dagblog - Comments for "Trump Chooses H.R. McMaster as National Security Adviser"

Artappraiser... Hey-O . . .

oldenGoldenDecoy — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 10:32:18 +0000

In reply to Thomas Ricks (former WaPo

Artappraiser... Hey-O . . .

I left this over in Mike's thread...

Just another take on what may be boiling under the surface referring to McMaster and his fellow WH Generals.

dagblog.com/comment/234431#comment-234431

~OGD~

Thanks Lulu, appreciate it.

Bruce Levine — Tue, 21 Feb 2017 17:36:20 +0000

In reply to Bruce, you ask if McMaster's

Thanks Lulu, appreciate it. Thing is, and perhaps it's a reflection of where we are, when I wrote of potential for change I was thinking in terms of basic fundamental competence. Hard to think that's where we are but heck I feel that's where we are right now.

Thomas Ricks (former WaPo

artappraiser — Tue, 21 Feb 2017 16:20:56 +0000

In reply to Trump Chooses H.R. McMaster as National Security Adviser

Thomas Ricks (former WaPo military reporter) at ForeignPolicy.com, written Feb. 20 @ noon:

I think Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster will be the next national security advisor. Like Vice Adm. Bob Harward, General David Petraeus reportedly has withdrawn over the issue of being able to bring in his own staff. And Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, the acting NSA, is probably too old for a job this demanding, especially in this administration.

That leaves just two. I don’t know about Bolton. I’d be surprised, though, if he fit the Trump template.

Picking McMaster is not a bad thing. I’ve known him since he was major. He’s smart, energetic, and tough. He even looks like an armored branch version of Harward. (That’s him, working out with a punching bag in Iraq, in the foto. I took it in the citadel in downtown Tell Afar one sunny winter day about 10 years ago.) (Btw, Harward was scheduled to appear on ABC’s “This Week” yesterday morning, but backed out an hour before airtime. )

As I said at the end of my Friday post, once Trump was turned down by Harward, it became more likely that he would turn to the active duty military for his 3rd pick for the job. McMaster is among the best of them out there. For his Ph.D. dissertation, he wrote one of the best books on the Vietnam War, Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam.

He has good combat experience, he was a good trainer, and he led the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment well in his deployment to Iraq, most notably in pacifying Tell Afar, to the west of Mosul.

I wrote about his operations there in my book The Gamble. I am traveling so I don’t have it with me, but I remember him telling his soldiers that understanding counterinsurgency really wasn’t hard: “Every time you disrespect an Iraqi, you’re working for the enemy.” They even had “Customer Satisfaction Forms” that detainees were asked to fill out upon release: Were you treated well? How was the food? What could we do better?

There are two big differences between him and Harward: First, he is on active duty. (Though the Army inexplicably couldn’t find a four star job for him, and had told him to plan to retire later this year.) Second, his wife won’t kill him if he takes the job, as Harward's wife might have.

That said, the basic problems remain. To do the job right, McMaster needs to bring in his own people. And it remains unclear if he can get that.

As for relations with the Pentagon: McMaster knows Mattis, but not well. (They both spoke at a conference at the University of North Carolina in April 2010.) But they are similar people and will respect each other.

I don’t know how McMaster will work Trump. McMaster once wrote that the American war plans for Afghanistan and Iraq were “at times . . . essentially narcissistic.” (Good line, but I think it is more illuminating to say that they were minimalist plans for maximalist goals, which is of course a bad combination.) At any rate, McMaster may learn a lot more about narcissism in the coming months.

Over the weekend, I did an informal poll of people who have worked for McMaster, asking if they would be willing to follow him to the National Security Council staff. To a surprising degree, they replied, Yes, they would. That’s an indication of loyalty to and confidence in him.

For extra credit, here is a reading list from McMaster.

Meantime, over the weekend, an NSC staffer who had been hired by General Flynn was canned for criticizing the Trumps at a think tank meeting. I actually don’t have a problem with this. Either you work for someone or you don’t. If you can’t be loyal, at least be discreet. I think we may be seeing more such departures throughout the Trump administration, people who are effectively “resigning” in public.

Bruce, you ask if McMaster's

A Guy Called LULU — Tue, 21 Feb 2017 15:53:31 +0000

In reply to Trump Chooses H.R. McMaster as National Security Adviser

Bruce, you ask if McMaster's appointment will make a difference. I wonder what area of national security a difference might be expected or even hoped for. From the NYT:

As a commander, he was credited with demonstrating how a counterinsurgency strategy could defeat militants in Iraq, demonstrating the promise of an approach that Gen. David H. Petraeus adopted to shift momentum in a war the United States was on the verge of losing.

Whether the NYT is correct in implying that the credit Petraeus received was due has, again IMO, been proven completely wrong. We may not have "lost" that war that we were on the verge of losing but we certainly haven't won it, and to imply at all that we have is, once more IMO, a common MSM version of "fake news".

Well into his article describing the ideas and actions that got us to where we are today as a result of National Security policy and actions, Major Danny Sjursen, a U.S. Army strategist and former history instructor at West Point who served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and has written a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge, says:

A real course correction is undoubtedly impossible without at least a willingness to reconsider and reframe our recent historical experiences. If the 2016 election is any indication, however, a Trump administration with the present line-up of national security chiefs (who fought in these very wars) won’t meaningfully alter either the outlook or the policies that led us to this moment.

You might guess that I agree. The entire piece is worth reading, IMO. I don't know why but in 'preview' the article opens in the middle.