Generally Speaking: McMaster on Trump Foreign Policy and Technology Warfare 

H.R. McMaster: It took them just a few seconds to get up abreast of my tank, about ten seconds, actually. In that ten second span, we were able to get off two additional rounds to the first round that we fired.

Bill Whalen: Hi, I'm Bill Whalen, I'm a Hoover institution distinguished policy fellow.

And I'd like to welcome you back to GoodFellows, a Hoover institution broadcast devoted to social, economic, political, and geopolitical concerns. Now, you're saying, wait a second, Bill, that's a different introduction, what you normally do, and that's right. Because this is not a usual GoodFellows show, what you've become accustomed to these past four plus years and 140 plus episodes.

Today, what we're doing is what we call a mini GoodFellows, just one of our panelists instead of our usual troika of Hoover senior fellows. And today that honor goes to Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, former presidential national security advisor, geo strategist and historian. The host of Hoover's Battleground series of interviews with world leaders, and last, but certainly not least, the Hoover Institution's Faud-e-Michel Adjami Senior Fellow.

H.R. is also the author of the forthcoming book At War With Ourselves, My Tour of Duty in the White House. You can't read it until late August, but you can pre-order it right now on Amazon, please do so after you watch this show. HR, thanks for being with us today, and as this is the many Mini-GoodFellows, feel free to channel your fellow Bald Brothers, Mini-Me, or Dr. Weaver.

All right, hey, it's great to be with you, Bill. I tell you, I miss John and Neil, though, I'm kind of sad without them. Well, you got a word in it twice now, that's the good news here. This is your time to shine, my friend. First, an apology HR, it's been a long day for me, I flew across the country earlier today, which meant a dawn flight from the east coast.

I'm not a morning person, I'm sitting in the airport in Charleston, South Carolina, looking at stars where there should be a sun. I'm thinking, how could people live like this? And then it dawned upon me, H.R. McMaster lived like this. H.R. McMaster lived like this for the better part of three decades, wearing the uniform of his country.

My question to you, H.R. you've been now out of the service for what, about six years, I believe. I think you retired in 2018, but you had a routine in the service, getting up early, getting things done, that famous army commercial. We do more before 09:00 AM than most people do.

You've given up the life H.R. but if you give it up, the lifestyle, you're still one of those annoying people who gets up at dawn and does a day's work before the first.

H.R. McMaster: I do get up early, Bill. I do enjoy getting up early and getting things going for the day, when I do my reading to catch up on what's going on in the world, do some correspondence.

But when I'm writing, I'm much more productive in the morning. And so, I also try to exercise a little bit in the morning. I have a peloton, which I try to hit just for even a few minutes in the morning, if I'm going to do like a workout later in the day and just gets things going, and coffee, and the normal, the usual.

Bill Whalen: When do you get on the board?

H.R. McMaster: Well, I'll tell you, usually early in the morning, if I'm down in Southern California, I paddleboard early, cuz the winds don't pick up till in the afternoon. It's nice to go out there when there's nobody out there, and it's just like, the bay is just like glass.

And it's a great time to think about, if you're writing, to think about what you're writing. So, what I would try to do is, read a little bit about what I'm working on and then go out on a paddleboard and just sort it out, almost your subconscious as you're out there.

Bill Whalen: Well done. So, H.R. we're not gonna get into the book today because that's gonna be the topic of a later GoodFellows show. And I certainly would not deprive John Cochran and Neil Ferguson of the pleasure of putting questions to you. But let's talk a little bit about foreign policy today, and here's what's on my mind H.R., I watched the republican national convention.

I didn't hear a lot of talk about foreign policy H.R., I think it's a very open question about what the Trump Vance foreign policy resemble. But also, H.R., I'm a native Washingtonian, and I'm very familiar with politics and government, I think I have a good feel for the city.

And I think as your book is going to explain, the town is what, it's very opportunistic, it's very predatory. People want power, they want access to power, they wanna be close to power. And if a new administration comes in, the line forms are the rear people coming in.

But my question H.R. is, we look at foreign policy under possibly second Trump presidency, who's gonna be running the show, cuz, let's put this in a context now. In previous Republican times, you had a Nixon Ford foreign policy, you had a Reagan foreign policy. You had bookended Bush foreign policy, Dick Cheney being the secretary of defense in your first desert war campaign, and then, the vice president, the second one.

You had John McCain and Mitt Romney with their foreign policy shops, and then the Trump White House, which you're a part of. Just walk us through what you think Trump II foreign policy might look like, beginning with just who's gonna work for him.

H.R. McMaster: Well, Bill, I think a lot of the news associated with the assassination attempt before the convention, that terrible attack on the president's life.

And then, the convention itself, and just the way it was put together, and the way they brought in voices from all across America. And then, of course, President Biden's decision not to run has overshadowed a bit the vice presidential pick of JD Vance. And I think that's quite consequential, maybe particularly in the area of foreign policy.

And I would include trade policy and certain economic policies in that as well. And I think what he does, what JD Vance does, Senator Vance does, is he channels the frustrations of many Americans. Many Americans who were left behind by the transition in the global economy, especially after China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Who were left behind during the financial crisis, right, and the aftermath, and the high unemployment that followed, and the collapse in home crisis. Who were in communities that were victimized by the opioid epidemic, for example. And these are people who were also frustrated by the unanticipated length, and difficulty, and costs of the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

And so, he channels them, and I think it's really important to understand, for those who are arguing for US disengagement or retrenchment, these are, I think, their frustrations, this is where they're coming from. Its important to be empathetic to that, to try to understand. And so, I hope that what JD Vance will do is recognize, as I think we all should, but maybe talk to the American people this way.

About how problems that develop abroad challenges our security that develop abroad, can only be dealt with at an exorbitant cost once they reach our shores, if we care about burden sharing. And we don't want allies and partners free riding on American largesse while they underinvest in defense. And in some cases, pursue mercantilist policies or unfair trade and economic practices that put American workers at a disadvantage.

Well, heck, then make those alliances stronger, right, demand greater reciprocity, but also recognize that it is those alliances that helps us share the burden to make sure we don't have to do it all ourselves. And of course, I think the point to make to Americans is that, really, strength is what prevents wars.

And this goes back to obviously, the ancient Greek quotations but really George Washington, who said the most effectual way of preserving peace is to be ready for war. And of course, it's much cheaper to prevent a war than to have to fight it. So I think, maybe even though he's been cast as an isolationist, I think that's too harsh of a term.

I think a vice president Vance might be the perfect person to explain to the American people what is at stake for them abroad, why these challenges and opportunities abroad really relate to their security and prosperity at home. I mean, we're in a very dangerous time, Bill, we can talk more about that.

But I hope, anyway, that JD Vance, who's been, I think, very good at channeling and tapping into and understanding the frustrations of many Americans who were left behind in the 2000s and the 2010s, What is at stake in foreign policy?

Bill Whalen: Sure, do you think that nationalism and a healthy, aggressive foreign policy can coexist?

Or does the one necessarily mean that you have to have a retreat as foreign policy?

H.R. McMaster: Yeah, I think they can coexist, right/? I think you should be skeptical about sustained American engagements abroad, but also recognize, again, the lesson of 911. It's a real lesson. If the terrorists are given a safe haven and support base and the freedom to plan, prepare, fund, train for mass murder attacks, that they will do it and they will become a much greater threat.

This was the case of Al Qaeda that after President Bill Clinton fired a few cruise missiles at them and called it a day, were able to organize the mass murder attacks of 911. This is really what happened with ISIS. Remember, President Obama said he wanted to just get out of Iraq.

Vice President Biden at the time, in December 2010, calls up President Obama to thank him for allowing him to, quote, end this goddamn war. Well, wars don't end when one side disengages. And just a few years later, you had ISIS in control of territory the size of Great Britain.

Of course, they had a devastating, horrible effect on so many Iraqis and Syrians and Yazidis. But they conducted over 95, almost 100 attacks externally. They shot down an airliner, they attacked in Brussels, in Marseille, in Paris. They inspired an attack in California and San Bernardino. So I think it's easy to make the case, but you need somebody, president or vice president, to communicate to the American people, hey, what is at stake.

And what is a strategy that will secure a favorable outcome, American security and prosperity at a sustainable and acceptable cost and risk. And I think that American political leaders have been lacking in their ability to communicate those two things to the American people. What is at stake and what is the strategy, right?

Bill Whalen: HR, if we assume that Trump is the favorite now to win the election, a narrow favorite, I would not bet any money on it. A lot of things can change between now and November. But if we assume that now it's Trump's race to win, put yourself in the minds of Putin and Zelensky.

Tell me what they're thinking right now. And then after that, let's go to the other hot theater of the Middle East and put your mindset into Israel and Iran. So let's start with Putin and Zelensky.

H.R. McMaster: So I think President Putin thinks that he can strike a deal with President Trump that is favorable to him, that helps him maybe escape some of the profound negative consequences.

And the devastating effects get beyond the devastating effects of his horrible decision to conduct a massive reinvasion of Ukraine in February of 2022. I don't think he would get it from President Trump, but he thinks that maybe he can appeal to this Trump instinct for a big deal with the project 2025 people.

And the American First Policy Institute have put out some of these ideas of threatening to withhold aid from Ukraine or threatening Putin with intensified aid. And that kind of cuts against the nature of war itself. And each side tries to outdo the other. And it's not clear, I mean, actually it's quite clear that Putin is not gonna quit.

So there is no deal, really until Ukrainians are able to impose costs on the Russians beyond those that are willing to continue to suffer and that the reality changes on the battlefield. That's when you can get, I think, an enduring political resolution to the conflict and not before.

So I think President Trump may, a future President Trump may have to learn that the hard way, but I think he'll learn that nonetheless and hopefully have people who are advising him about what Putin really wants to achieve. And Putin's been quite clear about that himself. And in the essay that he penned in July of August of 2001, for example, or in that long format interview he did with the gullible Tucker Carlson.

So I think it's all out there, the president hopefully will be well advised in that area. And then for Zelensky, he's worried. And I think what we've seen are a couple of statements recently about thanking President Biden. Thanking now what seems, who will be the democratic nominee, Kamala Harris.

And I think what he should do is he should be thanking Donald Trump, right? Because Donald Trump would respond to that gratitude. But it's important to recognize that when President Trump considered all the facts, when he looked at the pattern of Russian aggression, he realized that sending Ukraine first aid kits was not going to deter Putin.

So he authorized the first provision of defensive capabilities, javelin missiles, most prominent among those capabilities in 2017. So I think President Zelensky should try to appeal to the President Trump who made that decision, who recognized that, hey, Putin doesn't need his security concerns allayed, right? Putin actually finds the perception of weakness provocative and attempts to allay his security concerns the way that President Biden did, right?

By meeting with him in Geneva, laying out his so called red lines, which for Putin meant everything else was a green light, pulling out our vessels from the Black Sea. Suspending lethal aid to the Ukrainians, listing everything we wouldn't do in the case of a Russian invasion. And then withdrawing our advisors and withdrawing our and scuttling our embassy and offering Zelensky a ride out of the country.

I mean, really? So I think somebody who has President Trump's ear should say, hey, look, this is how Biden handled it. I don't think you wanna continue his policies. I think what you wanna do is to demonstrate to Putin that we have the resolve and the determination to support the Ukrainians in their righteous effort.

Endeavor to defend themselves against an aggressor who has committed the most horrible crimes against humanity there. The mass murder of civilians, the mass kidnapping of children, the attacks, brutal attacks on their infrastructure, including, recently, the children's hospital in Kiev. So President Trump is somebody who's not unmoved by those sorts of crimes.

And I think it's important to get that information in front of him so he can make an informed decision.

Bill Whalen: Now, HR, walk us through how Israel and Iran might be looking through the prospect of Trump returning to power.

H.R. McMaster: Okay, so Israel will be extremely happy about, I think, President Trump coming into office.

And because President Trump has been a very strong supporter of Israel's right to defend itself. And has recognized that Iran is behind so much of the horror in the Middle East, the suffering in the Middle East, we have to remember that half the Syrian population, Bill is dead, wounded or displaced.

Who did that? Iran did, by supporting Assad and pouring fuel on that and other sectarian conflicts in the region, including those in Iraq and in Yemen, and the support of the Houthis. So I think President Trump demonstrated at one point in his presidency, anyway, that he understood that Iran was the source of so much of this suffering.

And would join Israel and I believe would join Israel's Arab neighbors in confronting Iran and its proxy forces rather than trying to placate Tehran. Which it seems like the Biden administration is still determined to try to do. I mean, how often does that have to fail before they realize?

I mean, it is the definition of insanity attributed to Albert Einstein doing the same thing and expecting a different result. And so this is a war in the Middle East that's going to go on for quite some time, but I think it will go on longer if we don't act like we know what the return address is.

I believe the President Trump knows what the return address is. And so I think Israel and Iran, Israel will welcome it. Iran would view a Trump administration with trepidation, which is why apparently they ordered his assassination, which that's a mistake, right? I mean, Iran is actually I believe Bill profoundly weak.

And they only appear strong because we allow them to do so with our talk of escalation management. Every time we say, hey, we don't wanna escalate, we're just sending it a signal of our resolve. It gives Iran really the ability to escalate with impunity on their own terms.

And you see that if this report is correct, if they put out an assassination order on President Trump, I mean they will reap the whirlwind. I think, of that if that's true.

Bill Whalen: Let's do a couple minutes on China, H.R., I wanna turn your attention to a quote from Trump in a recent interview with Bloomberg where he said the following, and I quote, Taiwan is 9,500 miles away at 68 miles away from China.

And he added, Taiwan took our chip business from us, I mean, how stupid are we? They took all our chip business, they're immensely wealthy. I don't think that we're any different from an insurance policy. Why are we doing this? Now H.R., you spent a year in the guys proximity.

I know there's a lot of bluff and bravado here, but you know what, H.R., this ain't the Truman doctrine.

H.R. McMaster: No, and words have consequences and so I could comment more about this. There's a lot in the book on this topic, and I think that will help people understand really how President Trump thinks about this.

But really what he's doing at a high level of generality is lamenting the loss of US manufacturing capacity. A loss that occurred for a number of reasons, but most significant among them, most favored nations status for China in the nineties and entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001.

And we remember Ross Perot was a presidential candidate and he was criticizing the NAFTA agreement, the North American Free Trade Agreement, especially vis Mexico, when he said there's going to be a great sucking sound. Remember in that high pitched voice of his? Well, you know what, he was right but the sucking sound wasn't to Mexico, the sucking sound was to China.

We have some real vulnerabilities, not only from an economic perspective, but from a defense perspective. Associated with the artificial condition of really so much of the world's advanced manufacturing being concentrated on the southeastern coast of China. So I think in a new Trump administration, you'll see a whole range of tools of economic statecraft being employed to correct that artificiality and to make our most critical supply chains more resilient.

And again, to prevent, as the Trump administration sought to do, and the Biden administration continued, a lot of these policies to prevent China from weaponizing its status mercantilist economic model against us. To gain not only unfair economic advantage, but also unfair differential advantage from a military perspective.

Bill Whalen: Our final question about the swamp, which I don't think you missed, and I know your lovely wife, Katie McMaster, certainly is not missed.

I hope she's in the book, though, because that woman is a force of nature. God bless Katie McMaster. But here's the question, H.R., if Trump were to do something dramatic in the first hundred days when it comes to foreign policy, fill in the blank for us, what would it be?

What would you like to see?

H.R. McMaster: Well, there could be a range of actions that he would take that I think could be potentially negative if it, for example, cuts against his own goal, his own objective of burden sharing. I think some of the president's inclinations toward saying, hey, if you don't pay your dues, we won't defend you.

That weakens an alliance and shifts the conversation away from I think the conversation he wants, which is, hey, no freeloading and invest in your own defense to strengthen the alliance. I think that there are some other actions he could take though, that could be profoundly positive. I think unleashing the potential of US energy is one of those Bill.

Energy demand globally is gonna go through the roof. And these nonsensical policies of thinking you can leap immediately to only green, zero emission sources of energy, that's a leap off a cliff. And we saw Germany take that leap off the cliff with disastrous results. We should learn from that.

This is after they canceled nuclear and solidified their dependence on Russian natural gas. So I think what we need to do is really unleash America's energy potential. Do so in a way that bridges away from the highest carbon emitting source, which is coal, internationally, by driving the price of natural gas down.

And then accelerating the path toward Squared the next generation nuclear fission capability and become a solution to the world's problem of increasing energy demand. Of course that demand is coming from bitcoin but it's coming actually from AI. It's gonna put energy demand through the roof, and our infrastructure is not ready for that.

So investments in US infrastructure a realistic approach to energy. Hey, Bill, what if we drove the international price of gas down of natural gas down, maybe taxed it a little bit here paid down our debt? American consumers would see none of the difference. I mean, there are some big things that President Trump could do to shift the balance in our favor.

And then the last thing I would say is, besides applying various tools in economic statecraft to address the problem we discussed earlier with China's control of some of those critical supply chains. Is a massive investment in defense. I think that at this point, we have seen the growing threats.

We know that we have not yet addressed a bow wave of deferred defense modernization. We have capacity issues in our armed forces. And we've got to turn this around quickly because the cost of not doing so could be a sufficiently emboldened people's Liberation army and Chinese communist party that could precipitate a cataclysmic war.

I mean, I really see these conflicts from Ukraine to Israel and the greater Middle east and Iranian aggression. And the looming crises in the Indo Pacific, where China's become very aggressive against a us treaty ally in the Philippines, as well as the intimidation toward Taiwan. These are all connected.

And so I hope that President Trump also would recognize the connections between these crises, the cascading crises and the looming crises. And see the connection in particular between our support for Ukraine and our ability to deter a conflict in the Indo Pacific region with China.

Bill Whalen: Okay, final swamp question I promise no more Katie, I'll get him off this.

Let's put you back in the National Security Council for a moment. You didn't flinch, very good, you're getting over it. But it's January 20th, 2025, and the 47th president, he or she says, General McMaster, what's the first country I should visit?

H.R. McMaster: Well, there are a lot of options, right?

If he wanted to allay concerns about the transatlantic relationship, he could make a trip to Europe. He could begin with the United Kingdom that has a new labor government, and make it clear that the special relationship endures regardless of what party is in power on either side of the Atlantic.

And then he could go to the Baltic states and send, I think, or the Nordic states, or the new members of NATO, of Sweden and Finland, who have been quite stalwart. In investing in their own defense, but also in confronting Russian aggression. And more recently, in recognizing the threat from various Chinese unfair and aggressive economic practices.

As well as efforts to intimidate, even in the Baltic region, with joint naval exercises and so forth. So I think that that could be a pretty powerful trip, a North Sea basin, trip. And then he also could make some important comments about the west and the contrast between freedom and democracy and Russia's authoritarian system and China's authoritarian system.

And do so on a frontier that was a frontier of freedom all through the cold war. And the United States never abandoned the Baltic states after the Soviet Union subsumed them. So he would get a hero's welcome in those places, and I think rightfully so and that could allay a lot of concerns.

The other obvious choice is Indo Pacific, I think Japan. I mean, his relationship with Prime Minister Abe was fantastic, really took our bilateral relationship with Japan to the next level. And there's a different government in South Korea now than the Moon government that he dealt with. President Yoon is quite strong, I think would be generally aligned with President Trump if he gets over what he sees as unfair Korean trade and economic practices.

And that could lay out a lot of concerns as well, right? There are concerns that Kim Jong Un thinks he's going to get a deal with Donald Trump, and it's a deal that could leave the South Koreans out in the cold, I mean, those are two that he could make.

Then the last one, I would say, is he could go to Israel, which would be extremely powerful given the current circumstances. And then immediately go to some of our Arab partners in the region to really get beyond what I think were some of the unwise policies of the Biden administration and the Gulf state.

Deep skepticism about American reliability as a result. And what I'm talking about here is the determination of the Biden administration to supplicate, I don't know how else to say it, to the Iranians. And to think that they could somehow convince the Iranians to reduce their support for these proxy forces that have the entire Middle east on fire.

Bill Whalen: Let's shift topics, H.R., and let's talk a little bit about war, specifically the modern look of warfare. I saw a report recently in Military Times which quoted retired Army General Mark Milley, he's the 20th chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And General Milley said the following, quote.

General Milley: 10,15 years from now, my guess is a third, maybe 25% to a third of the US military will be robotic and this is land, sea, and air capabilities. And they'll be largely commanded and controlled and driven by AI enabled systems.

Bill Whalen: Now, H.R., maybe the future is already underway in Ukraine, where what, that country now has a fourth branch of the military.

They call it the unmanned systems forces. We've seen the Ukrainians use robotic technology in terms of deploying drones, in terms of doing logistical tasks like minesweeping and mine laying and so forth. But here's the question, HR, what is ultimately the balance between robotics and technology versus manpower? You're a tanker, and artificial intelligence, can robots do a better job of driving a tank than HR McMaster?

H.R. McMaster: Yeah, well, I think what you need, Bill, is like all of the above, and what I've seen as I studied military history is that new forms of warfare don`t replace the old ones. They`re often grafted on top of them, and new capabilities sometimes evolve the character of war.

But don`t really change the nature of war. And its continuities in the nature of war that act as a break on how much of differential advantage can be accrued by a certain technological innovation. For example, the use of drones or unmanned systems. So I think what you'll need is a combination of both.

I mean, drones right now seem to be increasingly important to the outcomes of battles and the outcomes of campaigns. But the drone losses in Ukraine are massive because air defenses defenses against drones are getting much more sophisticated. And these include typical air defense capabilities, like short range air defense weapon systems, but also electromagnetic warfare, GPS jamming, for example.

And what we will soon see on the battlefield are a whole range of directed energy or laser weapon systems, which can take down a lot of these drones quite easily because the drones are thin skinned. You don't have to track them with directed energy for a short period of time.

And then what you'll see are drones developing countermeasures to those countermeasures. I think what you'll see are drones that have computing power at the edge for target identification and classification. They'll have self healing networks that can help them get around GPS jamming. They'll have inertial or image based navigation and targeting capabilities that will allow them to operate in a GPS denied environment.

So, Bill, it's kind of a combination of all these new capabilities that you're gonna see on the next battlefield. And it'll be important for us to maintain our differential advantage in these areas and to try to drive the cost of the countermeasures to these capabilities down. Because what we've seen in the initial phase in Ukraine is that the countermeasures to some of these cheaper capabilities, like the shahed drone, for example, that Iran is providing the Russians.

Our answers to those are exquisite and expensive. So we need less exquisite, less expensive answers to some of these challenges. And those technologies are available, Bill. We just need to acquire them and get them to the field in units that are trained to employ them. So I would say in the future it's going to be a combination, I think the Gaza fight has not been studied enough lately.

What you've seen are some very sophisticated autonomous systems employed in dense urban areas. You've also seen the limitations of those systems. And the need for infantry and the need for mobile, protected firepower, tanks that are accrued by people who can make the kinds of judgments you need to make really only in close contact with the enemy.

When you place something of value to the enemy at risk, well, like their life or like their headquarters tunnel network if you're Hamas. That's when you force the enemy to reveal hostile intent. That's when you force the enemy to concentrate to defend and then you can make them vulnerable as well to some of your strike capabilities, including drones.

So you guys, I've said this before, battle warfare is rock, paper, scissors, and you need all three of them. If you show up with a rock and your enemy has paper, you better have some scissors or you're not gonna win. So you have to have a range of these capabilities.

Bill Whalen: Right, so let's go back to battle of 73 easting, could artificial intelligence. Could a robot, a very well designed, very intelligent robot, smarter than me, certainly, could that robot do what you did?

H.R. McMaster: Yeah, I think probably not. Because if we had had a better picture of the size of the enemy force that we were facing, I don't think my higher headquarters would ever allowed us to attack, to get close enough to attack.

So I think that obviously, there will always be the element of chance and uncertainty. And this is really a fundamental assumption, Bill, is that do we think. Do we think that these newer technological capabilities will shift war in some way from the realm of uncertainty toward the realm of certainty?

Or do we believe that these new technological capabilities will actually make war more uncertain. Because of the ubiquity of these kinds of systems on both sides of the battlefield or among multiple parties to a conflict, because of the countermeasures that are available to them? Because if they're reliant on artificial intelligence technologies, big data analytical tools, for example, certain algorithms that can help you with target classification and identification.

But there's gonna be bad information, Bill, I mean, a lot of the information in war is bad, contradictory, sometimes deliberately so, based on the enemy's effort to deceive you. So there are traditional countermeasures, Bill, right, there's dispersion, concealment, intermingling with civilian populations. And so I believe that war will remain fundamentally in the realm of uncertainty.

There are many others these days who are arguing that artificial intelligence will like the advent of precision capabilities. And big data analytics and satellite imagery in the 1990s, convinced a lot of people that a revolution in military affairs had occurred, an RMA. And the conventional wisdom was that we would have, what was called at the time, dominant battle space knowledge, that never materialized.

I never thought it was gonna be material, if anybody's super interested in this or super bored. My paper that I wrote, my monograph when I was a national security affairs fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2002 to 2003,. Was entitled Crack In The Foundation, defense transformation and the underlying assumption of dominant knowledge in future war.

And I believe that the argument in that monograph as to why war will remain in the realm of uncertainty still holds true today. Even though our technology is much more exquisite in terms of imagery and signal intelligence and RF radio frequency analysis capabilities. And then the ability with large language models to query all of these databases and to fuse intelligence.

Including, for example, interrogation reports, which are fantastically hard to read, all of those, and conduct enemy diagrams and so forth. So, I mean, all of this technology has tremendous value in terms of improving military capabilities, but I don't think it changes the nature of war, Bill. And this is where I think we have to have a debate, because I think a lot of these assumptions about future war are implicit and therefore go unchallenged.

Bill Whalen: Okay, let's go from nature to nurture. HR, this past May, you reached a milestone, 40th anniversary of your West Point graduation, being commissioned in the army, what was the motto of the class of 1984?

H.R. McMaster: Best of the core, 84, which, of course, endeared us to all the other classes, especially those inferior classes that came behind us, like Mike Pompeos.

He was 86.

Bill Whalen: And who spoke at your graduation?

H.R. McMaster: So, for us, it was, it was vice president, but Vice President Bush at our graduation, and he gave a fantastic speech. And I remember it, that's one of the few speeches I remember. It was a call to service, he was, of course, we were still very much in the Cold War, and he talked to us about our role in defending freedom, and it resonated with me.

And I was all in since I was like three years old, though, Bill, I was an easy sell for it and was always looking forward to the privilege of serving as a commissioned officer in the army. What's great about our 40th reunion is coming up, and those are still some of my best friends, my fellow cadets at West Point, members of my class, members of my rugby team in particular.

But, really, the rugby, lacrosse and hockey teams, for whatever reason, all were very close to each other and are some of my best friends to this day.

Bill Whalen: HR, take us to the mind of a second lieutenant, because I'm guessing that you were standing out in the stadium in 1984, listening to that address, seated for that address.

To the extent you were thinking about glory on the battlefield, it probably would have been western Europe and not southeastern Iraq. So, but this shows that in, warfare, the unexpected happens. I ask this because now we have the army class of 2024, which calls itself the class quote like none before.

But my question to you, HR, could that class be seeing combat the next seven years?

H.R. McMaster: Absolutely, I think the chances are very high. I just had the privilege of doing a moderated discussion with the dean at West Point, Shane Reeves, who's a fantastic officer, Brigadier General Shane Reeves.

He was a lieutenant in our cavalry squadron when I was a squadron, an executive officer at Lovely Fort Erwin, California, which is 40 miles north of Barstow in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It's a wonderful place, actually, to be stationed. We were the army's enemy, and we got to fight every army unit that rotated through there.

It was a fantastic job, and Shane Reeves was a fantastic lieutenant. But in this moderated discussion, I just told the class that I think that the chances of them going to war during their service are extremely high, and just urge them, obviously, to, as they all do, take the profession seriously.

Make sure you're an expert, an expert at fighting, make sure that you're part of the army is the best it can be. That's kind of the very simple mission as a junior officer in our army, a unit that has confidence. And I talked to them about the importance of confidence in combat based on the confidence in all soldiers ability to fight under all conditions of combat, especially at night.

Difficult weather conditions, operate all of their weapon systems with a high degree of accuracy and speed. But really, it's confidence in one another, the man and woman next to them, knowing that they're willing to give everything for each other, even their own lives, right? And knowing that they're bound together by a sense of honor in which they're more afraid of letting down their fellow soldier than they are of any enemy bullet, for example.

Bill Whalen: Was your class, HR, prepared for war, and how confident are you in the class of 2024 prepared?

H.R. McMaster: Yeah, so I had a great time talking with them. But the one thing I did tell them is that they may be in a position that we have not been in in a very long time in our army, which is a position in which they have to fight outnumbered and win.

And I think unless we invest more in defense in terms of capacity, as well as addressing the bow wave of deferred modernization I mentioned earlier, we could be in trouble. And I just hope that any young people listen to this, I hope they realize the tremendous rewards of service, I talked to them about that as well, the cadets.

I think popular culture cheapens and coarsens our warrior ethos, and it does little to explain to people why soldiers serve, why marines serve, why guardians and sailors and airmen serve. And it's because a sense of something bigger than themselves and really good military units become like a family.

In which you're willing to do anything for the man or woman next to you, and that can be tremendously rewarding also for our young people. I mean, whether you're a young sergeant in a unit or certainly a lieutenant who's just been commissioned, you take on more responsibility at a younger age than any other walk of life in our society.

Bill Whalen: Final question for you HR, the book comes out August 27, briefly, take us through what September is gonna look like. As a guy who has just spent four days trying to get across the country through canceled airlines, I hope to God you're not on airplanes every day.

H.R. McMaster: I think I'm an airline quite a bit but also for some fun stuff in there, Bill, I mentioned my reunion is gonna be the weekend the army plays Air Force. I'm hoping there'll be a rugby match there at West Point as well, and we'll see some friends on the East Coast.

We'll be celebrating my sister's 60th birthday, is it okay to mention her age? I don't know, I hope it is, but that's quite a milestone, so we'll be able to do that in Philadelphia with family and friends. And you write a book and you hope people pay attention to it, so, I'm not looking at it with any kind of trepidation.

I mean, I'm really grateful for the opportunity to talk to people about it. It's gonna be a book that's quite different, I think from what a lot of people might expect or want, I think it's just really my take on that. I think what is a pivotal year in recent American history and a year that in some ways can at least provide a glimpse into what might be to come in the second Trump administration.

It's a fast pace, but I'm so grateful for the ability to be at Hoover, to be with our amazing colleagues, you and those who are absent today and, I'm really grateful for it.

Bill Whalen: All right, the book's title again is At War With Ourselves, My Tour of Duty in the White House, it comes out on August 27, but that does not stop you, should not stop you from pre ordering it now on Amazon.

HR, I hope you enjoyed the mini, and we'll be doing the same with John Crawkin and Neil Ferguson in the near future, so thanks for joining us today. My friend take care and get some rest up before a very busy tour, it sounds like.

H.R. McMaster: Hey, thanks so much, Bill, so great to be with you.

Bill Whalen: Thanks, so, on behalf of my colleague HR McMaster, all of us here at the Hoover Institution, we hope you enjoyed this mini version of GoodFellows. If you enjoy our show, don't shy away from subscribing and do a little fun with the algorithm, if you could, we're not shy about self promotion, if you will, and send us your questions.

We always wanna hear what's on your mind, and you guys always ask thoughtful questions, so send them in and we'll try to put more questions to future shows. You do that by going to our website, which is hoover.org slash GoodFellows. Once again, on behalf of HR McMaster, all of us here at Hoover, we hope you enjoyed the show and we'll see you soon, till then, take care, thanks for watching.

Presenter: If you enjoyed this show and are interested in watching more content featuring HR McMaster, watch Battlegrounds also available@hoover.org.