John Bolton Quotes

To the extent that anyone has leverage over North Korea, it's China.

I can't take anything off the table. Because you look at some of these countries, you look at North Korea, we're doing nothing there. China should solve that problem for us. China should go into North Korea. China is totally powerful as it relates to North Korea.

I think it's very important to follow the lead of the South Koreans and the Chinese and not back North Korea even further into a corner, because that's when they'll be dangerous.

So South Korean ability is very much limited to handle North Korean, you know, difficulties. So we don't want to see an immediate collapse of the North Korea regime.

I think what you can see is that we have worked very closely with China. China has really stood up in putting the pressure on North Korea.

How can we pressure China on North Korea if China's one of the two largest holders of American debt?

No amount of sanctioning will persuade North Korea to give up nuclear weapons, nor will China step up and solve the problem for us.

China should go into North Korea. China is totally powerful as it relates to North Korea.

If the US were to attack North Korea, they'd certainly destroy North Korea, but South Korea would be pretty well wiped out too.

If they think they can get anyone who could have better handled the complex and difficult issues surrounding North Korea, Iran and other controversies, they are not understanding the world right now.

If there's any country that has the capacity not to control North Korea, but to influence North Korea, it's still China. The Chinese always say they have very little influence. They have more than they say they do. We should put pressure on them to do it and there's finally, we're seeing the first signs of a little bit of Chinese disaffection. At some point they're getting tired of the antics of this country. This is a dangerous ally for China to have. And the more Chinese can pressure them and put the economic screws on them, the better it will be for everybody.

I don't think that the United States cares. They just assume that North Korea will soon have nuclear weapons.

In any case, it is better to have some deal than no deal, but it's interesting that Obama picked the day of implementing of Iran deal to impose new sanctions on North Korea.

THe Chinese like the satellite state [North Korea] between China and our forces, they fear that in a reunified Korea, American troops would be at the Yalu River and they've seen that movie before. They didn't like it the first time they saw it and they don't like it any better today. So they are quite happy with the divided Korean peninsula and that's a fundamental difference between the way they see things and the way we see things.

North Korea announced that they have nuclear weapons and they have no plans to give them up. The White House, acting quickly, announced their plan to invade Iran.

[State] finds [frontier] either with the aid of force, as in 1914, when Germany invaded Belgium in order to deal a blow against France or it "borrows" a frontier, such as Germany did with regard to Latvia, for instance, in 1918, in attempting to break through to Leningrad across Latvia.

What [Russians] want to do is undermine the Western liberal order.

The White House announced plans to begin normalizing relations with Cuba - this as we're awkwardizing relations with Russia.

Keep pressure on Iran, because pressure works.

When George Bush Senior [George HW Bush] was getting his alliance together to go into Iraq - to kick the Iraqis out of Kuwait - he rang me up. I was very close to George Bush Senior; I got to know him well as Vice President to Ronald Reagan. And George rang me up and said, "Oh, Bob," he said, "I'm having trouble with Brian [Mulroney]." He said, "He's got a big wheat trade with Iraq, and he doesn't want to upset that." I said, "You leave it with me."

Our goal there, in my view, is to work and lean strongly on China to put as much pressure. China is one of the few major countries in the world that has significant support for North Korea, and I think we got to do everything we can to put pressure on China. I worry very much about an isolated, paranoid country with atomic bombs.

President Obama has thrown allies like Israel under the bus, even as he has relaxed sanctions on Castro's Cuba. He abandoned our friends in Poland by walking away from our missile defense commitments, but is eager to give Russia's President Putin the flexibility he desires, after the election. Under my administration, our friends will see more loyalty, and Mr. Putin will see a little less flexibility and more backbone.

When they made that horrible deal with Iran, they should have included the fact that they do something with respect to North Korea. And they should have done something with respect to Yemen and all these other places.

I worry very, very much about an isolated country. That's what makes me nervous. Russia lives in the world. China lives in the world. North Korea is a very, very strange country because it is so isolated, and I do feel that a nation with nuclear weapons, they have got to be dealt with. Dealt with effectively.

North Korea is willing to go to any lengths for the whole world to honor its demands of 'Ooh, please pay attention to us.'