Muffled as we are so often by the filters of political correctness, it comes as a welcome liberation to read the clear words of John Bolton. “Surrender Is Not an Option” (Threshold Editions, 488 pages, $27) is not a short book, but there aren’t many wasted words, and you won’t be in any doubt about Mr. Bolton’s thoughts and convictions, both of which are clear and honorable. Take North Korea, for example, a subject that has afflicted him for many years:

Just as the Italians once dealt with Mussolini, and the Romanians with Ceausescu, one day the North Korean people may have the chance to deal with Kim Jong-il. His death will be dirty and contemptible, like his life and his regime, and it will be exactly what he deserves.

Or take Iran, now dominating the front pages, as it dominated much of Mr. Bolton’s time at both the United Nations and the Department of State:

The fact is that Iran will never voluntarily give up its nuclear program, and a policy based on the contrary assumption is not just delusional but dangerous. This is the road to the Nuclear Holocaust.

Those two quotations can stand for the entire volume, which is candid, urbanely and elegantly witty, wise, and exceedingly depressing. The picture Mr. Bolton paints is a very ugly one, in which the world’s greatest institutions — from the Department of State to the foreign ministries of Europe, from our most costly and prestigious universities to the United Nations — are utterly unable to cope with any of the serious problems of our time. The United Nations, he says, can neither deal effectively with “high-profile, high-risk international issues,” nor, at the other end of the scale, with “low-profile, low-risk issues,” even — as in the case of Darfur — when a majority on the Security Council and the General Assembly seem to want to do something useful. Thus, he wryly comments, there isn’t “much room for optimism at either end or in the middle.”

Most of our leaders blend nicely into the dark hues and depressing patterns of that fresco. Most “Washington books” traffic in personal gossip, but “Surrender” doesn’t have much about personalities; it concentrates on ideas, on policy, and, inevitably, on bureaucratic maneuver. Thus, you won’t hear a lot about the personal foibles of the people with whom Mr. Bolton worked at the United Nations, but you will learn about how they advanced their causes. He often disagreed with Secretary of State Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, but he admired the closeness of their relationship, which he found unique and effective. He often disagreed with Secretary of State Rice, but he admired and respected her close relationship with President Bush. One of Mr. Bolton’s most interesting tales is about Mr. Powell’s oddly sexist comments about Ms. Rice, suggesting that she was inclined to be guided more by her “hormones” than by her mind. And Mr. Bolton well describes the relentless hunt by Mr. Powell and Mr. Armitage for anyone in the “system” who made critical remarks about them to the media.

Some will be daunted by the detail with which Mr. Bolton recounts his bureaucratic battles, both with colleagues in the administration and with Congressional and Senate leaders. But it is precisely that wealth of information that shows how badly off we are, and which points the way to possible improvements in the way we should protect and advance our national interests. In case after case, he tells us how the president’s clearly expressed desires got diluted and often sabotaged by a bureaucracy that disagreed with him and with his political appointees. Worse still, those very appointees, on whom any president must rely to carry out his policies, were more often than not captured by the bureaucrats, and ended up on the other side. The three key issues on which Mr. Bolton concentrates his attention — North Korea, Iran, and the Arab-Israeli conflict — document the process to a fare-thee-well.

In the end, he calls for dramatic changes in the United Nations and in the American government. For the former, he calls for a system of voluntary financial contributions, which he compares to the functioning of a free-market system. He wants the United Nations to earn its money, not just send out invoices to member countries. He refreshingly points out that members should feel free to give their money to non-U.N., and nongovernmental, organizations if they show those groups can do the job better than can governments or Turtle Bay. Mr. Bolton thinks it’s the only way to make the United Nations work well, and I’m sure he’s right (although I wonder if there is any way to reform what is arguably the world’s largest criminal organization).

For the American government, he calls for a “cultural revolution.” Mr. Bolton is a realist, in the best tradition of the word, and he knows this cannot be accomplished quickly. The revolution must undo the current culture, by which the bureaucrats impose their own political preferences over the preferences of their elected leaders. The “professionals” at the State Department (and, I would add, in the intelligence community) actively resist policies with which they disagree, while our political system would seem to require the opposite: professionals devoting their considerable talents to advancing policies flowing from the White House. To that end, Mr. Bolton calls for what might be termed a national re-education effort, sending bureaucrats into the private sector — real businesses, for example — to learn how to implement ideas with which they currently disagree. He might also have added tours in the armed forces, similar to the national draft that once shaped the mindsets of our greatest generations, and which might prevent pathetic spectacles of the sort we have just witnessed at Foggy Bottom, with foreign and civil service personnel rebelling against the very thought that they should risk their lives in the service of their country.

Mr. Bolton’s last words promise that he will continue fighting for his country, which is good news indeed. John Bolton is a rare man, and this is a rare book, which should be on the desk of anyone who claims to understand our current plight and is searching for ways to advance our common cause.

Mr. Ledeen is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing editor at the National Review.