Over the past few days, many have tried to distill John Bolton’s worldview, to get a sense of how he might shape the foreign policy of the Trump administration as he takes up the post of national-security adviser. His detractors have paid particularly close attention to his bellicose statements about North Korea, arguably the country’s most pressing security challenge, and his forceful critiques of the Iran deal, which has been on the verge of unraveling for months. They’ve drawn the conclusion that Bolton has an unslakeable appetite for armed intervention that will lead the country to ruin. Yet although Bolton is often described as a rigid ideologue, he sees himself as a ruthless pragmatist who is more than willing to use diplomatic means to advance U.S. interests. And if Bolton the pragmatist wins out, he will be well-placed to steer the Trump White House in a more coherent and constructive direction.

Bolton has long been a prolific writer, which makes his appointment a journalist’s dream. (See, for example, my colleague Krishnadev Calamur’s discussion of his 2007 memoir.) Having served in government in various capacities since the 1970s, Bolton has weighed in on any number of controversies. And at times, he has styled himself a critic of open-ended intervention. Writing in Foreign Affairs in 1994, for instance, Bolton gave the Clinton administration a sharp rebuke for its egregious mishandling of the Somalia crisis, which he saw as emblematic of a broader fecklessness.