John Bolton exclusive book extract: What Trump really thinks of Nato, May, Merkel and Putin

Coming a month after June’s Singapore encounter with Kim Jong-un were three back-to-back July summits: a long-scheduled Nato meeting in Brussels with our partners in America’s most important alliance; Trump and Theresa May in London, a “special relationship” bilateral; and Trump and Putin in Helsinki, neutral ground to meet with our once and current adversary Russia. As I realised during this busy July, if I hadn’t seen it earlier, Trump was not following any international grand strategy, or even a consistent trajectory. His thinking was like an archipelago of dots (like individual real estate deals), leaving the rest of us to discern – or create – policy. That had its pros and cons. After Singapore, I travelled to various European capitals to prepare for the summits. One of my planned trips was to Moscow. That stop had its complications. When I told Trump about going there to lay the groundwork for his trip, he asked, “Do you have to go to Russia? Can’t you do this in a telephone call?” Ultimately, he didn’t object when I explained why reviewing the issues in advance would help in our preparations. Shortly thereafter,Iasked [John F] Kelly why Trump was complaining, and Kelly said, “That’s easy. He’s worried you’re going to upstage him.” This would sound preposterous for any president other than Trump, and while it was flattering, if true, it was also dangerous. What exactly was I supposed to do now to overcome the problem? I obviously did not come up withagood answer. Trump really wanted Putin to visit Washington, which the Russians had no intention of doing, and we had been skirmishing over Helsinki and Vienna as possible meeting venues. Russia pushed Vienna, and we pushed Helsinki, but it turned out Trump didn’t favour Helsinki. “Isn’t Finland kind of a satellite of Russia?” he asked. (Later that same morning, Trump asked Kelly if Finland was part of Russia.) I tried to explain the history but didn’t get very far before Trump said he, too, wanted Vienna. “Whatever they [the Russians] want. Tell them we’ll do whatever they want.” After considerable further jockeying, however, we agreed on Helsinki. Off to Brussels In years gone by, Nato summits were important events in the life of the alliance. Over the past two decades, however, the gatherings became almost annual, and therefore less than exciting. Until the 2017 Nato summit in Brussels, that is. Trump livened things up by not referring to the North Atlantic Treaty’s iconic Article 5, which stated that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all”. This provision is actually less binding than its reputation, since each alliance member will merely take “such action as it deems necessary”. It had been invoked only once, after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. Nonetheless, Nato had been a successful deterrence structure, for decades blocking the Red Army from knifing through Germany’s Fulda Gap and deep into the heart of Western Europe.

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