After several abortive tries to appoint someone to the crucial position of national security adviser, Donald Trump may have finally found his man in Lt-Gen HR McMaster, an active duty general. Trump had originally gone with his near-nutcase and serial fib-teller, Michael Flynn, a retired general and former head of the Defence Intelligence Agency – before former President Obama had fired him for being unable to work and play well with other adults in the room. Crucially, however, for Trump, Flynn had been an early supporter of the Trumpian presidential cavalcade. Loyalty is all to Trump. And he was a voluble cheerleader for a kind of secular crusade against radical Islam, and Islam more generally, as well as being astonishingly buddy-buddy with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s crowd.

Perhaps, most important, however, he also turned out to be a man who couldn’t remember clearly what he had told (or promised) the Russian ambassador the US, even before taking office – or even what he had told the new US vice president-elect about such conversations. Then, caught out, he had tried to obfuscate his way out of that increasingly tight corner, once it became known through a chorus of published leaks that Flynn had spoken about recent US economic sanctions and other substantive issues with the Russian ambassador, rather than just casual conversation and the exchange of holiday greetings and some cheery mutual good fellowship.

Then, when it became clear Flynn had to go, the president tried to enlist Vice Admiral Robert Harward for this post, but Harward balked when he was told effectively that he would have to take the senior staffers he was given and that he would also have to work with a new National Security Council membership plan that included White House resident ideologue Stephen Bannon as a permanent participant, but demoted several usual high-ranking military officers from participation, save when their expertise and experience were critically needed. Such arrangements clearly messed with the whole point of the National Security Council which had been set up after World War II, as the Cold War began to set in, when it became increasingly clear strategic decision-making had to have a thoroughly co-ordinated approach that took into consideration the views of a much wider circle of advisers than when such decisions and debate had been handled more informally by White House aides.

Just perhaps, however, Trump has struck paydirt this time around with his choice of McMaster in adding some gravitas and heft to the White House’s strategic decision-making apparatus. McMaster’s reputation is of someone who doesn’t swallow the official Kool Aid willingly, even as he has developed a reputation along the way as both a straight shooter and a bit of a maverick. Commanding combat troops, he had been the “author” of an operation that blasted an Iraqi unit 10 times the size of his own tank unit in the Gulf War, and that military engagement continues to be studied by military student officers and veteran tacticians for clues as to what leads to victory on the field of combat.

Along the way, McMaster also completed a PhD in history at the University of North Carolina. In his work, he examined in microscopic detail the chain of disastrous decisions in the mid-1960s that eventually set the scene for the massive American disaster in Vietnam that was to come later when over half a million US military personnel were sent to that war, to no avail, save grief. His dissertation was later turned into a book that is now certain to be reprinted and that will assuredly garner very close reading by military attachés in Washington as well as defence leaders worldwide as well. In his work, McMaster critically examined the acquiescence of the US’s military chiefs to military decisions made by the country’s political leadership, as those military men largely declined to offer the kind of honest, unsparing advice that might well have led the civilian decision-makers to reach some very different judgements about that ill-fated war.

As The Independent (UK) pegged him,

“General McMaster was initially seen as a ‘rebel’ within the military establishment after he published his PhD thesis as a book in 1997. It argued that military officers were to blame for the failures of the Vietnam War because they had not told Washington about what was really happening on the ground. He would, however, go on to prove himself on the battlefield, rising to prominence during the Gulf War. After commanding the US 2nd Army Cavalry Regiment in one of the biggest tank battles since the Second World War, he was awarded a Silver Star – the US military’s third-highest decoration for valour in combat.

“He has gone on to be ‘widely acceptable’ in military and intelligence circles and become the ‘opposite of Michael Flynn’, according to Jacob Parakilas, the Assistant Head of the US & Americas programme at Chatham House. He told The Independent: ‘McMaster went from being seen as kind of rebel within the military service who wrote a PhD thesis on how army officers failed to tell their political bosses what was actually going on – leading to a tragedy and a failed war – to being widely acceptable in the establishment.’ ”

Parakilas went on to observe,

“McMaster is a widely respected strategic thinker, he has a record of military achievement and he is very widely respected among national security professionals from both the democratic and republican sides. I think [Mr Trump] is aware he has got to get this pick right because if he is burns through national security advisors very, very quickly then it will appear to the outside world that he is incapable of managing the national security of the country. That means it would appear to the outside world that he won’t be able to manage the crises that will inevitably happen in his presidency.”

Parakilas added that the newest appointee might be able to nudge the president’s approaches into more conventional directions and similarly influence future decisions. But, he also cautioned in his interview,

“The extent to which he will be able to steer him [Trump] away from things like that will depend a lot on how successful he is in building alliances with Congress, with the State department, with the Defence department to win the internal bureaucratic battle against people who would.”

With McMaster in position at the National Security Council, this has set up an unprecedented circumstance in American governance where the professional experience of three top officials – the secretary of defence, the secretary of homeland security, and the national security adviser – is almost entirely from their service in the military. Secretary Mattis at Defence and Kelly at Homeland Security are only recently retired, and McMaster will remain on the active duty roster during his stint as NSA.

Ironically, these three men, precisely because of their considerable first-hand military command experience and their proven ability “to command the room” (perhaps with the addition of Rex Tillerson at State as well as an ally) may possibly be able to outweigh the resident wild bunch – people like Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Kellyanne Conway, who all have totally open access to the Oval Office at any time – and thus Donald Trump’s ear. In international crises, perhaps the McMaster/Kelly/Mattis + Tillerson faction can figure out how to speak sufficiently with one voice that the president could be talked down from some of his more extraordinary ideas in times of grave crisis. But this will only happen, of course, if they can achieve an entente that agrees on the big strategic concepts and that then marshals the necessary facts to keep things from going unstuck and then spinning out of control.

The auguries for this evolution remain uncertain, however, as Trump seems, so far at least, intent on keeping foreign policy moves in the White House – and thus within his circle of ideological supporters. In recent days, for example, the media has been reporting that Secretary of State Tillerson has been left on the sidelines and largely cut out of decisions.

The Vox, summarising concurrent reporting in Politico and The Washington Post, noted,

“A picture is beginning to emerge of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s first three weeks as America’s top diplomat. It isn’t pretty. On Thursday, a pair of devastating articles in Politico and the Washington Post described how the former Exxon Mobil CEO has been cut out of the loop on major foreign policy shifts, slapped down by the White House on personnel choices, and given virtually no opportunities to make public appearances with President Trump. Per the Post:

“ ‘The Trump administration in its first month has largely benched the State Department from its long-standing role as the preeminent voice of US foreign policy, curtailing public engagement and official travel and relegating Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to a mostly offstage role.’

“The day-to-day chaos of the Trump White House and mini controversies the new president regularly stirs up on Twitter make it difficult to track what’s going on in individual parts of the government, even ones as important as the State Department. And that’s why understanding what Tillerson has — and has not — been able to do is so important.

“Here’s one thing Tillerson hasn’t been able to do: choose his own deputy [a key decision usually the prerogative of a senior cabinet appointee]. Tillerson, who has never worked in government, wanted State Department veteran and long-time Republican foreign policy hand Elliott Abrams. Trump personally rejected Abrams after learning that the former Bush administration official had criticised him during the campaign. Tillerson hasn’t found a replacement, and it’s not clear if, or when, he’ll be able to fill the post.”

And Politico reported further that its sources had informed the online journal “that the secretary of state was never consulted when Trump, in an appearance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, dropped the US commitment to a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians”. Given the centrality of Middle East issues and positions such as that to the entirety of American foreign policy and with substantial domestic repercussions as well, it would be very easy, right about now, to imagine Tillerson fuming furiously in his private study – or, just perhaps, plotting to have his revenge on those who caused his public embarrassment in this affair. But, of course, he still will have to break through the cordon of invulnerability around the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the man in whom Trump has now reposed the task of solving the Arab-Israeli entanglement.

All of these circumstances simply amplify a growing understanding by many (including both among the leaders of the country’s allies and its antagonists) that the Trump White House is a snake pit of intrigue – on contentious or complex issues, and most particularly on anything to do with foreign affairs or trade policy. For domestic issues, such as a promised massive tax reform plan, the patented trillion dollar infrastructure dream, that murky “repeal and replace” Obamacare message, immigration policy changes, and all the rest, rather than intrigue, right now at least, it just seems to be confusion – as the Trump administration has been unable to come to grips with how such legislation is really accomplished by the Congress – and the fact that he must somehow work with the national legislature, rather than simply carry out an end-run around it. The Republicans may be in control of Congress, but they aren’t Trump’s complete slaves in the matters at hand. DM

Photo: A handout photo made available by by the Defense Video Imagery Distribution System (DVIDS) on 20 February 2017 shows Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, director, Army Capabilities Integration Center, deputy-commanding general, Futures, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, speaking to students, staff, and faculty during a visit to U.S. Naval War (NWC) College in Newport, R.I., USA, 22 March 2016. US President Donald J. Trump announced on 20 February 2017 Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster would serve as national security advisor. EPA/Chief Mass Communication Specialist James E. Foehl / HO Released by CDR Barbara Mertz, Public Affairs Officer, US Naval War College, (401)841-2220, [email protected]