If foreign policy were decided by my security adviser John Bolton, the president confided recently, "We'd be in four wars by now."

It was Bolton who ordered the Abraham Lincoln carrier group and B-52s to the Gulf and told the Pentagon to draw up plans to send 120,000 U.S. troops. It is Bolton who is charging Iran with using mines to sabotage four oil tankers outside the Strait of Hormuz.

Asked for evidence, Bolton barked back at reporters: "Who else would you think is doing it? Somebody from Nepal?"

But if Bolton is first hawk, he is not without rivals in the inner circle of the Commander in Chief.

At West Point last week, Vice President Mike Pence, after hailing the diversity of a class with the highest number of Hispanic and black women graduates ever, laid out what the future holds in store for them.