General McMaster is a compelling choice: a scholar-warrior in the mold of Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, with the bonus of looking every inch the part — allegedly a critical asset in the image-conscious Trump administration.
Yet those very qualities could spell more trouble ahead. General McMaster’s deep understanding of civil-military relations, and his reputation for not suffering fools, could quickly make him an irrepressible critic — and political enemy — of Mr. Trump and his senior adviser, Stephen K. Bannon.
.. At the same time, General McMaster has a cooler head than Mr. Flynn, or for that matter John Bolton, whom he beat out for the job.
.. Perhaps the best indication of General McMaster’s thinking, and the likelihood of conflict with Mr. Bannon and others, is his 1997 book, “Dereliction of Duty,” a merciless, meticulous study of the early days of the Vietnam War, and how senior civilian officials and the Joint Chiefs of Staff led the country into a quagmire.
.. His central thesis is that the Joint Chiefs became inordinately politicized, caving to senior civilian officials in the Johnson administration like McGeorge Bundy, the national security adviser, who knew little about Vietnam, or military doctrine. Those officials were more concerned about appearing just strong enough not to lose hawkish domestic support without compromising the Great Society agenda than they were about actually winning the war.
.. “The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field nor was it lost on the front page of The New York Times or the college campuses,” he wrote. “It was lost in Washington,” even before “the first American units were deployed.”
.. Men like Mr. Bannon, of course, are not likely to be either silent or deferential. Instead, they will try to bureaucratically outflank dissenters.
.. General McMaster, for his part, vehemently objected to the way President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara largely circumvented the Security Council’s interagency process in formulating and implementing Vietnam policy; it’s unlikely he’ll abide a similar move by Mr. Bannon and his circle. He’ll probably be joined by General Mattis
.. Expect fireworks. General McMaster’s unblinking, incisive criticism of national security officials reflects a conviction that they are duty bound to do all they can to avoid making or repeating historical mistakes — even at the risk of insubordination.
.. And Mr. Trump, given his rhetoric, appears willing to indulge the use of military force with little regard to strategic consequences.
The Scandal That May Haunt the New Nominee for Labor Secretary
R. Alexander Acosta, President Trump’s pick to run the Labor Department following the withdrawal of Andrew Puzder’s nomination, was the head of the civil-rights division of the Department of Justice in the Bush administration during a period in which his subordinates became embroiled in a scandal over politicized hiring.
.. But at the Justice Department, his subordinates skirted the law, seeking to purge liberal attorneys from the division and replace them with conservatives. Acosta told investigators he was unaware of what was occurring.
.. The report states that Schlozman used terms like “real Americans,” “right thinking,” “solid,” and “on the team” to describe conservative attorneys—the ones he wanted to hire—and that Bradshaw was aware of the meaning of those terms.
Schlozman, deploying a colorful metaphor, stated in an email that “My tentative plans are to gerrymander all of those crazy libs rights out of the [voting] section.”
What Trump’s Changes Mean for the National Security Council
President Trump announced on Monday that he would add the director of the Central Intelligence Agency to the National Security Council after critics questioned a memorandum released last weekend that also gave a seat to his chief political strategist.
.. The memo did not stipulate that the director of national intelligence or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would automatically attend those meetings, and raised concerns about the influence Mr. Bannon would exert over national security.
.. The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, insisted on Monday that the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, were welcome to attend any meetings of the committee on subjects relevant to their portfolios. And he noted that Mr. Trump was adding the C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, to the list.
.. “The president has such respect for director Pompeo and the men and women of the C.I.A. that today, the president is announcing he will amend the memo to add C.I.A. back into the N.S.C.,” Mr. Spicer said.
.. Who did the job of national security adviser best?
In Washington, this is the kind of argument people have in bars. (Well, some people.) But on this issue, there is fairly widespread bipartisan consensus: Brent Scowcroft, who served as President George H. W. Bush’s national security adviser, “is widely viewed as one of the most effective people who has ever held that job,”
.. During the Obama administration, David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s chief political adviser, often sat in on council meetings. But he was never a formal member. Susan E. Rice, who was national security adviser until 11 days ago, called the decision to downgrade the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the director of national intelligence “stone cold crazy.”