“I think there’s a period of extreme danger coming up,” said to Gen. H.R. McMaster, who served as the 25th assistant to the U.S. president for National Security Affairs during the Trump administration. 

On Sept. 5, Chapman’s War, Diplomacy, and Society program welcomed. McMaster to Chapman University. McMaster is a lecturer at Stanford University whose experience and knowledge relate to military history, national security and U.S. foreign policy. 

During his lecture, questions were raised about the current state of Taiwan and China, the ongoing war in Ukraine and the current conflict in Gaza, as well as the upcoming elections as they relate to foreign policy and external interference.

“This is an opportunity to really learn the importance of history in thinking about the conflicts of the day,” said Karen Snedker, an associate professor of sociology who attended the event. “It’s really great to have an opportunity (to hear) from both a scholar — he is an academic he has a Ph.D. in history, he’s written several books — he’s also served over 30 years in the military and has been in command and he served on the national security advisory team so he has this political presidential experience.”

McMaster explained that when he got to the White House, he used his historical knowledge of the decision making that happened during the Vietnam War to inform the way he approached national security policy and the decision making process. 

“I had the opportunity to command multinational task forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. My experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan convinced me that a lot of the policies and strategies that were developed in Washington were delusional,” explained McMaster. “They were based more based on fantasy than the reality overseas. So I had an idea about how policy can not be informed by what it takes to implement.”

McMaster implemented a document that dealt with five main points in its approach to national and international security challenges: defining the nature of the challenge, asking what national interests are at stake, defining what the overarching goal should be when dealing with the challenge, making assumptions to possible reactions to proposed policies and determining what the obstacles and opportunities are that could help/hinder obtaining the goal.

He put into place a principal small group framing sessions around 16 challenges that the U.S. was facing at the time in regards to national and international security and in that session they discussed those five points with the national security council principals, who are called the principals committee.

Those meetings were meant to gain approval or receive comments on how the challenges were defined and then get ideas for overcoming obstacles and get guidelines for putting a new policy into place.

“He dispelled some of our ideas of how we thought things happen. We often think about these political things and we don’t really know, because we just get (information) from two news sources,” said Snedker. “He showed us how they actually happen. How do we actually come up with policy responses? It goes through this series of steps, this series of teams. He opened my eyes up to how it actually works in practice.”

The students and other attendees took the opportunity to ask McMaster about his opinions as an expert on current foreign affairs and how he believes they will play out. 

GAZA CONFLICT

“It was (Hamas’) intention to get large numbers of Palestinians killed in Gaza on Oct. 7,” said McMaster. “In part because they thought the more Palestinians are martyred, in their words, the better for them in the narrative to isolate Israel for any kind of international support.”

On Oct. 7, Hamas launched a surprise attack against Israel which left 1,200 dead. After the attack, Israel launched a ground assault in Gaza. This conflict which has been ongoing since October has left behind a humanitarian crisis in Gaza with around 1 million people being displaced. 

“(Oct. 7) was meant to be the opening of an extended campaign and the activation of what was called the ring of fire strategy by Iranians,” explained McMaster.

The “ring of fire” strategy is how Iran’s strategy of encircling Israel’s border with military and political influence is known. This is to be accomplished through Iran funding and arming terrorist proxies to counter Israel's ability to threaten Iran.

“How do you cope with a situation like this? I mean it's really difficult for the Israeli Defense Force because they have no legitimacy with the Palestinans people,” said McMaster. “Any legitimacy they did have any relationships were extinguished by Hamas when Hamas took over by force in 2006.”

McMaster used his experience in the city of Tal Afar with al-Qaeda to explain how Hamas has ruled through fear in Palestine. 

“What these organizations do is they keep a cycle going, a cycle of ignorance. They use ignorance to foment hatred and then hatred to justify violence and until you break that cycle you’re going to have a continued problem,” said McMaster. “What’s going to happen in Gaza, I believe, is that Hamas has to be destroyed. I really don’t believe there’s an option other than that.”

McMaster recalled how the Iraqi city Tal Afar was completely taken over by al-Qaeda. To deal with this threat, they told all civilians they needed to be evacuated and established refugee camps, but al-Qaeda gave orders not to leave because they wanted human shields.

“I believe that the Hamas leadership must be hunted down and probably killed,” continued McMaster. “Then there has to be put into place in Gaza a different security order cause Hamas still has the guns there. Until you have other people with guns to provide a different order, who's going to be the mayor of Gaza?”

During his time in fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq, McMaster recalled how the police force was taken over by shia islamist militias. Before the operation against al-Qaeda, they tried to recruit people to join the police force to replace the shia militias with little success. However, once the operation was successful, they got 3,000 applicants. 

McMaster believes that his experience in Iraq is analogous to what needs to happen in Gaza to reach peace, but he acknowledges the higher difficulty due to the fraught relationships Palestine and Israel have had for decades.

Russo-Ukrainian War

“You want a free, independent, secure and back on the road to prosperity Ukraine,” stated McMaster. “Based on that goal, what is necessary?”

After multiple years of tensions between Russia and Ukraine, Russia invaded Kyiv back in 2022, launching a war between the countries. This war has been ongoing since then with the U.S. providing more than $55.7 billion in military assistance to protect this key territory for the interests of the U.S. and its NATO allies in the region. 

“The first thing they have to do is stop the onslaught,” McMaster continued. “The second thing they have to do is to regain control of territory so that if there is some kind of negotiated settlement they can enter into that negotiation from that position of power”

According to McMaster, the war can’t stop where it is if Ukraine has any hope for a favorable outcome. McMaster believes that the U.S. is not doing enough to help Ukraine secure its goals. He thinks the U.S. should be providing more military aid and provisions to help Ukraine form an effective defense against russia. 

“When I look at the Russian losses I think they’re kind of at a breaking point,” McMaster explained. “When you lose your junior leaders, when you lose lieutenants, when you lose captains you can’t regenerate them fast enough.”

China and Taiwan

The state of the island of Taiwan is also currently an important challenge in national security, due to its key geographical location and its role in the global economy.

China considers Taiwan a breakaway province that must return, either by choice or by force, while Taiwan considers itself distinct from China and has its own constitution and democratically elected government. Currently only 12 countries recognize Taiwan as its own sovereign country.

The U.S. recognized Taiwan and its government the Republic of China (ROC). This changed when in 1979, the U.S. switched to recognize the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole legal government of China. Despite this, the U.S. has continued to maintain a positive relationship with the island of Taiwan, as well as offering them military assistance and vowing to intervene in case of a Chinese offensive. 

“I think what’s more likely, maybe even, is trying to put the squeeze on Taiwan,” McMaster explained that he believes China will attempt something known as annexation by invitation. “I think you could see that ramping up. You see almost a rehearsal for that with the first violation of Japanese air space by the Chinese ever, as well as how aggressive they are getting with the Philippines in the South China Sea. I think we’re on a path to war, I really do.”

McMaster believes that China is attempting to accomplish its goals with a mix of propaganda, buying off the elites of Taiwan, a blockade of the island and coercion of allies that are close to China.

“I think that the People's Liberation Army of China would have a very hard time taking Taiwan by force. And the reason for that is the Taiwanese capabilities are getting better,” explained McMaster. “There are $21 billion of backlogged munitions and weapons going to Taiwan, but it’s going to take five to six years so it’s kind of a race to try to strengthen the defenses there.”

In addition to producing close to 70% of the world’s semiconductors and 90% of the most advanced chips — which are used to power everything from cars to computers — Taiwan is a critical node of the so-called “first island chain” that anchors a network of U.S. allies.

This means that not only would a Chinese invasion of Taiwan possibly trigger a global economic depression, but it would also severely destabilize the Indo-Pacific region. This would open the way for China to gain dominance in that region and it would weaken the ties of the U.S. with its allies in the area, which include Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines and Thailand.

Elections

McMaster cautioned that the upcoming elections will be a turbulent time, both as they relate to national and international politics. 

“It’s likely to be a close election,” said McMaster. “You saw the report of Russian interference in the election. I think that’s all set up.”

McMaster explained that he believes that those documents were leaked by the Russians, because their goal is not to interfere in which candidate wins, but to sow enough doubt in the people to make them question the results of the election. He said that they want this to bring instability to the country and weaken it from the inside, as well as to keep the U.S. distracted so they — the enemies of the U.S. — can act.

“These hostile territories regimes don’t care who wins the election,” added McMaster. “I think they know they can’t really influence the outcome but what they want to do is they want large numbers of Americans to doubt the legitimacy of the outcome of the election.”

In his lecture McMaster mentioned that back in 2016, 90% of Russian bot and troll traffic was on issues of race. The other issues that the bot traffic was focused on was border security and bringing gun control. He posed this as proof that the goal was not to get one or another candidate elected, but to divide the country further by adding fire to issues that were already controversial. 

“I think it’s really important to realize that a lot of the discourse is artificially manufactured by enemies of the United States,” said Stuart Ledbetter, a senior history major who attended the event. “No one’s immune to propaganda, it will sneak under your nose and I just really think we should all really strive to cooperate more and just really stay vigilant against divisions that appear in our society.”