the caveats that maybe he didn't get it down stenographically. Nonetheless, I thought those speeches were some of the most interesting discussions of how you deal with international relations I've ever read.

 

>> Andrew Roberts: Yeah, the Pericles' funeral speech, in particular, is one of the great orations in history. That's fascinating that you're able to connect the two, connect the present to the ancient world. That's a very helpful and useful thing, I'd have thought, in your world. And tell me, what are you doing at the moment?

 

>> John Bolton: Well, I'm working on a number of political things, looking toward the 2024 election. I think we're suffering in the Republican party from something of a resurgence of the virus of isolationism. And I think it's important that we get candidates who understand why that's not the right approach, who believe in a strong American foreign policy.

The kind of peace through strength approach that Ronald Reagan took, one that he derived from George Washington, who derived it from the Romans' Si vis pacem, parabellum, if you want peace, prepare for war. A lot of people still don't understand that, but I think it's very important. I think we've got some real opportunities here, and we face enormous threats from, from China in particular, but Russia and others as well.

 

>> Andrew Roberts: Earlier, you brought up a fascinating what if about what if America had gone along with the provisions of the Versailles Treaty that set up the League of Nations and to join the League of Nations if Woodrow Wilson's stance had been adopted by the Senate. Do you think that that would have changed history to the point that the Germans wouldn't have unleashed World War II?

 

>> John Bolton: Not at all. Because the league was doomed to failure, and American participation, I don't think, would have changed that at all. The idea that there's this consensus of nations that emerges against violators of the peace, of threats to peace and security, didn't work for the league, and it hasn't worked in the United nations either.

Where the countries pursue their own interests, and that's never gonna change, I think. And even in the Palais de Nacion, Geneva, or the halls of the UN in New York, people don't go in and suddenly shed their national identity.

>> Andrew Roberts: And do you believe that there's a Thucydidean trap in which America and China can not avoid becoming hegemonistic strugglers against one another?

 

>> John Bolton: Well, I don't think it's a trap. One of the things that I found very interesting was the discussions about how the democratic forces in some cities would conspire with the Athenians and the autocratic forces would conspire with the Spartans and their allies. These things go together throughout history, and the fact is that there is no Thucydides Trap.

People make decisions based on their own interests. Sometimes it results in conflict, sometimes it doesn't. A lot depends on what happens inside China, and we just don't know the answer to that at this point.

>> Andrew Roberts: And what's your favorite counterfactual in history?

>> John Bolton: Well, it's a two part counterfactual, or I maybe should say it happened twice, first during the American Revolution, and then second during the War of 1812, both with your dear country and the counterfactual is, what if the American invasion of Canada in the revolution or in the War of 1812 had succeeded and the Americans defeated the British there, and Canada had become part of the United States?

It was very close, I will say.

>> Andrew Roberts: Can I give you a third way that that could have happened? 1865, if the British government had supported the Confederacy? It would have been almost incumbent on the American government, after victory in the American Civil War, just to snap up Canada.

It could have done it with just a few divisions. So there are three moments when you could have taken Canada. I'm very pleased you didn't, needless to say, but nonetheless, I mean, how many states of the Union would Canada what effect would it have politically? Would it have meant that you'd have had more democratic administrations than Republican ones?

How does that one pan out?

>> John Bolton: Well, I think, let's say we had taken Canada at the time of the revolution. The issue of French Canada would have remained, and we had small examples of that through history in New Orleans and Louisiana. Purchase in California after the Mexican war and in Florida to a certain extent, but nothing like the French community in Canada, which has been a central issue in Canadian history.

So that is a complete unknown. But I think what would have happened is in that vast frontier country, it would have become ultimately more like the American West, as much of the Canadian. The middle of Canada is today very libertarian, very conservative. British Columbia has become like the American West Coast, but I think largely it would have.

It would have ended up being a bigger conservative part of the country. And I think the extent to which the economy would have been integrated into a complete North American economy. I mean, assuming the North wins the civil war and buys Alaska from Russia in 1867, what a truly continent sized country that would have been.

And would that have meant a more pressing role for America in the world before it eventually did? I don't know. Would it have changed the civil war context with so much more northern free territory, non-slave territory? What difference that would have made? But it would have been fun to be a citizen of such a big country.

 

>> Andrew Roberts: I think you'd have had a lot of trouble with those French Canadians, by the way. I mean, we only managed not to because of the Quebec Act, which was denounced, of course, by American revolutionaries as being too pro-Catholic. So to have a very large Catholic population in 1776, it's a big question mark.

 

>> John Bolton: I'm from Maryland, a Catholic state, although I'm not a Catholic myself. So I think it would have worked. But in the revolution, the British settlers in Canada were very inclined to join with the 13 colonies, and it was the French settlers who stayed with the British military because they didn't want to have anything to do with what they saw as a protestant American.

 

>> Andrew Roberts: Absolutely, John Bolton, thank you very much indeed.

>> John Bolton: Thank you, Andrew.

>> Andrew Roberts: Many thanks to John Bolton for that stimulating conversation. Please join me on the next Secrets of Statecraft, where my guest will be the New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Bret Stephens.

>> Hoover Representative: This podcast is a production of the Hoover Institution, where we advance ideas that define a free society and improve the human condition.

For more information about our work or to listen to more of our podcast or watch our videos, please visit hoover.org.