Reading Up on the New National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster

The selection of Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster to be President Trump's new National Security Advisor has received near universal praise. But understanding why McMaster is highly regarded is another matter altogether. Here's list of illuminating articles on McMaster that helps explain why he's one of the military's leading lights.

If you can only read one thing about McMaster to quickly understand his views on national security in the present moment, I'd recommend his 2013 New York Times op-ed "The Pipe Dream of Easy War." In the piece, McMaster argues that the American military has become over-reliant on technological advantages, and, perhaps most importantly, American leadership has lost sight of the fact that war ultimately has political ends:

In the years leading up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, thinking about defense was driven by ideas that regarded successful military operations as ends in themselves, rather than just one instrument of power that must be coordinated with others to achieve, and sustain, political goals. Believers in the theory known as the "Revolution in Military Affairs" misinterpreted the American-led coalition's lopsided victory in the 1991 gulf war and predicted that further advances in military technology would deliver dominance over any opponent. Potential adversaries, they suggested, would not dare to threaten vital American interests.

The theory was hubristic. Yet it became orthodoxy and complicated our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, where underdeveloped war plans encountered unanticipated political problems.

As to how McMaster earned his reputation as an innovative thinker, he was a pioneer in counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq and was an oft-cited inspiration for the strategies Gen. David Petraeus would implement successfully in the Iraq war surge. In particular, the story of how McMaster wrested control of the city of Tal Afar from insurgents has literally become a textbook example of COIN strategy. In 2006, George Packer wrote a long account of the event and its significance for the New Yorker: