4/25/2023 0 Comments Trump the monster within![]() McMaster prefers a less presumptuous and more realistic approach he calls both "strategic empathy" and "strategic competence" - the knowledge of other countries and the determination to "compete effectively" on all fronts of engagement. and to assume that the future course of events depends primarily on U.S. do what one might prefer to do rather than what the situation demanded."Īttributing the "strategic narcissism" term to German American political scientist Hans Morgenthau, McMaster defines it as a "tendency to view the world only in relation to the U.S. Writes McMaster: "It was easy to lapse into strategic narcissism and. tended to disregard or downplay a world of other threats. Secure in the notion of American superiority in ideas, military prowess and goodwill, the U.S. Bush in Iraq to the "retrenchment" of Barack Obama to Trump's confidence in his own ability to cut deals face to face.īeginning with the Allied victory in World War II, this notion really took hold with the Western triumph in the Cold War. He attributes these to what he calls "optimism bias," which takes different forms in different administrations and leads to different errors - from the "aggressive" behavior of George W. He sees recent foreign policy largely as a series of failures. The name Trump does not leap from every page (roughly 1 in 4, in fact), and then often as an adjective: "the Trump administration."īut he does have strong feelings about issues most people would consider profoundly political, such as the role the U.S. McMaster does not quote more than snatches of his conversations with the president. We hear little of his former colleagues and associates, such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was replaced in the same month. In something like the same spirit, McMaster writes of his White House time with surprising detachment. Politics John Bolton's Book 'The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,' Reviewed Bush's handling of Iraq, because the Bush administration thought defeating that country would be "easy." But he is also critical of President George W. behavior, a failure to "compete effectively on the world stage" that has prevailed "over the last several presidential administrations."įor example, McMaster expresses dismay at President Barack Obama's willingness to deal with Iran largely through negotiation, hope and faith in our alliances. The author's mission here is neither to praise nor trash Trump but to show how he fits into a perceived pattern in U.S. But I would also realize that the toxic environment in Washington, in the administration and the White House had hobbled my ability to make a positive contribution to the president and our nation." ![]() McMaster in Battlegrounds maintains the same rather arch attitude in discussing his departure from the innermost councils of power: "I would regret leaving unfinished our work on crucial challenges to our freedom and security. He clearly regards it as his duty to respect the commander in chief under whom he served, whatever his personal feelings toward the man who appointed him and then pushed him to resign with a campaign of media leaks about their falling out. But McMaster is a retired three-star Army general who had 34 years of active service - including the 13 months he was in the White House.
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