Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/p>\n
About every two months, there are rumors that Gen. H. R. McMaster might be let go as Trump\u2019s national-security adviser (along with many other stellar appointees).<\/p>\n
The world, however, is a much more logical and predictable place than it was 14 months ago. We\u2019ve restored ties to the Gulf monarchies; Israel is again treated with respect. There is no talk any more of an ascendant ISIS caliphate. Ukrainians have been armed; Putin has had tighter sanctions slapped on him. NATO-member defense expenditures are up 5 percent. The U.S. military is being rebooted. Controversial moves, such as leaving the Paris climate accords and moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, are no longer controversial and are winning a consensus that such moves were overdue. The existential threat of a North Korean nuclear missile with the potential to hit the West Coast that was dropped on the nation last year is being dealt with through stepped up efforts to recalibrate missile defense, regional allied solidarity, historically tough U.N. sanctions, and a restored U.S. deterrence, rather than the old talk, talk, talk\/give, give, give protocol of the \u201cAgreed Framework,\u201d \u201cSix-Party Talks,\u201d and \u201cStrategic Patience\u201d failures of the last 30 years.<\/p>\n
The general doctrine of the National Security Council\u2019s strategic blueprint \u2014 principled realism \u2014 is more or less a euphemism for the restoration of deterrence. Perhaps it is now less likely that Iran will send missiles in the direction of U.S. warships or take American sailors hostage or that U.S. diplomats in hostile countries will be subject to hearing loss. Much of that turnabout has been due, in various ways, public and private, to Trump\u2019s national-security team of Mattis-Haley-Pompeo \u2014 and McMaster \u2014 who all have tried to define Trump\u2019s Jacksonianism as an approach that is neither Obama recessional nor Bush-era preemptory nation-building. The appointment of Mike Pompeo at State solidifies that team.<\/p>\n
On the principle that failure is punished and success rewarded, it makes no sense to lose someone integral to such progress, much less to chronically leak a wrongheaded move that would disrupt a successful team on the eve of dealing with both the North Korean threat and the various surreal side agreements and absurd protocols of the flawed Iran nuclear deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review About every two months, there are rumors that Gen. H. R. McMaster might be let go as Trump\u2019s national-security adviser (along with many other stellar appointees). The world, however, is a much more logical and predictable place than it was 14 months ago. We\u2019ve restored ties to the Gulf […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2St","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10455,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/mcmaster-and-mattis-are-rare-assets-not-deep-state-liabilities\/","url_meta":{"origin":11065,"position":0},"title":"McMaster and Mattis Are Rare Assets\u2014Not Deep State Liabilities","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 7, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson American Greatness There is a larger context concerning the recent controversies among the architects of Trump\u2019s national security team and agenda, and the criticism of National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster. Recall first that the foreign policy of Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Susan Rice, and Hillary Clinton\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "McMaster"","block_context":{"text":"McMaster","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/mcmaster\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10310,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/trump-and-his-generals\/","url_meta":{"origin":11065,"position":1},"title":"Trump and His Generals","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 22, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson National Review Trump\u2019s reliance on his generals shows that he values merit over politics. Donald Trump earned respect from the Washington establishment for appointing three of the nation\u2019s most accomplished generals to direct his national-security policy: James Mattis (secretary of defense), H. R. McMaster (national-security adviser),\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "McMaster"","block_context":{"text":"McMaster","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/mcmaster\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9892,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/trumps-team-of-sort-of-rivals\/","url_meta":{"origin":11065,"position":2},"title":"Trump\u2019s Team of Sort of Rivals","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The Corner The one and only. By Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review The selection of the multitalented and independent thinker Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster as national-security adviser is inspired and reifies Trump\u2019s past statements that he likes outspoken and independent advisers. McMaster is best known for his counterinsurgency work\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "McMaster"","block_context":{"text":"McMaster","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/mcmaster\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11034,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/trumps-generals-are-too-valuable-to-be-dismissed\/","url_meta":{"origin":11065,"position":3},"title":"Trump’s Generals Are Too Valuable to Be Dismissed","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 1, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Town Hall Near-daily gossip surrounds Donald Trump's three marquee generals. The media sometimes blare out rumors that Gen. John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, is proving to be a loose cannon and might soon be fired. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Donald Trump"","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10674,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/in-defense-of-the-generals\/","url_meta":{"origin":11065,"position":4},"title":"In Defense of \u2018the Generals\u2019","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 18, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The Corner The one and only. by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review \u00a0 Recently there have been a number of quite different critiques from all political sides of Trump\u2019s generals (Kelly\/McMaster\/Mattis), and also from a variety of angles (too narrow experience, an unhealthy overdose of military thinking, a \u201csellout\u201d for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Diplomacy"","block_context":{"text":"Diplomacy","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/geopolitics\/diplomacy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9906,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-metaphysics-of-trump\/","url_meta":{"origin":11065,"position":5},"title":"The Metaphysics of Trump","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 1, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review Paradox: How does a supposedly bad man appoint good people eager to advance a conservative agenda that supposedly more moral Republicans failed to realize? We variously read that Trump should be impeached, removed, neutralized \u2014 or worse. But until he is, are his appointments,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "McMaster"","block_context":{"text":"McMaster","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/mcmaster\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11065"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11066,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11065\/revisions\/11066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}