JOHN BOLTON is not well-liked in Washington. A warmonger and bully, the national security adviser is disdainful of the bipartisan foreign-policy world and the governing institutions its members cycle in and out of. That he oversees one of them is typical of the plate-smashing Trump administration. Yet few doubt that Mr Bolton is a wily operator. As President Donald Trump’s third national security adviser—and the first with previous experience of civilian bureaucracy—he has already demonstrated his mastery of the inter-agency policy process. His role in derailing, at least temporarily, Mr Trump’s planned meeting with Kim Jong Un in Singapore therefore demands scrutiny.

Mr Bolton suggested the “Libya model” was what America wanted from North Korea. That was not illogical. Mr Trump had demanded Mr Kim take the same step as Muammar Qaddafi in 2003: denuclearisation in return for sanctions relief. Yet the fact that Qaddafi was later bombed from power by a NATO intervention, dragged from his hiding place by insurgents, sodomised with a bayonet and shot dead, made Mr Bolton’s choice of precedent complicated. The Libya model is what Mr Kim fears most. It is prime evidence for the theory that has underpinned his regime’s nuclear programme, to the North Korean people’s cost, for five decades: possession of nuclear weapons equals regime survival; disarmament equals regime endangerment.

The North Korean smackdown to Mr Bolton (“We do not hide our feelings of repugnance towards him”) was predictable. But then Mr Trump blundered in. Wrongly assuming Mr Bolton had referred to the American-led bombing of Libya, not to the disarmament that preceded it, he said it didn’t sound like what he had in mind for Mr Kim. But then he added that, yes, now you come to mention it, if the North Korean despot wouldn’t make a deal in Singapore, his regime would “most likely” have to be “decimated”. When Mike Pence parroted that threat, the North Koreans called the vice-president “ignorant and stupid” and threatened a nuclear war. Mr Bolton went to see Mr Trump about that. The president called off the summit soon after. Mr Bolton, who doubts it is worth negotiating with Mr Kim and has long advocated toppling his regime, may not be displeased with that outcome.

At the least, he clearly intended to add a harder edge to Mr Trump’s newfound enthusiasm for the “honourable” Mr Kim. In the absence of many other moderating influences on Mr Trump—whose confidence in his ability to direct global affairs appears to be growing by the day—this suggests Mr Bolton could play a more positive role than his many critics have countenanced. They fear he may lead Mr Trump into a catastrophic conflict, a valid concern. Yet it seems likelier Mr Bolton’s scepticism about diplomacy, apparent good standing with the president and willingness to speak truth to power could mitigate a more pressing risk: that the president will expend a rare moment of American leverage with Mr Kim on a hasty, ill-considered deal that could leave East Asia even more insecure than it is now. “There’s a synergy between Trump’s desire for a deal and Bolton’s ideological prejudices,” notes Jeffrey Bader, an East Asia guru and former diplomat.

This apparent turnaround in Mr Bolton’s role reflects a more dramatic change in Mr Trump. The president spent much of last year threatening Mr Kim with “fire and fury”. By demanding an array of military options against North Korea, he also suggested he was in earnest. His appointment of the bellicose Mr Bolton, to replace H.R. McMaster, reinforced that impression. And if this scared the Washington crowd, it appears to have terrified Mr Kim, as well as China and South Korea, both of which fear a war on the peninsula more than they fear North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. With their support, Mr Trump imposed the toughest sanctions regime on North Korea in over a decade, a substantial achievement. Yet the alacrity with which he has since melted in the face of Mr Kim’s request for talks has made his war talk seem less credible. Arguably, it has exposed Mr Trump as the actor-politician—with a penchant for talking tough, a lifelong aversion to costly wars and no fixed purpose beyond concern for his own interests—that he always was. It is hard to see the sanctions regime surviving that realisation intact; China and South Korea are already itching to restore their economic ties to North Korea. This may help explain why Mr Trump, notwithstanding the Bolton-instigated hiatus, seems keener for a deal with Mr Kim than ever.

It also underlines another misconception about Mr Trump’s foreign policy. Relentless media attention to his team, including Mr Bolton, is based on an assumption that he would be more easily influenced than he has turned out to be. The president likes to hear diverse opinions—hence his desire for a fire-eater like Mr Bolton, a type of adviser he lacked. But he has made the big foreign-policy calls himself, often, as in his swift acceptance of Mr Kim’s invitation, on his own initiative and in the high-rolling way he ran his business. This is why it seems likely that the summit with Mr Kim will be revived and that some sort of deal, or semblance of a deal, will result: Mr Trump wants that. In turn, this is why Mr Bolton’s ideological obduracy looks less risky than welcome.

Bolton braces

The deal, if it comes, is unlikely to contain much detail. The task of filling in the gaps—on how Mr Kim’s commitment to a phased denuclearisation might be verified, for example, or on whether his short-range missiles could be included in it—would fall to Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, and Mr Bolton. It would be a perilous undertaking, requiring them to deal not only with North Korea, but also with Mr Trump’s desire to be seen to have delivered world peace. And a suspicion that Mr Pompeo is unduly keen to stay tight with the president suggests only Mr Bolton might be up to it. For such a Washington bogeyman to play that heroic role would be extraordinary. Then again, who could have predicted Mr Trump negotiating with Mr Kim?