Who is Robert O’Brien? From hostage negotiator to Trump’s new top security adviser

US President Donald Trump named the Department of State’s chief hostage negotiator, Robert O’Brien, as his new national security adviser on Wednesday.

O’Brien, who will be Trump’s fourth appointee to the role, replaces John Bolton, a notoriously hawkish hard-liner whose clashes with the president led to his abrupt dismissal on 10 September. He is said to be more affable and cooperative than his predecessor.

“Robert’s been fantastic, we know each other well,” said Trump, hailing his new appointee to the press on the tarmac of Los Angeles International Airport yesterday, and citing his “tremendous track record” securing the release of hostages.

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Standing beside Trump, O’Brien said: “It’s a privilege to serve with the president. We look forward to another year and a half of peace through strength. We’ve had tremendous foreign policy successes under President Trump’s leadership. I expect those to continue,” he said, going on to repeat the phrase “peace through strength”.

So what is the new national security adviser’s background?

O’Brien trained as a lawyer before advising Republicans on foreign policy and serving in several government roles, including representative to the UN General Assembly under George W. Bush in 2005, when he worked with Bolton.

“He has also worked for former secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton,” says the BBC

Prior to his appointment, perhaps O’Brien’s highest profile role was an unusual one. “O'Brien made headlines over the summer when Trump sent him to Sweden to help put pressure on the Swedish government amid the rapper A$AP Rocky's trial on assault charges,” reports Business Insider. “It was an unusual assignment, given that diplomats like O'Brien typically handle hostage situations in war-torn countries.”

Andrew Exum, a former member of the Obama Administration, had this to say on Twitter.

“Mr Trump was said to have been attracted to Mr O'Brien's personal style, which is a contrast to that of Mr Bolton, and to have concluded that he ‘looked the part’ of national security adviser,” reports The Telegraph. “US officials indicated the president wanted an adviser who would be less of a public figure, and cause less controversy.”

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“In Robert O’Brien... the president seems to have found a compliant, behind-the-scenes worker bee better suited to Mr. Trump’s domineering temperament,” reflects Jonathan Stevenson in The New York Times. “His appointment may signal the death knell of any hope to check the president’s worst foreign-policy impulses.”

The administration is currently embroiled in a tense national security situation, and among O’Brien’s first duties will be to counsel the president as he deliberates over how to respond to last weekend’s attacks on Saudi Arabian oil facilities.

“In the space of seven minutes on an airport tarmac on Wednesday, President Trump captured the thorny decision he faces as he once again straddles the edge of war and peace,” says The New York Times. “One moment, he threatened to order ‘the ultimate option’ of a strike on Iran... The next he ruminated about what a mistake it had been for the United States to get entangled in Middle East wars and welcomed Iran’s president to visit.”

It will be O’Brien’s job to help Trump inflate his aura of strength, without actually risking the foreign entanglements the president has pledged to avoid.

In 2016, O’Brien published a collection of essays titled While America Slept, in which he is critical of then-president Barack Obama’s foreign policy. Again, there, he talked of “peace through strength”, clearly a tenet of his policy position.

"America faces a stark choice in 2016 between a continuation of President Obama’s ‘lead-from-behind’ foreign policy and sequester-based national security approach and a return to President Reagan’s ‘leader of the free world’ foreign policy and ‘peace through strength’ national security approach," he wrote.

On Tuesday, Trump had named five candidates as contenders for the role, but crucially, according to Bloomberg, “O’Brien had the backing of Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, whose central role shaping the administration’s foreign policy will be solidified by the appointment.”

CNN agrees that O’Brien is Pompeo’s man, calling the secretary of state “the most influential national security voice in the administration”. It adds: “Trump, who is known to respond well to flattery, has recounted praise from O'Brien in tweets and in conversations, suggesting that the new national security adviser also knows how to handle the President and his mercurial moods.”

Indeed, Trump alluded happily to O’Brien’s past praise in front of reporters in Los Angeles. “Robert O’Brien said, ‘Trump is the greatest hostage negotiator in history’. He happens to be right,” said the president.

Other commentators fear that O’Briens demonstrated ability to gratify Trump may be his primary virtue.

“Mr. Trump, fronted by Mr. Pompeo, will probably continue to dangle ‘tremendous deals’ and threaten bold military action to prop up his image as a simultaneous visionary and tough guy, neglecting what he considers mundane problems, such as humanitarian aid and refugee crises,” continues Stevenson in The New York Times. “Mr. O’Brien will be along for an erratic and risky ride, probably relegated to the back seat. World affairs will continue to be unpredictable and in disarray, American policy incoherent, and the liberal rules-based order once led by the United States further degraded.”