#1763 - General H.R. McMaster

Joe Rogan (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience.

All right. Well, thank you, sir. Very nice to meet you. Cheers.

H.R. McMaster (0:17)

Cheers, great to meet you.

Joe Rogan (0:18)

Great to meet you.

I always wanted to smoke a cigar and have a scotch with a national security advisor. So here we go. I always wanted to be in one of them smoky rooms where all the shit goes down. Is there a moment, because every person, every civilian wants to know, is there a moment when a president gets in the office where someone like you has to sit them down, they just got elected, someone like you has to sit them down and go, all right, buddy, here's what's going on in the world?

H.R. McMaster (0:54)

Yeah, I think so. I mean, we're facing a number of challenges and opportunities and a new president, I think, suddenly realizes that he's responsible for how we respond to those challenges and opportunities. So I think, of course, as a National Security Advisor, that's kind of your job, right?

You're the only person in the foreign policy, national security establishment who has the president as his or her only client, right? So it's your job to help the president succeed in the area of foreign policy and national security.

Joe Rogan (1:26)

That job, you have to kind of be like a psychologist as well as a National Security Advisor, right? Especially if you're dealing with someone like Trump, who's a big personality.

H.R. McMaster (1:36)

Yeah, and of course, every president is different and receives information differently and has a different set of priorities.

And so I think it's really important to ensure that the way you interact with that president is consistent with the way that president receives information, thinks, him or herself about the world, and help them evolve their understanding of these challenges and opportunities that we face internationally, and then give options, right? As National Security Advisor, your job is not to determine foreign policy. Nobody elected you, right?

Your job is to give that elected president the benefit of the best information intelligence analysis available, and then to tee up options, right? And have forums for discussion where he can not just listen to you, because you're not omniscient, right? You're not an all-knowing National Security Advisor. You should help convene groups that can help the president make the best decisions.

Joe Rogan (2:30)

We always have on the outside, we always have this idea of what a president says they want to do when they're running, and then once they get into office, oftentimes they change or they abandon a lot of their policies, a lot of their ideas, and the speculation is always like, I wonder what they learn, because people want to say, oh, they're just liars, they were lying the whole time, and I'm always like, maybe, or maybe they get in there and they learn that there's some serious issues that they were not aware of, and that there's some top secret stuff that the general public's not privy to, and they get briefed, and then it's a, whew, yeah.

H.R. McMaster (3:12)

The key is to think through the long-term costs and consequences of any decision, and often that involves a decision to take an action, but also not doing something is a decision. I think what a national security advisor should do, any of the president's advisors should help the president think longer term, and to recognize that we are involved in complex competitions. The future doesn't depend on what we decide to do. It also depends on the actions of others, often times adversaries, rivals and enemies, and that interactive nature of foreign policy and national security competitions is sometimes lost. This is what I read about in the book, is this idea of strategic narcissism, the tendency for leaders to think that what they do or decide not to do is decisive toward achieving a favorable outcome. That's actually a pretty arrogant way to look at the world.

You have to recognize the agency, the influence, the authorship over the future that others have.

Joe Rogan (4:10)

But if they decide something that's incorrect or something that's correct, it kind of does have a large impact on the world, right?

H.R. McMaster (4:18)

Oh, absolutely.

If you think of just decisions in recent history, decisions to either engage or not engage, how about for everybody wants to talk about, for example, the invasion of Iraq, that's just been the big debate over the last couple of decades. Should we have done it? Should we have invaded Iraq? And I think what we ought to debate more often is who the heck thought it would be easy and why did they think it would be easy?