Thursday, February 23, 2017

McMaster: great statesman or a guy eager for more wars?

This is a speech from 2016 by President Tinyhands' new National Security Adviser, Lt. Gen H. R. McMaster on the Future of War:



It was a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies of 05/04/2016, Harbingers of Future War: Implications for the Army with Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster.

He was invited to talk about the Army's needs in particular. But it's kind of ironic to hear him pitching for the weapons wish-list of the Army, because the strongest point he makes in his famous book Dereliction of Duty was about how the services competing with each other was a big reason they didn't give the best advice about the Vietnam War.

What's more immediately interesting is that he sounds more hardline about Russia than the Trumpists have been so far. But he seems to buy into a wildly exaggerated notion of what kind of threat Iran and the Islamic State are to US security. And since those two are on opposite sides, I can't help but wonder how many wars he wants to take on at once.

I know the pundit consensus on him is that he's some kind of great military statesman. I think the jury's still out on that.

I also wasn't totally impressed by Dereliction of Duty. (H.R. McMaster and the "lessons of Vietnam" 12/18/2006)

But Willima McCants writes in Politico about how some leading Islamophobes are complaining about McMaster, McMaster Has the Islamophobes Worried. Good. 02/23/2017. So that's some kind of good sign, I hope. This article from Politico, which Charlie Pierce calls Tiger Beat on the Potomac, gushes about him in a way that we're accustomed to hearing pundits talk about that bold Maverick McCain.

No comments: