David Jackson, Tom Vanden Brook, and Jim Michaels

USA TODAY

President Trump said Monday that Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster — a noted writer and intellectual who headed up a unit dedicated to anticipating future military challenges — will be his new national security adviser, replacing the dismissed Michael Flynn.

"You're going to do a great job," Trump told McMaster as he made the announcement at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. After a weekend of job interviews, Trump called McMaster "highly respected by everyone in the military, and we’re very honored to have him."

McMaster is stepping into a job occupied for less than a month by Flynn, who was one of Trump's closest campaign advisers last year and a lightning rod for criticism because of his provocative comments about Islam and his 2014 firing as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Trump's first choice to replace Flynn, retired vice admiral Robert Harward, declined to take the job, publicly citing family and business concerns and privately telling associates he was concerned about his ability to pick his staff.

In McMaster, Trump is getting someone he described as "a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience." He is the director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, an internal think tank that looks at future threats and how to deal with them. He is also Deputy Commanding General, Futures, at the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command.

Thanking Trump for the appointment that does not require Senate confirmation, McMaster told reporters that "I would just like to say what a privilege it is to be able to continue serving our nation. I'm grateful to you for that opportunity, and I look forward to joining the national security team and doing everything that I can to advance and protect the interests of the American people."

Trump also announced that retired Army three-star general Keith Kellogg — who had been the acting national security in the week since Flynn was fired — would be McMaster's chief of staff.

Kellogg thanked Trump and said it would be an honor and privilege to serve with McMaster.

McMaster holds a doctoral degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he is a decorated combat veteran whose innovative leadership in counterinsurgency helped secure the restive city of Tal Afar in Iraq from Sunni insurgents in 2005.

In Iraq, McMaster placed his troops in small outposts in the northern Iraqi town in an effort to protect the population and he worked closely with local leaders to overcome sectarian rivalries. The tactics worked, the population came around to support his brigade and began turning on al-Qaeda militants.

Those tactics would become common two years later when Gen. David Petraeus headed U.S. forces in Iraq and implemented, but at the time most units would launch patrols from large bases and then return to the bases at night.

A highly regarded author

McMaster, a protege of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, is the author of a 1997 book on the Vietnam War — Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam — which has been required reading for many national security officials.

The book detailed the failings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Vietnam war, pointing out that the top officers were silent in the face of President Lyndon Johnson’s decision to pursue the war without sufficient force to win.

McMaster has been calling for a larger and better-equipped Army to face growing threats to national security. The Army, until plans were announced recently to grow the ranks, has been shedding soldiers.

The new national security adviser warned the Senate in testimony last year that the Army had shrunk its ranks too far and lacked the new weaponry it needed to keep pace with U.S. enemies. It been “outranged and outgunned by many potential adversaries,” he told a panel of the Armed Services Committee in April.



Advanced weapons mean the Army’s main armored vehicles, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and Abrams tank, “will soon be obsolete,” he said. The Army has no plans to replace either vehicle.

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The selection of McMaster as national security adviser drew good reviews from lawmakers, particularly Republicans.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has criticized aspects of Trump's tenure, but said he gives the president "great credit for this decision, as well as his national security Cabinet choices. I could not imagine a better, more capable national security team than the one we have right now.”

“He is somewhat of an outlier when it comes to publicly expressing his disagreement with the institution of the Army,” said Peter Mansoor, a retired colonel and professor at Ohio State University. “That doesn’t make him a rebel. It makes him outspoken.”

“He is a superb choice,” said Mansoor, who served with McMaster on the so-called council of colonels, a group of officers that was assigned the job in 2006 of rethinking U.S. strategy in Iraq.

Despite his battlefield success McMaster was passed over a couple times for promotion to brigadier general before he was finally selected.

“There were mixed opinions on whether he should be promoted to brigadier general based on his outspokenness,” Mansoor said. “But his exceptional record certainly warranted the promotion.”

What now for Bolton?

In announcing the McMaster appointment, Trump also suggested that another finalist for the national security adviser's job, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, would eventually be hired for a different position.

"We'll be asking him to work with us in a somewhat different capacity," Trump said of Bolton. "Knows a lot. He had a good number of ideas that I must tell you I agree very much with"

The moves come a week after Trump asked for Flynn's resignation for lying about the substance of a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Flynn's firing took place amid a series of investigations into possible contacts between Trump associates and Russia, which has been accused of interfering in last year's presidential election by hacking Democrats close to presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Flynn spoke to the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, about sanctions the Obama administration placed on Russia after investigators had determined the scope of the Russian interference in the U.S. election.

In the wake of Flynn's removal, McMaster takes over a National Security Council that still has many unfilled jobs and a reputation for chaotic management.

Harward's concerns about not being able to pick his own aides may have been eliminated this week.

Trump "gave full authority for McMaster to hire whatever staff he sees fit," White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders said Monday.

Unlike previous administrations, the influential principals committee of Trump's NSC includes counselor and political strategist Stephen Bannon, a move that has drawn criticism for bringing a political operative into a body charged with handling issues that are supposed to transcend politics. For example, Republican former President George W. Bush specifically left his deputy chief of staff and political consultant Karl Rove off the NSC.

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