What LT. Gen. H.R. McMaster will offer as new national security adviser

It was 1997 when “Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam” by then-Captain H.R. McMaster, a new PhD from the University of North Carolina, hit the bookshelves. The history of the planning for and gradual escalation of war in Vietnam had been well covered by prominent and established authors, but their books were not what the Chairman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were reading in 1998. Then-COL David Petraeus, a mentor to McMaster, had given a copy to GEN Hugh Shelton, the Chairman and his boss at the time, who subsequently made it required reading for each of the service Chiefs. If the past is prologue, what may we learn from this study and its author, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, the new national security adviser?

Dereliction of duty

{mosads}Through research derived from newly declassified archives, McMaster’s book exposed the painful bureaucratic (personality) politics and disconnect between civilian and military leaders that undermined American chances of success in Vietnam in the 1960s.

McMaster examines why civil-military relations — the cornerstone of military and national security policy — were at a the lowest point as President John F. Kennedy then Lyndon B. Johnson, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy excluded military leaders while developing and executing their war strategy. 

In a scathing arraignment, McMaster illustrates how civilian leaders circumvented military officials; lied, prevaricated, and deceived their advisors; and deliberately withheld information from Congress and the American people about the Vietnam War strategy. The result was ill informed decision making that deferred to domestic influences over sound military policy. In the quagmire that was Vietnam, America lost 58,000 soldiers, with hundreds of thousands wounded and failed to keep Vietnam from falling under communist oppression.

But civilian leaders weren’t exclusively to blame. McMaster also assembled a portfolio of damning evidence against military leaders, who, knowing that Johnson and McNamara would accept nothing less than uncritical support, became “yes men,” rendering themselves impotent, even as they disagreed with the premise and direction of the war. McMaster illustrates how the gatekeeper, GEN Maxwell Taylor, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, deliberately misled the president about the views of the service Chiefs and in turn misled the Chiefs about the president’s intentions. Drawing from years’ of meeting notes, McMaster deftly shows that the military service Chiefs were silent accomplices. While these military leaders believed that civilian control of the military was “essential to Democracy,” they ultimately were unable to overcome service parochialism and agree on strategic objectives. All took the path of least resistance, in great part to keep their jobs, remaining deferential to Secretary of Defense McNamara and civilian leaders.

In an unequivocal indictment, the young McMaster blames the failings on the “arrogance, weakness, lying in the pursuit of self-interest, and, above all, the abdication of responsibility to the American people.”

Fast forward several decades, and one can see that Lieutenant General McMaster, the new pick for national security adviser, will ostensibly become one of the characters in his book.

Over the decades, McMaster has served in key strategic advisory positions that have informed his mindset about civil-military decision making which he will no doubt import the Situation Room as this Administration contemplates its global security posture. Drawing from McMaster’s several contemporary speeches and articles, here are some tenets that he is likely to use when advising the president on national security policy. 

1. Civil-military cooperation and communication is key. The takeaway from “Dereliction of Duty,” and McMaster’s decades of strategic and operational experience, is the fundamental value of sound civil-military relations and the importance of keeping military leader(s) at the Security Council table. Relying on a self-interested inner circle and abrogating the views of seasoned professionals, as Johnson did, will inexorably lead to myopic and ill-informed decision making, he concluded in his book. An open, and critical, dialogue between the president and those with diverse opinions — not “yes, men” (and women) is essential for efficacious military and national security policy. Above all, don’t lie. Historians will later haunt you. 

2. The Administration must avoid “hubristic and ahistorical visions of future war.” What is sorely lacking today, McMaster said during a 2016 Foreign Policy Initiative interview, is leaders’ width, depth, and context of the enduring nature of warfare. “[W]e achieve new heights of superficiality sometimes in our discussion of what’s going on in the world and what we might do about it. And in recent years, many of the difficulties encountered in strategic decision making, in operational planning and in force development have stemmed from shallow or flawed thinking, enabled in large measure by…the abject neglect of history.” Self-delusion if not conceit will lead to defeat if hubris and rhetoric guide policy, he warned in a 2012 speech to fellow historians at the Army Historical Foundation and Society.[1]

3. Strategic objectives must be pursued through a whole-of-government(s) approach. War is one instrument of power, but successful military operations are not ends in themselves, McMaster has stated. While some have questioned his ability to navigate the interagency process and politics in Washington, a quick look at his assignments over the past 13 years illustrate the breadth and depth of his preparedness. McMaster led several major (interagency) strategic reviews for the Iraq War, CENTCOM global operations, and for 18 months led the US-Afghan Anti-Corruption Joint International Task Force (which included members of all U.S. military branches, State, Homeland Security, FBI, Treasury and other government agencies). He has, in fact worked in an interagency environment most of his career as a field grade and general officer. In his most recent position in the Army Capabilities Integration Center he has worked in tandem with the NATO Transformation Center in Norfolk, VA and Pentagon).

McMaster’s combined, joint experience (and the politics of such environs) has invariably shaped his thinking on interagency cooperation. “War is in fact an extension of politics and in any war military operations have to be conducted in such a way that they contribute to sustainable political outcomes consistent with vital interests that are at stake in that war,” he stated in a 2014 interview with the Small Wars Journal. “To consolidate military gains politically, the military effort has to be integrated with all elements of national power.”

4. Leaders must clearly define ends, ways, and means. War is non-linear and full of uncertainty, McMaster routinely shares in his speeches. As such, America must think broader in relation to achieving sustainable regional and global stability. What does he mean by that?

McMaster has condemned past American wartime (Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan) planning as ”almost narcissistic, based on a tendency to define problems only in relation to ourselves and a tendency to then decide what we would like to do [ends] rather than an estimate of what is needed [ways and means] to defeat enemy organizations and achieve sustainable political outcomes consistent with vital interests.”

Reinforcing his sentiments on comprehensive approaches to security dilemmas, his philosophy is that America needs to maintain alliances which collaboratively demand internal (security, economic, social, political) and external solutions such as incentivizing neighbors to either reinforce the resolution of the conflict or to at least to not undermine it, as he said in his 2012 speech to fellow historians. 

Whether dealing with the enemy or the U.S. national security apparatus, war is a contest of wills, McMaster has concluded, meaning that the entity that best understands and can influence internal and external behaviors and is committed for the long haul will no doubt prevail. 

How ironic, then, that McMaster is likely to face a battle of the wills as the national security adviser. Just don’t expect a “yes, man” to show up for duty.

Paula Broadwell is the Director of the Think Broader Foundation. She spent time as a journalist and Harvard research associate observing LTG McMaster’s Anti-Corruption Task Force in Afghanistan.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.