H.R. McMaster
Lieutenant General; National Security Advisor to President Trump
H.R. McMaster earned a Ph.D. in history, wrote the landmark critique 'Dereliction of Duty,' commanded the Battle of 73 Easting, and later served as National Security Advisor.
Biography
Herbert Raymond McMaster (born July 24, 1962) was born in Philadelphia and graduated from West Point in 1984. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1996, writing a dissertation that became one of the most consequential books ever published by an active-duty military officer.
Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam (1997) argued that the senior military leadership of the Vietnam era — the Joint Chiefs of Staff — had failed in their fundamental duty to provide honest military advice to civilian leadership. Instead of speaking clearly about what they believed the war required or whether it could be won, they told the President and Secretary of Defense what they thought those officials wanted to hear. McMaster's argument was devastating, meticulous, and uncomfortable — and it made him both famous and, in some quarters, suspect.
McMaster's operational career was no less distinguished than his intellectual one. During the Gulf War, he commanded Eagle Troop, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, at the Battle of 73 Easting on February 26, 1991. In 23 minutes, his nine M1A1 Abrams tanks and 12 Bradley Fighting Vehicles destroyed an entire Iraqi Republican Guard brigade — 28 T-72 tanks, 16 personnel carriers, and 39 other vehicles — without a single American fatality. It was the largest tank-on-tank engagement since World War II.
In Iraq in 2005–2006, McMaster commanded the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar, a city in northwestern Iraq that had become an al-Qaeda stronghold. His counterinsurgency campaign — which combined aggressive military operations with economic development, police training, and political reconciliation — produced a dramatic reduction in violence and became a model that influenced the subsequent Iraq Surge strategy. A detailed profile in The New Yorker made him nationally known outside military circles.
Despite his operational record and the Army's official endorsement of his counterinsurgency doctrine, McMaster was twice passed over for promotion to Brigadier General — widely attributed to resistance from senior officers who were uncomfortable with Dereliction of Duty's critique of their predecessors. He was finally selected on the third board, in 2008, after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates took note of the situation. He went on to serve as National Security Advisor under President Trump from February 2017 to April 2018, leaving after policy disagreements.
Major Achievements
Battle of 73 Easting (February 26, 1991) McMaster's Eagle Troop destroyed an entire Iraqi Republican Guard armored brigade in 23 minutes during the Gulf War — the largest tank engagement since World War II — with no American casualties. The battle is studied at armored warfare schools worldwide.
Dereliction of Duty (1997) McMaster's book arguing that the Vietnam-era Joint Chiefs had failed to provide honest military advice to civilian leaders — instead telling Presidents Johnson and Kennedy what they wanted to hear — became required reading at every American war college and reshaped the study of civil-military relations.
Tal Afar Counterinsurgency (2005–2006) McMaster's combination of military operations, economic development, and political reconciliation in Tal Afar produced results that influenced General Petraeus's subsequent Iraq Surge strategy and demonstrated what population-centric counterinsurgency could achieve.
National Security Advisor (2017–2018) McMaster served as National Security Advisor, bringing military operational experience and historical depth to a position that coordinates the President's national security policymaking.
Champion of Honest Military Advice Beyond any specific achievement, McMaster's career represents a sustained argument — in both his scholarship and his service — that military officers owe their civilian superiors and the American public honest assessments, even when honesty is uncomfortable or career-threatening.
Connection to Academy Values
McMaster is perhaps the clearest living embodiment of the West Point Honor Code applied at the professional level. Dereliction of Duty was the act of a young Army officer saying, publicly and in documented detail, that the most senior military leaders of the Vietnam era had lied to their civilian masters and to the American public — and that this lying had cost 58,000 American lives. Writing that book, while on active duty, knowing it would make enemies of powerful people in the Army, was an act of institutional courage that the Honor Code demands: a West Point graduate will not tolerate lies, even when those lies are convenient and those who tell them are generals.
The fact that he was twice passed over for promotion specifically because of that book — that honesty cost him years of career progress — and that he persisted, continued to serve, and eventually rose anyway, is the fullest possible demonstration of what the Honor Code looks like when it is lived rather than recited.
His operational record — 73 Easting, Tal Afar — also demonstrates that intellectual and physical courage are not alternatives but complements. The officer who writes the most important critique of American military leadership in a generation is also the officer who wins the biggest tank battle since World War II. West Point teaches both dimensions because both are necessary.
