McMaster to join Hoover Institution, take on ‘infected’ national security discourse

Former White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster will join Stanford University’s Hoover Institution as a senior fellow in an effort to foster bipartisan ideas in the national security field.

“Our discourse about national security has become infected by this severe form of political polarization, and it’s regrettable because I do think some really excellent work has happened across the last year and a half to help frame some of the most significant strategic challenges and to craft strategic approaches to advance and protect our interests,” McMaster told The Wall Street Journal in a new interview.  

{mosads}McMaster also revealed that he plans to write a book on national security during his tenure at the institution. 

President Trump replaced McMaster with former United States Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton in April. 

“I am pleased to announce that, effective 4/9/18, @AmbJohnBolton will be my new National Security Advisor. I am very thankful for the service of General H.R. McMaster who has done an outstanding job & will always remain my friend. There will be an official contact handover on 4/9,” Trump said in a tweet last March. 

I am pleased to announce that, effective 4/9/18, @AmbJohnBolton will be my new National Security Advisor. I am very thankful for the service of General H.R. McMaster who has done an outstanding job & will always remain my friend. There will be an official contact handover on 4/9.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2018

The White House also announced that McMaster, a three-star Army lieutenant general, would retire from the military.  

McMaster’s departure came amid a shakeup in the administration, that also saw the firing of then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the nomination of CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace him.

While McMaster did not discuss internal feuds in the White House during his interview with the Journal, he defended his efforts to provide Trump with a wide variety of options on important issues.

“There are some who may have come into government to actually advance their own narrow agenda, and they don’t want to give the president options,” McMaster said. “They want to promote their own agenda or options. At the NSC, we said we can best serve the president by providing options. And I can’t think of a moment when more options was worse than providing fewer ones.”