Undersecretary of State John Bolton Hard-Edged Bush Official Helps Craft Foreign Policy by John Shaw John Bolton recalled that he was once introduced as Americaís undersecretary of state for the ìaxis of evil.î He said the introduction, though not technically accurate, was understandable given his work on policies to confront the regimes of Iraq, Iran, North Korea and other nations the United States has accused of supporting terrorism and exporting deadly weapons. Bolton, whose real title is undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, is a forceful advocate for some of the Bush administrationís most assertive and controversial policies. Straightforward, serious and precise, Bolton outlines the administrationís agenda in clear, often stark terms. He does not engage in indirection, use euphemisms or offer apologies. Praised by conservatives for his clarity and resolve, Bolton has also been sharply criticized by others for helping to craft and defend a foreign policy that many view as arrogant and imperious. In an interview at his State Department office, Bolton said he views government service as an opportuni ty to accomplish things, not to mark time, shuffle papers or make new friends. He views diplomacy as a tool to accomplish national goals, not an end in itself, and he said he is interested in concrete results, not soaring rhetoric. ìYou can manage problems forever, but you should try to solve some problems. For example, we solved Iraqís weapons of mass destruction problem. Probably not the way everyone would have liked, but in a way that was made inevitable by Saddam Hussein,î he said. A native of Baltimore, Md., Bolton studied international relations at Yale University, later earning a law degree at Yaleís law school. He has had a successful career in law, government and the think-tank world and has been affiliated with two prestigious law firms: as a member of Covington & Burling and later as a partner at Lerner, Reed, Bolton & McManus. Deeply interested in public policy, Bolton served as assistant attorney general for the Reagan administration and was an assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs in the first Bush administration. Before his current appointment, Bolton was senior vice president at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank. While at AEI, Bolton wrote sharply worded opinion essays on topics such as international law, the United Nations and the International Criminal Court that later created controversy when his nomination was submitted to the Senate. Bolton was sworn in as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security on May 11, 2001, after surviving a brutal confirmation fightómore Senate Democrats opposed his nomination than opposed the nomination of the hugely controversial attorney general, John Ashcroft. Bolton now oversees the State Departmentís bureaus of arms control, political-military affairs, nonproliferation, and verification and compliance. He also offers policy recommendations on regional security and defense relations. Bolton, 54, said his foreign policy views were shaped by the Cold War but that he has adjusted his thinking to reflect the worldís new challenges and threats. ìIím a Cold War person. I grew up and went to college during the Cold War,î he said. ìItís hard to analyze the major challenges confronting the U.S. in the post-Cold War world when you grew up in an era in which the challenges were pretty straightforward.î By the mid-1990s, Bolton said he concluded that the main threat to the United States was from weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile delivery systems rather than from another nation or coalition of nations. ìThe greatest threat to peace is the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons,î he said. ìI came to see that the risk to the United States that came from WMD posed a different kind of challenge.î Bolton is the administrationís point man in the struggle against the spread of WMD. He argues that a full complement of tools must be used to combat this threat, including multilateral agreements, diplomacy, arms control pacts, threat reduction programs and export controls. The United States must be ìdynamic and proactiveî in battling proliferation, Bolton said, declaring that the Bush administration is willing to impose economic sanctions, interdict arms shipments, and even wage pre-emptive wars to halt the spread of WMD. He added that the sweeping Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), which President Bush unveiled in Poland earlier this year, demonstrated the scope of the administrationís commitment to this task. The PSI envisions partnerships among states working closely together and using a broad range of legal, diplomatic, economic, military and other tools to stop threatening shipments of WMD and missile-related equipment and technologies. ìThis is an attempt to move the struggle against proliferation to a different level. This is an example of counter-proliferation, a strategy to take active measures to prevent the spread of WMD and to actually roll back the problem,î he said. ìThe notion of rollback is that we donít accept that when a country acquires the capacity of WMD, we have to live with it,î he continued. ìWe donít accept the inevitably of countries acquiring WMD. This is a much stronger, more robust way to prevent the spread of WMD.î Bolton said the administration is tightly focused on preventing devastating weapons from getting into the hands of rogue nations and transnational terror groups. ìThe confluence between countries on the list of state sponsorship of terrorism and states seeking WMD is almost one to one. It tells you something about the regimes involved and how they behave.î He said the solution to the proliferation problem is not additional international accords but strong actions by the United States. ìThe message weíre sending is we are going to do something about WMD,î he said. ìThere will be costs to countries that try to acquire WMD. Countries have to learn the logic of adverse consequences. If youíre really serious, you have to go beyond rhetoric.î The United States supports various agreements such as the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention, Bolton said, emphasizing that these accords must be carefully and universally enforced among all signatories. ìThe world is covered with international arms control agreements,î he said. ìBut there are too many examples of countries that sign these agreements and then violate them. The issue is not having more treaties or agreements.î Bolton noted that the battle against nuclear proliferation must be waged against specific countries, and he is a strong defender of the administrationís pre-emptive war against Iraq, saying it was justified and even necessary. The evidence, he said, will soon become clear that Iraq had a massive WMD program. ìThe work in Iraq is taking longer than people wanted. It is giving rise to claims that there was never a weapons capability. It has led to some questions about our credibility. I think the evidence is there and will be overwhelming when it comes out,î he said. Bolton added that the United States will stay in Iraq as long as necessary, but no longer than necessary. ìThere is no reason for the United States to stay in Iraq any longer than we need to,î he said. ìUltimately, the Iraqis will have to learn all the hard lessons of self-government. We canít teach these lessons. They will have to learn them day to day. The governance question ought to be given to Iraqis as soon as possible.î He vows that the United States will work to establish security and stability and help rebuild the infrastructure that was damaged by the war and devastated by almost three decades of neglect by Saddam Hussein. Bolton is also sharply critical of Iran. He said the International Atomic Energy Agency issued a ìdevastating reportî earlier this year about Iranís nuclear program. ìThe conclusion is inescapable that Iran is pursuing its civil nuclear energy program not for peaceful and economic purposes but as a front for developing the capability to produce nuclear materials for nuclear weapons,î he said. ìThe burden is clearly on the Iranians to show they donít have a nuclear weapons program.î Bolton said that the danger Iran poses with its clandestine nuclear weapons program is compounded by its pursuit of a self-sufficient chemical weapons infrastructure, its active quest for biological warfare capabilities, and its long-range ballistic missile program. The undersecretary of state said that the United States cannot allow Iran, which he describes as a leading sponsor of international terrorism, to acquire destructive weapons and the means to deliver them to Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. He said the administration also remains very troubled by North Koreaís decision to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and restart nuclear installations at Yongbyon, which had been shut down under the American-North Korean-agreed framework of 1994. According to Bolton, the North Korean nuclear reactor program is designed to produce spent fuel that contains plutonium that can be recovered through reprocessing and used for nuclear weapons. Bolton said North Korea must also end its indigenous missile program and exports, charging that North Korea is an aggressive proliferator of missiles and related technologies. The North Korean nuclear controversy, he argued, must be solved in a ìmultilateral contextî with the participation of the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia. ìIf North Korea could figure out a way to say ëyesí we would be meeting almost immediately,î he said. Bolton has worked closely with Russian officials, and he played a key role in negotiating the Moscow Treaty, which codified the plans of each nation to sharply reduce its operationally deployed strategic nuclear arsenal. ìThere are still a lot of issues in the relationship on the table. But the larger strategic framework has largely been put in place,î he said. Bolton said the U.S. decision to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty last year has not damaged its relationship with Russia or other nations, adding that the treatyís demise has actually been liberating, allowing the United States the freedom to explore the full range of technologies and architectures to defend against the mounting global ballistic missile threat. He also pointed out that Americaís withdrawal from the ABM Treaty has not spurred an arms race or undermined strategic stability. Bolton has long been a passionate proponent of a missile defense system and said the Bush administration is moving forward with a balanced program. ìThis is not the Strategic Defense Initiative of President Reagan,î he said. ìIt is designed to protect against a limited number of missiles, against a country that has, say, a half dozen missiles and wants to blackmail us.î Bolton said the time is over for lamenting the passing of the ABM Treaty and questioning whether ballistic missile defense is an appropriate response to the spread of WMD and missile proliferation. The administrationís policy, he said, is to develop and deploy missile defenses as soon as possible that are capable of protecting the United States, its deployed forces, as well as friends and allies against the missile threats it faces. According to Bolton, the United States is moving forward with a broad-based development and testing programs designed to take advantage of new technologies and basing modes. ìIt is no longer a question of whether missile defenses will be deployed. The relevant questions are now ëwhat,í ëhowí and ëwhen.í The train is about to pull out of the station,î he said. Bolton has been a long-time critic of the International Criminal Court and dismisses any suggestion that America has squandered an opportunity to shape the court to advance its interests. ìThe court is fundamentally unacceptable in ways that could not be resolved by negotiations. You have to think of it not so much as a court than as a prosecutor, a sort of global independent counsel. This is not something you can tinker with. Itís fundamentally flawed. I think itís a paternalistic, elitist view to say that only the ICC can solve these problems,î he said. He noted that the U.N. Security Council doesnít have effective oversight of the ICCís work, saying the court does not deter war criminals and may even discourage nations from coming to terms with atrocities committed within their borders. Bolton has often been critical of global effort to stem the flow of small arms. Some critics have said that Boltonís blunt comments at a U.N.-sponsored conference on small arms in 2001 signaled the Bush administrationís firm opposition to a promising effort to fashion new international rules regarding the proliferation of small weapons, which kill thousands of innocent people every year. Unrepentant, Bolton said the United States is not going to accept ìmisguidedî international rules on small arms. ìWeíre not going to talk about international gun control regimes that contravene the Constitution,î he said. ìThe fact that there are weapons around the world indicates there is a demand for these weapons. It may be a good or bad thing. But it is a mistake to believe that some international regime is going to address the problem. The presence of weapons is reflective of disputes and uncertainty around the world. That is the problem, not the weapons.î John Shaw is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.