In Picking H.R. McMaster for National Security Adviser, President Trump Chooses Wisely

President Donald Trump took an important step Monday toward restoring a semblance of order and competence to his national security team, selecting a highly regarded, deeply learned strategic thinker and Army general to serve as national security adviser. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, 54, is a seasoned battlefield commander. As a captain during the Persian Gulf War, he commanded 140 soldiers in nine tanks and 12 Bradley fighting vehicles in a nighttime battle against a much larger Iraqi force, with 30 tanks, 20 personnel carriers and 30 other trucks. By morning, every enemy vehicle had been destroyed and McMaster's armored troop had not suffered a single loss.More recently, it was his early demonstration of counter-insurgency techniques in the Iraq War that Gen. David Petraeus later adopted as a central plank of what would be known as "the surge." McMaster holds a Ph.D. in military history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and is an author of a widely cited critique of the military command structure's refusal to push back against President Lyndon Johnson's escalation of the war in Vietnam called Dereliction of Duty. (Slate has a smart Q&A about his background.)  Continue reading...