McMaster and Russia by Willy B

 

    I'm one of those folks, probably just one among many, here, who was a great admirer of H.R. McMaster. I've been following his public career since about 2006 and had always been impressed with his intellectual power and his blunt rejection of the Revolution In Military Affairs--concepts "that lead to the idea that you have perfect knowledge and can apply military power perfectly.'' I have been forced, over the past few days, however, to come to the conclusion that McMaster is a big part of the problem in the mad rush to war on Syria that erupted, last week, war that could lead to a direct military confrontation with Russia. His appearance on Fox News Sunday was an indication of that but there were indications of this potential well beforehand, while he was still at US Army Training and Doctrine Command.  His pre-occupation for the past two years, before he went to the White House, was, after all, how to reshape the Army for future war against Russia. There were two public discussions he was involved in April-May of 2016, the first in Chicago on April 12, at the Pritzker Military Museum and Library, and the second one at CSIS in Washington, DC on May 4, 2016, in which he laid out his view that Russia is little more than an aggressive power that uses, among other things, criminal gangs to further its offensive intentions against American power.  (I'm going to focus, here, on McMaster's public remarks. There's been a great deal of reporting on the machinations and feuds going on inside the National Security Council, but I will leave comment on that to those with better insight into such things).
 
    In the Pritzker discussion, McMaster was asked about deterrence by denial, what would this look like in Eastern Europe. In response, he said that there are three aspects to deterrence by denial. The first is the right kind of capabilities "that could counter Russian aggression, right, and those are our capabilities, I think, like what we're seeing as landbased long-range precision fires capabilities, a tiered air defense capability, an answer to their long-range massed fires, for example, that they've employed in Ukraine. I think it's a significant enough conventional deterrent so that you can also address really what Russia has been advertising as this doctrine of escalation domination where they boast about going to the use of tactical nuclear weapons. So certainly there's a nuclear qualitative deterrent to that capability." the second aspect is quantity. "I mean you have to be--you have to have forces in sufficient scale to demonstrate your ability to deny the enemy those objectives.," he said. Thirdly is "the will of the alliance [NATO]," keeping it strong and united. On this, he was full of praise for ex-NATO commander Gen. Philip Breedlove for doing "a tremendous, tremendous job." It will be recalled that Breedlove, for his anti-Russia war propaganda, was getting much of his "intelligence" from Philip Karber, the head of the Potomac Institute, which McMaster praised as a good open source on the Russia New Generation Warfare Study that McMaster was heading up at TraDoc at the time.

    In the CSIS event, McMaster described the "invasion" of Ukraine and the "annexation" of Crimea has having "punctuated" the end of the post-Cold War period, but that thase were not new developments "in terms of Russian aggression." He pointed to the Georgia war in 2008 and the cyber atttacks on the Baltic states as earlier indicators.  Despite these earlier signs, Mcmaster lamented that the US response was to continue draw down forces in Europe. "And what we're seeing now is we've awakened to, obviously, this threat from Russia, who is waging limited war for limited objectives – annexing Crimea, invading Ukraine – at zero cost, consolidating gains over that territory, and portraying the reaction by us and allies and partners as escalatory, that what is required to deter a strong nation that is waging limited war for limited objectives on battlegrounds involving weaker states – or what Thomas – Mackinder called at the end of the 18th, early 19th century the shatter zones on the Eurasian landmass – what is required is forward deterrence, to be able to ratchet up the cost at the frontier, and to take an approach to deterrence that is consistent with deterrence by denial, convincing your enemy that your enemy is unable to accomplish his objectives at a reasonable cost rather than sort of an offshore balancing approach and the threat of punitive action at long distance later, which we know obviously from – recent experience confirms that that is inadequate," he said.

    "Of course, this is a sophisticated strategy, what Russia is employing – and we're doing a study of this now with a number of partners – that combines, really, conventional forces as cover for unconventional action, but a much more sophisticated campaign involving the use of criminality and organized crime, and really operating effectively on this battleground of perception and information, and in particular part of a broader effort to sow doubt and conspiracy theories across our alliance," McMaster went on. "And this effort, I believe, is aimed really not at defensive objectives, but at offensive objectives – to collapse the post-World War II, certainly the post-Cold War, security, economic, and political order in Europe, and replace that order with something that is more sympathetic to Russian interests."

    McMaster presents all of this as if it's happening in a vacuum, as if the actions of the Anglo-American-led West had nothing to do with anything, particularly in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. McMaster, the PhD historian, should know much better than that.  The collapse of the post-World War II system could be happening for reasons that have nothing to do with Russia. Perhaps, like the Soviet Union in the 1980's, it's collapsing for reasons of its own internal contradictions, but this possibility is not even admitted into the discussion.  McMaster knows that the U.S. invaded Iraq on the basis of lies, but dismisses any discussion of that to focus on decisions, both good and bad, that were made afterwards. Yet the events that followed were totally shaped by that decision to invade. So, McMaster appears to have abandoned the intellectual rigor that characterized his book on the Vietnam War and much of his work afterwards. At first glance, it appears that he is instead drawing his outlook from the neo-cons, particularly about the alleged threat to American power, but I have to do much more work to develop this before I can say anything definitively.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2017/04/09/exclusive-general-h-r-mcmaster-on-decision-to-strike-syria.html

https://www.pritzkermilitary.org/whats_on/pritzker-military-presents/lt-general-hr-mcmaster-harbingers-future-war/

https://www.csis.org/events/harbingers-future-war-implications-army-lieutenant-general-hr-mcmaster

 

Comments

[James F]

You're right. Even a stupid REMF like me knows this.

[mauisurfer]

you say:
Russia won't go to WWIII over Syria. Their defense doctrine is oriented around fighting wars up to a maximum of 1,000 miles from their borders.
fact:
From Sevastopol to Aleppo is about 610 miles
From Russian ground North of Caspian to Aleppo is about 750 miles

[Marko]

If this was a planned false-flag event , there could be two separate components of this attack. One in which chlorine was released during the bombing by Syrian jets of known rebel weapon stockpiles. The chlorine may have always been there or could have been placed there because of advance knowledge of the Syrian targets ( quite possible , if not likely , given the capabilities of anti-Assad state actors , including the U.S , Israel , etc. ).

The second component is the generation of some sarin victims. This could have been done using captives , and would have required tiny quantities of sarin if performed efficiently. Alernatively , using larger quantities , one or a few rockets could have delivered the sarin to residential areas at the time of the bombing raid.

This may seem like it's beyond the capabilities of a bunch of head-choppers acting alone. It may well be , but I seriously doubt they acted alone.

[mauisurfer]

quote
the idea of attacking Syrian military infrastructure was not something dreamed up at the last second by the Trump administration. Its author was General James Mattis when he was U.S. Commander in the Middle East in 2013 and was removed for promoting policies that contradicted President Obama’s desire to withdraw from war operations in the region, taking down the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now Mattis is the Secretary of Defense and the cruise missile attack on the Shayrat air force base comes from his playbook.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/11/russias-disdain-for-tillerson-and-trump/

I see Trump following Bush2's path. Bush was very unpopular in the first 9 months of his presidency, with the press and even with many who had voted for him - and for good reason, he was incompetent and uninformed and not curious to learn anything - and he bragged that he was "the decider", a concept that he probably learned at Harvard Business School where there are no texts at all. He quite explicitly said that he realized he could be a popular president if he could make war. So now Trump has absorbed this key to popularity with the people of USA.

[Chemosabe]

These reports only tell us that there are victims of a chemical attack in Idlib province.

Re Turkish autopsies: where did the bodies of these victims come from? There is a Western legal term called "the chain of custody". How do we know these bodies actually came from the site of the attack? These autopsies were done in Turkey. Is Turkey a neutral party in this ongoing conflict? Is post coup Turkey a place where truth is valued above all else?

Re MSF: once again, these statements do nothing to establish the perpetrators of the attack. There is very little hard or compelling evidence being offered. Statements by doctors and hospital staff in Jihadi controlled areas don't count for much. And neither do soil, blood and urine samples collected by those who work alongside (for?) the Jihadis.

[Babak Makkinejad]

G-7 is behind him on Syria. He is not alone. Australian Government supports him too, without a doubt.

[Thomas101st]

So the decision was made by a military bimbo and not a fashion bimbo. My mistake.

[robt willmann]

Philip Giraldi says in an interview that sources on the ground in the Middle East assert that the narrative that Syria blasted the civilians with chemical weapons is a sham--

https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/scotthortonshow/4617-philip-giraldi-says-ic-military-doubt-assad-gas-narrative/

Apparently military and intel people familiar with it are disturbed by the blatantly false official story being told, as it of course raises the risk of military conflict. This may be why the alleged "evidence" and analysis claimed by the U.S. has not been released to the public and is being kept secret.

Despite the serious atmosphere in the air, the American sense of humor and parody still exists, and the power of ridicule is giving a good hit to the recent ham-handed tactics of United Airlines--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ_BwnbSrWs

[John_Frank]

Trump: ‘We’re not going into Syria’
http://nypost.com/2017/04/11/trump-were-not-going-into-syria/

'Amid complaints that his aides are saying different things about Syria and his policy is confusing, President Trump emphatically cleared the air.

“We’re not going into Syria,” he told me yesterday in an exclusive interview. “Our policy is the same — it hasn’t changed. We’re not going into Syria.”

The president, speaking by phone Tuesday, called Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a “butcher” and a “barbarian” for using sarin gas on his own people, but said last week’s successful missile strike was not the start of a campaign to oust the dictator.

“Our big mission is getting rid of ISIS,” Trump said. “That’s where it’s always been. But when you see kids choking to death, you watch their lungs burning out, we had to hit him and hit him hard.”

He called the attack, which involved 59 cruise missiles fired from two Navy destroyers, “an act of humanity.”

I asked if he, as a new president, found it difficult to make the final decision, knowing the stakes?

“It’s very tough to give that final go-ahead when you know you’re talking about human life,” he said. “We went back and forth, and also back and forth about severity. We could have gone bigger in terms of targets and more of them, but we thought this would be the appropriate first shot.”

Later, he added, “We hope he won’t do any more gassing.”

The interview was scheduled to last 15 minutes, but ran nearly twice as long. Throughout, the president was gracious, energized and focused. He answered every question, and invited me to ask more as aides tried to get him to his next appointment. So I did.'

People will want to read the entire report as Mr. Goodwin also quotes the President in response to questions on relations with Russia.

Mr. Goodwin has published a number of posts dealing with other issues covered during the interview which people can find on the nypost.com website.

[John_Frank]

As to the reported build up of forces along the Jordanian border with Syria, which some have pointed to as a precursor to an invasion, on Sunday, Centcom reported:

Coalition, Vetted Syrian Opposition Forces Repel ISIS Attack
https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1145964/coalition-vetted-syrian-opposition-forces-repel-isis-attack

"Coalition forces and partnered vetted Syrian opposition forces repelled an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria attack targeting a partnered military base in southern Syria yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

ISIS initiated the attack on the An Tanf garrison with a vehicle bomb and between 20 to 30 ISIS fighters followed with a ground assault and suicide vests, officials said.

Coalition and partnered forces defended against the ISIS attack with direct fire before destroying enemy assault vehicles and the remaining fighters with multiple coalition airstrikes, officials said.

In southern Syria, officials said, vetted Syrian opposition forces focus on conducting operations to clear ISIS from the Hamad Desert and have been instrumental in countering the ISIS threat in southern Syria and maintaining security along the Syria-Jordan border."

[Chris Chuba]

McMaster / Mattis fit a pattern, they spend their career preparing to dissect countries like Iran and Russia which is their job and also develop a real animus towards those countries. Gen. Jack Keane's veins pop when he talks about Russia.

This article on the daily caller describes the Administration's proof of Assad's guilt
http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/11/white-house-lays-out-evidence-that-syria-was-behind-deadly-chemical-attack/
It's worse than you think, by that I mean the hastiness of the decision and lack of professionalism. We are approaching Caligula level of insanity.
Some highlights ...

"intelligence gathered from social media accounts, open source videos, reporting, imagery, and geospatial intelligence showed that the chemical attack was a regime attack."

So our Intelligence is based on White Helmet video production and when you read the entire article, it's obvious that they didn't even do a good job of scrutinizing that. I hope this is 'fake news' but it rings true. There was absolutely no time for an actual Intelligence Assessment.

It also makes claims that it was exclusively a Sarin and not a Chlorine or other chemical attack (who needs to examine all the bodies or get independent lab results) by looking at select portion of the videos and lab results released by Turkey. They make the claim that the rebels have absolutely no access to Sarin, therefore Assad has to be guilty. Here is a link from Southfront noting that 2 of Assad's known chemical weapons facilities were never inspected because they are in Rebel controlled territory https://southfront.org/syrian-government-is-ready-to-let-experts-examine-shayrat-airbase-for-chemical-weapons/

In any case, this 'report', if genuine is a joke and doesn't look like it was vetted by professionals. Just once, I would like to see a big lie get exposed.

[John_Frank]

fyi Two reports from the State Department.

The first being a blog entry posted after the meetings in Luca, Italy wrapped up:

G7 Foreign Ministers Stand United to Face Pressing International Challenges
https://blogs.state.gov/stories/2017/04/11/en/g7-foreign-ministers-stand-united-face-pressing-international-challenges

The second being the transcript of a press availability that the Secretary of State had after the meetings concluded in Luca, Italy in which he read a statement and then answered some questions:

April 11, 2017 - Remarks at a Press Availability
https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2017/04/269693.htm

People will want to read the entire transcript of the press availability.

Between the Secretary of State, Defense Secretary and the President, the message is that the United States is not planning on invading Syria.

Setting aside ISIS, as to the use of chemical weapons on the Syrian battle field, whether by the Syria Armed Forces, or by other forces, it seems the State Department is taking the position:

With Turkey, Iran and Russia as guarantors of the current cease fire, and Russia as guarantor of Syria's performance of its obligations as settled in 2013, the United States is looking to those parties to honor their obligations.

As Turkey is the guarantor of the performance of the opposition under the cease fire, even though a number of opposition forces have yet to agree to the cease fire; while the designated terror organizations operating out of Idlib have refused, from a diplomatic perspective, will the US now look to Turkey for performance to stop battle field usage of chemical weapons by the opposition forces?

Furthermore, if it turns out that the opposition forces in and around Khan Sheikhoun, Idlib have carried out a provocation or false flag operation as people are claiming, will the US look to Turkey for satisfaction?

That does not address the six chemical weapons attacks carried out by the Syrian Armed Forces since August, 2016 as reported by http://www.uossm.org/, (four in 2016 and two in 2017), along with the three earlier attacks in 2014 and 2015 as determined by the UN OPCW joint investigative mechanism to have been carried out by the Syrian Armed Forces.

P.S. I still think that the President needs to go before Congress and get a resolution authorizing future missile strikes and a separate authorization concerning ISIS, but that is a separate discussion.

[Phil Cattar]

ex-PFC Chuck................About two years ago the Blog Cluborlov had an article you might find interesting it's title was "Peculiarities of Russian National Character"

[Adamski]

Is there any comparable time in history where the Leading world power has behaved so hypocritically and amorally?
I mean, really, what is going on here?
The US and muppets have tied themselves up into tight little knots with their campaign of lies and obfuscations.
Who will/can trust US ever again?

[WarrenPeese]

The scare quotes around "invasion" and "annexation" in describing the invasion and annexation of the Crimean region of Ukraine is an objectively pro-Putin point of view.
As for McMaster, that he is recognizing that Putin is not our friend does not connote the derogatory label of "neocon". Putin is really not our friend.

[Ivan]

It turns out that it was Obama who stood athwart the neocon plans in Syria.

[John_Frank]

fyi Memo from VIPS - Trump Should Rethink Syria Escalation https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/11/trump-should-rethink-syria-escalation/

Not sure when that was posted, although it was tweeted out early this morning. https://twitter.com/Consortiumnews/status/851767415549636612

Do not know whether the statement influenced the Trump administration or not.

However, from the statement made by Secretary of State Tillerson Tuesday morning in Luca, Italy, along with the answers given; the video of the press conference with the Defense Secretary and head of Centcom Tuesday afternoon, along with the interview that the President gave to Michael Goodwin this afternoon and published Tuesday evening:

1. Secretary of State Tillerson, Defense Secretary Mattis and the President have all stated there is no plan to invade Syria and the military mission remains to destroy ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

2. During his press conference, Defense Secretary Mattis said that he had personally reviewed all of the intelligence. He rejected the notion of Russian involvement in the attack on April 4, saying that it was a Syrian operation. He further said he did not see events getting out of control with Russia. In response to questions, the listener was left to understand that the US military continues to have good contacts with the Russian military despite the hotline being shut down and that coalition air forces were not in any danger while carrying out missions against ISIS in Syria.

3. While reiterating the US position concerning the attack on April 4, the President used the interview with Mr. Goodwin to make the case why Russia would want to join forces with the United States.

Meanwhile as we all know, Secretary of State Tillerson is meeting with his counter part in Moscow later today.

P.S. I have posted links to the press availability with Secretary Tillerson, along with the video of the press conference with Secretary Mattis and the article by Mr. Goodwin of his interview with the President earlier.

[Ante]

Willy B, Thank you for the article. While reading I was struck by the idea that so many borgists see Russia as Persia to the US's Rome. It was the East Roman Empire's constant fighting with various incarnations of Persia that left them both vulnerable to the Islamic conquests and then the Mongol and Turkic invasions. If they could have seen each other as partners, the entire course of history could be different.

Russia should be America's ally, and if not ally, then at least an amiably neutral relation. China's economic dominance and the threat of the dollar no longer being the world's reserve currency are a billion times more important to the long term health of the US than Russia's attempts to preserve a secular state in Syria. But the men in charge can't past the tips of their fucking noses.

[b]

That was tried in July 2012. Four highest ranking security officials were killed. Assad wasn't there. The hoped for result wasn't achieved. Syrian security and mil services continued as before.

Only question is who did it: CIA or Mossad?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18_July_2012_Damascus_bombing

[Kunuri]

This is exactly how I explained what happened to a friend of mine the other day. Thank you for writing it, I am forwarding your comment to her.

One thing I may add, I have no doubt that the actual Sarin that was used was manufactured within the Jihadiland from components provided from within Turkey. The only thing I can not explain is how the actual Sarin Gas attack was initiated almost exactly the same time as the attack. They must have been waiting, ambush style, somewhere nearby, with their victims exposed or someone within the Syrian regime may have tipped off the Jihadists and whoever was with them for the exact time of the attack of Syrian aircraft on the chlorine depot, which produced the explosion that we see in videos. Then the victims are either transported to the location, or the film cast and crew brought to the set.

And as far as the film set that was the dead victims, it was staged. I know something about setting a scene, I am a Production Designer. If one of my art directors had staged a scene like that, I would have fired him. As far as the action scenes performed by the White Helmets, bad acting and choreography sometimes may produce more realistic frames than those performed by capable actors and SFX people. Those bad actors really get into it. One year during a reenactment of Turkish independence war, those costumed as Turkish soldiers, actually attacked and started to really beat up those costumed as vanquished Greek soldiers.

[Cee]

Eakens,

I've read that Putin doesn't plan to meet with him on this trip.
I don't know why he would resign though because he's now on the Regime Change Train too.

[Peter AU]

Latest of a constant stream emanating from the whitehouse over last 24 hrs

http://thehill.com/policy/international/328403-trump-assad-is-an-animal
President Trump on Tuesday said Russia is backing an "evil person" by supporting Syrian leader Bashar Assad.
"Putin is backing a person that's truly an evil person," Trump said in an interview with Fox Business Network's Maria Bartiromo set to air on Wednesday.
"And I think it's very bad for Russia. I think it's very bad for mankind. It's very bad for this world," he said.
Trump further argued that Assad's use of chemical weapons on civilians makes the Syrian leader "an animal."
"But when you drop gas or bombs or barrel bombs -- they have these massive barrels with dynamite and they drop them right in the middle of a group of people. And in all fairness, you see the same kids -- no arms no legs, no face. This is an animal," Trump said.

What is the saying here? Shit is on good ...

Yeah. Getting too serious. Two weeks?

[1664RM]

They ALL become LIARS in the end ... I wonder if how much they have lied in the past?

https://youtu.be/ZoAVB-VhYNQ

The whole thing is a bright shining lie.

A real US air strike in Mosul, Iraq, within the last month killed more innocent civilians than this alleged Syrian AF CW attack.

Where was the moral outrage then?

[eakens]

The US needs a place to replace Incirlik with. Energy pipelines are the chaser.

[1664RM]

Why is this considered to be less credible than CNN, MSNBC, Sky, BBC, Al Jazeera, ABC, Fox et al? .... as it surely will - both in this forum & anywhere else.

https://youtu.be/Dp0WiBFCB10

It is worth a watch; you are unlikely to get such a decent SITREP from the MSM