a year for over a century, american parents have entrusted their sons to the boy scouts of america, hoping they would gain skills that would improve their lives instead, countess young lives were ruined by predators within the organization. i knew so much, but i could not figure out where it was coming from in a 3 part series. full blinds investigates, a massive scandal that wrote the united states scoutmaster park to on i just either ah hello, i'm down jordan in dough with a quick reminder, the top stories here on al jazeera, texas police are facing intense criticism for their inaction during the deadliest school shooting in the u. s. and nearly a decade. families are demanding answers offered,

emerge that officers waited 78 minutes before storming the classroom. president jo biden's, due to visit valve the on sunday. and early i spoke about the shooting at a graduation ceremony in delaware. as i speech, those parents are literally preparing to bury their children in the united states, america to buried their children to which violence too much fear too much grief. let's be clear. evil came to that elementary school classroom in texas to that grocery store in new york. to far too many places were innocence have died. the face of such destructive forces, we have to stand stronger. we must stand strong. we cannot

outlaw tragedy. i know. but we can make america safer. allison shall enter a fight, tear gas and water cannon to disperse demonstrators, heading for the president's office. the protest as our demand in the resignation of president lata by a roger pack, so they blame him for an economic crisis. that's left the country without enough food, fuel, or medicines. outrage of spread across brazil, laughter and mentally ill, black man was suffocated to death by police on thursday. his death is spot protests against police violence and racism. and sir, gp and sal palo man was killed when he was tied up and locked in the back of the car by 2 officers within, through in a gas canister. voters in columbia, gearing up for sundays presidential election. 3 of the 4 main candidates faced off and a final debate, opinion polls, place rebel, turn, politicians, gustavo petro. as the frontrunner, the human human rights chief says, china must not use legitimate concerns about terrorism to justify human rights

abuses. michelle bachelor visited the shin, shang region where authorities are accused of abuses against the weaker ethnic minority group. russian president vladimir putin says he's willing to discuss ways to ship grain that stock in ukraine's ports, but only of sanctions lifted russia and ukraine account for nearly a 3rd of global week supplies and rail madrid had won a record extending 14th champions league title the spanish side, the english premier lead team liverpool, one deal in the final in paris. the goal coming in the 2nd half. but there was controversy of the pitch with police firing tear gas at fans. lining up to enter the stadium. hundreds of liverpool fans were stuck at the security gates of the stat to france. delane kick off. by more than half an hour. many supporters managed to break through barriers and pass police officers were trying to safeguard the event. so those were the headlines and he's continues here on to 0 after the

bottom line station. thanks so much. mm. oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, i don't. i don't need to be with them. you can put them to me. i just need to, i need a new open at the home and the yah today and we're going to be what we said as well. they sent me them a lot of time at the office when i don't

want me shooting them off and i hi, i'm steve clements and i have a question. is natal more divided than we think? and how will its internal riffs affect the future of ukraine and russia's course? let's get to the bottom line. the since the started the war in ukraine 3 months ago, nato officials have been saying that the alliance has been recharged with a strong sense of purpose and new accomplishment. after all, nato support is propped up ukraine to defend itself against one of the biggest

militaries in the world, russia, and maybe even forced moscow to rethink its objectives for the war. and just a couple of years ago, french president emmanuel macaroni was warning that nato was becoming brain dead. and former us president donald trump was saying it was obsolete or things really as rosy inside the world's biggest military alliance. is it too early for nato to be celebrating this triumph? and where does the driving force of nato meaning the united states really want the war in ukraine to go? to day we're talking with the former national security adviser, the white house, john bolton, who served under the trump administration. and before that, as ambassador to the united nations under former president george w bush and many other roles in the u. s. government. he's also author of the room where it happened, a white house memoir, and basketball and stripping. be with you today and look, i've just returned from eastern europe a couple of trips to eastern europe. and, you know, we hear about nato being revive. never have been this strong and life and you've been saying, hey, things aren't quite as rosy inside the relationship as they're painted to be today

. what's wrong from your perspective about nato, and perhaps america's approach to it right now? well, i think nato is united in opposition to the russian invasion. that's the good news . if it wasn't, it would be stunningly bad data native suppose now, where was it? say, 6 months ago. this is a process is they like to say and at the beginning and today, there are still significant divisions within nato, about how to respond, what the outcome should be and a number of other important issues. there are certainly been some improvements, finland in sweden, joining nato, strengthen the alliance. some countries have come to the realization they have to do more in terms of providing for their own self defense and their contribution within nato. but there are still many political disagreements about the road ahead . so i think it's a mistake to get self congratulatory about how united nato is. because that simply masks problems we will see in the very near future. well, not too long ago,

president trump, whom you served were saying nader was obsolete. and as you wrote, you sort of saw him wanting to withdraw from nato. we heard president macro and saying native would become brain dead. and this was in there very near our, near history of what happened. can it be flipped on a switch that fast? because what i sort of see around the world is a lot of doubt and america's willingness to remain there for our allies, dark days that that may be going right now, but not sustainable. well, i think american credibility is on the line here with respect to ukraine, and i think there's a history there. certainly part of it. a good part of it is due to prompts, evidence desire to get out of nato at some point. but the history goes before that the u. s. did not respond to russia's august 2000 invade invasion of georgia. effectively. the united states did not respond effectively to the 1st invasion of ukraine in 2014, the whole world saw the debacle of the american withdrawal from afghanistan in the

summer of 20. 21. so doubts about america staying power, i think, or in the minds of many people around the world. and there is concern that the united states can't make a commitment which can be depended on for defined length of time. that was not the case during the cold war. it's become true more recently and it's an urgent problem for our politicians. so i notice you're very careful with words. and i've been watching your interviews of late and you are the only one i hear on la vision talking about russia's 2nd invasion of ukraine and critiquing president biden's framing. if they further invade, did we create the conditions for appeasement of what had happened? what russia had done previously in ukraine, i think, i think we are largely responsible for it and we are the leaders of nato, whether we like it or not. and we have to take that responsibility. the fact that the united states and the nato alliance did not impose differ sanctions on russia

after the 2014 invasion and annexation of crimea, i think led, couldn't believe he could get away with it again. and in the critical days before february, the 24th, when russian forces crossed the ukrainian border, united states specifically ruled out sanctions before the invasion began. when we would have been perfectly legitimate in saying that these were sanctions respecting, 2014 or sanctions against the build up of russian forces and the threat posed to ukraine. these are all factors that i think and put in mind in the minds of his advisors, led him to think that we were big on rhetoric but short on action. now the john bolton and i've been reading for many years is not really a sanctions guy. in fact you've written that we've, we've applied sanctions to many other countries including russia or cuba or north korea and they've never really worked out. and that sanctions,

in your mind are not the kind of deterrence factor that vladimir putin would take seriously. so i guess in light of that, where am i misreading you in terms of talking about sanctions now and should we have done something more forceful earlier? well, sanctions are kind of a shorthand for tougher measures. we could have taken my reading of sanctions and i've been involved in a lot of over the years, as you say, is that they're most likely be effective if they're broad and comprehensive. if they're swiftly and unexpectedly applied, and if they're in forced with military force, if need be, none of that has been true. in the case of the ukraine sanctions or the sanctions that were threatened before the russian invasion. the sanctions best day is the day it's announced that roads exactly because the target take steps to mitigate the damage. take steps to evade the sanction. so enforcement becomes critical and here's another breach in nato's unity. enforcement has not been uniform. sanctions

do impose cause. sometimes those costs are sufficient to change your target behavior. sometimes the cost alone slow them down. but, but unless you can show that the sanctions really will have a fundamental effect, other deterrence steps are necessary in the case of ukraine, for example. stationing american and other nato forces in ukraine before russia took action might have been unnecessary deterrent. but we've been looking at ukraine and nato, but we have a whole world out there in which american credibility is being tested. and one of the areas where it's being tested is asia. and the big news this week, as president biden has come out and said that the united states would militarily defend taiwan against a chinese incursion. i don't think i've heard of us president that clear, clearly articulate american military involvement. and i want, we've always had strategic ambiguity, is, is a big factor and do you, is this an area where john bolton would support what president pine has just laid

out? well, i would certainly support what biden said and answer the response at the press conference. what i don't support is what the white house then rolled back after his statement, which simply said, well, the president was just repeating existing policy, which, which he clearly wasn't. and anybody wants to watch the q and a again will clearly get that point. i do think trying to can be deterred in the case of taiwan. i don't think china wants to inherit a heap of smoking rubble. i think they want tie ones for productive k always, especially in the chip area, critical for computers and are high tech civilization. and i think they're watching what we're doing and what we're not doing in ukraine very quickly. what they want is for taiwan to fall into a lap like a piece of ripe fruit, which could be done in their minds, through a confrontation with the united states. where we back away. that's why this debate in the united states about trying to in the 21st century is so important. because

if we were to lose taiwan, i think it would satisfy back in ways that would be extraordinarily difficult to recover from you. one of the things you've said, which i admire is that we in the media are always looking to understand the next chest move when 20 moves have already been made. and we might have gone back there and, and we've talked a little bit about russia and what we might have done one way or another. and of course, i think, you know, that i was 1st executive director of the nixon center years ago. and nixon was more of a realist and these sorts of issues and was of the view that we need to do more with russia, that russia was humiliated from the economic shock therapy. and there were a lot of missteps taken with russia. how would you have recommended 20 steps ago that we might not have been repeating history and falling back into kind of some form of a new cold war with russia? what did we get wrong? 20 steps ago that we might, might, we should be aware of now. well, i think if you start from january, the 1st 1990 to the day after the dissolution of the soviet union,

there was an enormous optimism in washington and continued through the 1900 ninety's. some commentators were announcing the end of history. people talked about the peace dividend, where western defense budgets were cuts but, but most importantly, during the 1990 the clinton administration, people in washington felt that the debate was over, that the washington model of liberal democracy in market economics was going to prevail worldwide. and there really wasn't too much more to worry about that turned out not to be right in russia and our failure, or to understand just how fragile russia was. how difficult getting institutions of representative government in place would be and how hard it was to d. com, united, the country, you know, there's been a lot of countries that have gone through being socialized, but there never was one successfully di, communist. and so our optimism in the 1990. just let us not to pay adequate attention to exactly what russia was going through from which

a lot of the pain that you now see. i think emerge. there are a lot of means in the media right now about russia and i just love to get your sense of it. you mentioned in your memoir that you met potent in 2001 you've had other encounters with him. you have a sense of that system and i've been thinking about a long time. but a lot of things running in the media right now, or maybe maybe put in his ill, maybe that this is putin's war and not russia's war, that the russian military is really weak. it turns out i'm just interested in what you see is the, the north star and getting the framing right on how to proceed. russia. because i see a lot of conflicting and even contradictory messages right now in the media about how to, how to approach that system which we've been looking at for generations. and we seem to be getting it wrong. well, you're constantly learning where, where mistakes have been made, and we've made a lot here. i think it's a big mistake to characterize this is putin's war that it's one man's decision? certainly he's the top official. they are his decisions. but do not underestimate

how strongly many russians feel, not because of propaganda, but by long history about the breakup of the soviet union pollutant and his close advisors see, it is illegitimate. they think ukraine's and illegitimate state. they think it's a failed state. they think it's part of the ro, dania, another russia, and they want it back. i don't think we calculated nearly how much the breakup of the soviet union affected these people. i'm not saying their reaction is justified, but it's not a good thing to engage in mirror imaging. that if i'm a reasonable person, i walk across the table, they look like reasonable people will just find common solutions to common problems . it doesn't work like that, and we're seeing that today in russia, a lot of russians strongly support what, who is doing? if anything, they don't feel he's gone far enough. and i just like to get john bolton's list of what needs to be on that list to further deter or choke pollutants ambitions. well,

i think our biggest mistake in nato over the years, was after we expanded, not because we were rushing to get close to rushes border. these countries wanted protection and we brought them in to nato. but we did not close the gap. we left a grey zone between nato's eastern border and rushes. western border remembering russia. soviet union have never crossed a nato border with armed force. we created zones of ambiguity, ukraine mil dover, and bel ruse. the countries in the caucuses mountain region. the central asian republics that were neither russian nor nato anymore. and that zone of ambiguity was an invitation to interference from russia, which is what we see in ukraine. we need now to come to a clear decision, what our objectives are, and whether we're going to bring some of these countries into nato, or what arrangements we're going to have. what is your recommendation? well, i think we've got to find something if we can't have full nato membership for,

let's say ukraine, because there are russian troops on his territory. and nato is never taken in a member and that circumstance. some other kinds of security guarantees to make it clear to put and that merely nice thing in nato is not a license for russia to do what it wants. i don't think we thought that through after the last nato expansion, estonia, wifi and lithuania, would have been much easier militarily to go after than ukraine. as it turns out, russia hasn't done that because they're nato countries. do you think that this war, if it goes on grinds the ukrainians down more or the russians down more? you've been concerned that there may pay the long game here, and we would be watching the ukrainian military, these valiant people, defending their nation is so much more than we actually thought was going to happen . whether or not that would be the tragedy. we can't allow to happen, or whether or not this, or somehow is actually dragging russia into something even much worse than it's

afghanistan when it was occupying an invading there. well, i think ukraine is suffering disproportionately, the wars being fought on its territory, the total capital destruction leave aside the human tragedy, the capital destruction of infrastructure, housing manufacturing, almost incalculable. russia has a silent partner here, russia and china have an on taught to use a french diplomatic, or maybe not a full up the lives. china has got russians back. russian financial institutions that are facing sanctions can wander their money through chinese bags, trying to can buy russian oil and gas that it can't sell to europe. that'll work in the other direction if trying to goes after taiwan or the south china sea. but rushes got deeper resources than ukraine does. and in a war of attrition, ukraine is more likely to succumb and rushes patient to say again,

the invasion to georgia was 2008. rush waited 6 years for the 1st invasion of ukraine and waited another 8 for the 2nd year. second invasion that this is the kind of long horizon that is very unfamiliar to americans who look at quarterly reports. so i think that the present dude of poland is right to be worried. i think that's why the central and eastern european members of nato have been so strong and advocating, backings, lensky, and the ukrainians. and why after decade of ideologically based isolation of neutrality, that finland and sweden have now asked to join nato. they've seen the reality in western europe. and not so much, you know, defense secretary lloyd austin as well as president macaroni and france have called for a cease fire. i can't tell right now whether lloyd austin's statement was official government policy or not. but what would be wrong from your perspective if anything,

with pursuing a ceasefire strategy at this moment? well 1st let me distinguish between temporary, transitory cease fires to provide humanitarian carters to get civilians out of the conflict that, that's, i think that's warranted in almost any circumstance. the risk here is that if the parties declare a cease fire, they would each hold the territory, but their forces control and for the russians that demarcation line could become permanent, with everything on the russian side of it, and extra russia as crimea was before. so i would be very worried if i were below the mirrors when sky about any cease fire, where my troops are not only on the offensive butter, taking back significant chunks of territory. and maybe even more, because once it stops, i think it'll be very difficult to gin up support for ukraine to the level it has.

this last week i heard us ambassador to nato julian smith say we were looking for the strategic defeat of russia. in this case, what do you think constitutes strategic defeat? you know, that's a term i do not understand. i would term i do understand is victory. how would i define victory? i think i'd defined it the same way that the ukrainians would, and it is stated, u. s. policy right now that the government of ukraine should have sovereignty over and full territorial integrity of ukraine. as of the time it became independent. that means not just the territory rushes taken since february 24th, but the 2 fake republics and the don bass region that were declared in 2014 and return to the crimea. now that may not be achievable immediately, but, and there are many other issues, reparations responsibility for the war, but this is a territorial war, and that is something we need to make up for us purposes what we consider our

objectives today. one of the hallmarks of this conflict of the bio ministration is proud of is that it shared real intelligence that we had on vladimir putin's decision making and his likely decision to go to war. a lot of our allies thought we were war mongering and didn't, didn't take us seriously. i guess the question i have is, did the bite administration not believe its own intelligence that should we not have pre positioned much more material and support early on to have a definitive impact than we did? because it seems to me to be a contradiction that on one hand, you know, putting in, rush are going to invade. and on the other hand we, we were bungling and bureaucratically complicated about what we were going to provide. and that as we were going through the steps were very reactive to conditions on the ground, as opposed to our own intelligence. i have not asking you, i haven't seen that debate anywhere, but i'm just what you think. well, i think the sharing the public sharing and intelligence that we saw before and

during this war has been a mistake. i don't think it was part of a strategy. i think it was the, by the ministration saying, implicitly, we know how badly we bungled afghanistan, but we're going to tell you how much we know to show you. we really are on top of things in ukraine, and i think i think you put your finger on the biggest danger. we had an enormous intelligence mistake here. the russians weren't the only ones who mis estimated what the impact of their invasion would be. they thought it would be over in a matter of weeks and so did week. that's why we were leaking the bite and ministration was leaking, our support. they thought it was gonna be like afghan, a stand, right? that got it was gonna be another case of ashcroft gunny leaving the country. right . that's right. and that's why we were projecting support for gorilla operations against the rush invasion. that doesn't say we had much conference, and that's why we offered so lensky a ride out of key, which he rightly refused. that doesn't have cod show confidence in the survivability of his government. so, so when you,

when you reveal all these things without a strategic framework, as opposed to sharing them privately with allies, i think you risk really exposing a lot of your sources and methods. i think the u. s. does need overall a massive increase and it's international communications capabilities. the cold war institutions we had, which are iconic, now are dilapidated and in disrepair. they need to be improved. and d, classifying intelligence is not a substitute for communication strategy. i know this may seem like an unfair question, and i don't want to because i pathetically, it's really about what would have happened under a trump administration right now. you've said it would was, would be bunk that, that the trump administration would have avoided this conflict that would have been drawn in we may see a future trump administration come in. it raises the interesting questions about what the scaffolding of, of a trump national security posture with real tasks of american power,

both in asia and in europe are going on. and it just be interesting what insights you have about president trump and, and whether or not this system that we have would behave responsibly. incredibly in, in, in that administration, as opposed to some of the criticisms you've had of the vitamin iteration. well, at least and abide administration, you have systematic decision making that didn't exist, and the trumpet administration i described. it is like living inside a pinball machine, particularly since trump doesn't have a philosophy and he doesn't do policy in the normal sense of the word. i think the reason that there was no invasion of ukraine under trump was that put in thought the trump was in a way doing the work he would have liked to have seen done in a weakening nato. perhaps ultimately, withdrawing from it, putting pressure on zelinski to do political favors for trop, preventing the closeness that you would want to see between the leader, the united states, the leader of ukraine. so in a 2nd truck term,

i think i think ukraine would have been much more vulnerable and i think it may well have been there would have been no leadership of nato. and keith and the country as a whole might well fall in a few weeks. just ask you real quick. finally, nato is an international institution that you support multilateral institutional support. what is the criteria for you of those multilateral institutions, the united states should be engaged with in part and those that we should sidestep or avoid? the question is, does it advance the interest of the united states? i'm not a unilateralists, i'm not a multilateral list. i'm pro american if it benefits the u. s. nato does the proliferation security initiative? does many others don't? that's the test. and it's really in many sense as a test of effectiveness and bastard, john bolton, former national security adviser, president trump former ambassador to the united nations and author of the book, the room where it happened. a white house memoir, thanks so much for sharing your views with us today. so what's the bottom line?

the world is in chaos and power is really up for grabs. china, india, russia, and other nations want to be seen as superpowers to them. america seems really erratic right now, up and down, uncomfortable with its own superpower status, and radically changing direction every few years. so whether it's ukraine or taiwan or elsewhere, the united states and its allies are being constantly tested. putin is testing the resolve of the west, is nato really revived. is this feeling of new purpose and the world's most powerful alliance? gonna last my guess says much more has to be done on that front. meanwhile, behind the curtains, china is watching and learning carefully. and that's the bottom line. ah, the great thing about being a news present. so to let the clock out 0 is that it's a truly global operation. if you will channel to see, or you'll see news from parts of the world that other networks just don't cover,

you're getting a truly global perspective. we have an extensive network of bureaus around the world. we have many, many colors, phone books in corners of the globe. if you really want to know what's happening in the world right now, you need to be watching out 0. witness fusion, witness clarity, witness, family, witness, friends, witness the beginning, witness. the end. witness, life. witness when out you through? ah, i'm down, jordan i with the top stories here on al jazeera, texas police effects again tense criticism for their inaction during the deadliest school shooting in the us. in nearly a decade,

families are demanding onset is offered in.