Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific? Why Should We Care About Donald Trump's Approach to U.S. National Security?
Ray & Jim interview the former U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster about his New York Times bestselling memoir, “At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House”.
Lieutenant General McMaster unpacks how he believes the Trump Administration executed a long-overdue shift in America’s strategy towards China, from a policy based on a false hope of integration into the U.S.-led international order to one that emphasized the need to engage in great power competition to prevent a revisionist China and Russia from overthrowing that order.
McMaster explains how he tried to implement President Trump’s policy of "putting America first" and demanding reciprocal trade agreements and defense burden-sharing among America’s allies, even as he himself advocated with the president for maintaining strong alliances and a muscular forward military presence to deter conflict, and explains his assertion that the greatest provocation for aggressors is the "perception of American weakness".
McMaster also pushes for the rebuilding of America’s defense industrial base in order to deter escalation in the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere, especially in places like Taiwan, the Philippines and the South China Sea.