Photo: MELISSA SUE GERRITS/Getty Images via AFP
Photo: MELISSA SUE GERRITS/Getty Images via AFP

Ideas

A Foreign Policy Worse Than Regime Change

The world is threatened by the president’s self-absorption and incoherence.

First published in The Atlantic on February 10, 2026.

by John R. Bolton, The Atlantic
February 12, 2026 | reading time: 5 Min.

Donald Trump has achieved an unlikely redemption: By pursuing a shambolic foreign policy, he has made the bygone days of “regime change” look restrained, strategic, and pragmatic by comparison.

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