McMASTER NAMED NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR AFTER EARLY RESIGNATION OF TRUMP'S ORIGINAL APPOINTEE

President Donald Trump has named Army Lt. General Herbert Raymond (“H.R.”) McMaster as his new Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. This position is more often referred to simply as the President’s National Security Advisor.

McMaster’s appointment does not require Senate confirmation. However, given his three-star rank, the Senate must reconfirm his military rank as he moves into his new position. The last time this situation occurred was when General Colin Powell, then a three-star Army General was named National Security Affairs Advisor in the last year of the Reagan administration.

At that time the Senate easily confirmed Powell’s third star, and Senate approval of McMaster’s retaining his third star appears equally likely. Nevertheless, the Senate reappointment process led by the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by Senator John McCain, could open the door to deeper examination of Trump administration foreign policy directions

“The 21st Century Army’s Pre-Eminent Warrior-Thinker”

H.R. McMaster has been described by officers who have worked with him and under his command as “a force of nature,” simultaneously “passionate” and “ebullient.” A 1984 West Point graduate with very substantial field command experience in the Persian Gulf War (Kuwait 1990-1991) and the second Iraq war (2005-2006) as well as experience in Afghanistan, McMaster went on to earn an MA and Ph.D. in American History from the University of North Carolina. He subsequently graduated from the Army’s Command and General Staff College in 1999.

McMaster’s military exploits as an Armored Cavalry officer have become almost legendary. As a young Captain in the Persian Gulf War, McMaster’s Eagle Troop, composed of nine Abrams tanks, met and defeated a substantially larger Iraqi tank force in the “Battle of 73 Easting.” The state-of-the-art Abrams tanks fielded by McMaster’s troops out maneuvered and out-gunned a much larger Iraqi force of outdated Soviet and Chinese tanks, destroying more than 80 tanks and vehicles with no American losses.

In Iraq, McMaster became the poster child for a renewed commitment to counter-insurgency warfare. Charged with securing and pacifying the city of Tal Afar, he moved his troops out of their defensive redoubt and into forward positions that could provide security to the populace and allow McMaster’s forces to interact with the community leadership in ways that bridged cultural differences and reduced extremist attacks. Based on that experience, McMaster helped General David Petraeus write the Army’s new book on counterinsurgency tactics.

McMaster also wrote the book on the role of military advisors to the President. His Ph.D. dissertation on the command structures that advised President Johnson during the Vietnam War was turned into a book entitled “Dereliction of Duty.” That work explores the failures of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to provide insightful military advice to LBJ, deferring instead to a circle of presidential advisors whose viewpoints were skewed by political considerations.

Though the book is more retrospective critical
analysis than “how to do it,” it just might provide a
useful primer for McMaster’s latest promotion to key presidential assistant.

An Independent Voice in the National Security Structure?

The most critical question surrounding McMaster’s appointment as National Security Advisor is how he will function within the parallel universes of the Trump foreign policy apparatus. In theory, the role of the National Security Affairs Advisor is to bring together the threads of foreign policy thinking from around the government, evaluate policy concerns and shape them into an informed set of choices from which the President can select the options he wishes to pursue.

This process of winnowing the cacophony of foreign policy voices across the government falls to the National Security Advisor in the role of coordinator and gatekeeper of ideas and the voice with the most direct access to the President. But, the organization Trump has brought together in the White House seems designed to work at cross-purposes with the National Security Advisor’s role. Trump has created independent centers of power that report directly to him.

With the title Chief Strategist, Steve Bannon has been allowed to create his own shop, the Strategic Initiatives Group, which he co-chairs with Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. And, Bannon has been given a place in the Principals Committee of the National Security Council even as the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have been distanced from that inner circle.

McMaster has built a military career out of being a successful battlefield commander and the iconoclast in the room, challenging conventional thinking, imposing substantial degrees of realism, probing beneath ideological stances, and bringing new ideas into play. Those traits almost cost him career advancement in the Army’s ranks when he was twice passed over for promotion from full Colonel to the rank of General. Yet, McMaster ran that gauntlet successfully with help from one of his mentors, General David Petraeus.

McMaster’s on-the-ground experience in the critical regions of conflict around the world and his nuanced understanding of cultural differences has earned him wide respect. But, can he now turn these assets into an advisor’s role that gains the ear of the President and holds sway among a gaggle of competing voices?

Like the cavalrymen of old, whose military traditions General McMaster inherits, he will now have to run the gauntlet again, not as a punishment but as his path through intellectual insight to policy influence.