Stephen M. Walt asks the following question: Is the real problem that Washington can't trust others, or rather that other states can't trust it? 

Stephen Walt presents five main arguments that hawks typically advance when seeking to justify a war. They can be regarded as the Top Five Warning Signs We're Going to War.

"...I’m suggesting that if you are worried about Bolton, you should ask yourself the following question: What sort of political system allows someone with his views to serve in high office, where he helps talk the country into a disastrous war, never expresses a moment's regret for his errors, continues to advocate for more of the same for the next decade, and then gets a second chance to make the same mistakes again?"

And that is the real danger lurking behind a Trump-Kim summit (assuming, of course, it ever takes place). Having already given Kim a significant propaganda coup — no matter how much Trump's staff tries to deny it — the president will be under enormous pressure to come away with an agreement that makes the gamble seem worth it.

It is hard to be optimistic about the current state of U.S. foreign policy. The United States is still trying to manage an impossible array of international problems, still engaged in several endless wars, largely bereft of a clear and compelling strategy, and under the leadership of the least competent president in modern memory. Yet the present crisis of American diplomacy is also an opportunity to design a new set of diplomatic institutions, build a broader consensus on the value of diplomacy itself.

"One obvious problem is that the conduct of 'international affairs' is not really a professional vocation, but rather a political one. Influential foreign-policy leaders are not chosen strictly for their expertise but also for their ideological convictions, reputations, personal connections, and political loyalty."

"In short, the Posture Review is recommending not just the prudent preservation of an effective deterrent; it also wants the American taxpayer to pay for a lot of expensive new ways to use a nuclear bomb. Not because its authors want to fight a nuclear war, mind you, but because they believe having this capability will make their country more secure."

"...[I]nstead of looking for ways to encourage splits and schisms among extremists, the United States often acts and speaks in ways that drive them closer together. To take an obvious example, although there may be some modest ideological common ground between Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, and the Sadr movement in Iraq, each of these groups has its own interests and agendas, and their collaboration is best understood as a strategic alliance rather than as a cohesive or unified ideological front. Launching a full-court press against them — as Saudi Arabia and Israel would like us to do — will merely give all of our adversaries even more reason to help each other."

Tillerson is serving a president who is genuinely clueless about foreign policy yet seems to think he's some sort of a strategic genius.