Senior Trump national security alumni defend 'America First' foreign policy after Bolton jabs

Trump administration veterans Lt. Gen. (ret.) Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz on Wednesday offered a spirited defense of the last administration's foreign policy after former National Security Advisor John Bolton labeled former President Trump's approach "isolationism" in a recent op-ed.

"America First has been unfairly criticized by Bolton and others as being isolationist and averse to acting in partnership with U.S. allies," the pair wrote. "None of this is true. The America First approach to national security today emphasizes policies that put first the interests of the people of the United States rather than the globalist agendas of the liberal elite."

Bolton, whom Trump claimed to have fired in 2019, served as national security advisor, a post in which he often found himself at odds with other members of the administration due to his  hawkish foreign policy positions. Bolton has since openly mulled a presidential run to challenge his former boss.

Earlier this year, he penned an op-ed in the National Review maligning the "isolationist virus" that he said Trump allowed to spread throughout the administration.

Kellogg and Fleitz took issue with that characterization. Saying Bolton "misrepresented one of President Trump's greatest successes," the two declared, "His America First approach to national security effectively promoted American interests and global security and kept our country out of new wars."

The Trump "approach calls for America to have a strong military with decisive presidential leadership working with its international partners and allies worldwide to address global conflicts," the pair explained. "When doing so, America works with allies who pull their own weight in defending their security and who can also help promote global security. Each of these factors can go a long way toward keeping our country out of unnecessary and unending wars.

"Through internal strength, our nation is best poised to lead and engage in the world and accomplish more for the American people and for the peace, prosperity, and freedom of other countries. America First is not isolationism. Rather, it is purposeful, transactional engagement with other nations to serve American interests first.

"America First calls for the prudent use of military force. This primarily means staying out of foreign conflicts unless American security interests are endangered. It also means first employing tools short of military force, such as diplomacy, economic and financial pressure, information warfare, and other tools to address global conflicts before resorting to military force."

The pair went on to highlight the successes of the Trump administration in negotiating with the North Korean Kim regime, observing that diplomatic talks served to deescalate tensions between Washington and Pyongyang. Trump opted for diplomacy, they wrote, despite recommendations from "many experts and some of his advisers to bypass peaceful responses to North Korea's provocations and wage war."

Kellogg and Fleitz slammed the Biden administration's "inconsistent and rudderless" handling of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and lamented the Pentagon's prioritizing of "woke" social dogmas over warfighting.

"With the Russian invasion of Ukraine and surging threats from China, Iran, and North Korea, global security today clearly is much worse than it was at the end of the Trump administration," they contended. "This is largely because the Biden administration abandoned the America First approach to national security and returned to the failed globalist policies of the past."

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.