President Trump on Monday tapped Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, a warrior-scholar deemed an expert in counter insurgency, to be the director of the White House's National Security Council.

The 54-year-old McMaster replaces retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as the president’s national security adviser. Flynn was forced to resign after lying about talking to Russia, before he officially took the NSA post, about recently imposed sanctions.

“He is a man of tremendous talent and experience,” Trump said in announcing McMaster’s appointment. “He’s highly respected in the military, and we're lucky to have him.”

Trump also announced that Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg will remain as the NSC’s chief of staff.

“I’m proud to continue my service to the nation,” said McMaster, sitting next to Trump inside the president’s Florida resort home Mar-a-Lago.

Trump on Sunday interviewed several NSC candidates, in an attempt to solidify the intelligence team, days after calling for Flynn’s resignation.

McMaster is a Philadelphia native and West Point graduate who fought in the Persian Gulf War and served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“This is a great team,” Trump said. “The country is honored to have two people like this, and after having met so many people in the military, we're lucky to have all of them.”

Said Kellogg: "I'm honored and privileged to serve alongside Gen. McMaster. He's a great statesman."

Trump also thanked the others he interviewed this past weekend including former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.

The president said Bolton has “a good number of ideas that I agree with very much" and that he will work for him in a “different capacity.”

McMaster is currently director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center. He joined the Army in 1984 and distinguished himself seven years later during the Gulf War in what would become known as the Battle of 73 Easting.

As captain of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment's Eagle Troop, McMaster led a force of just nine tanks that took out more than 80 Iraqi Republican Guard tanks and armored vehicles.

He is the author of the 1997 book, "Dereliction of Duty," which criticized the U.S. government's handling of the Vietnam War.

In his latest role, McMaster was tasked with gauging the U.S, military capability against future threats. When he addressed lawmakers in April of last year, he warned that years of military cuts have left the U.S. vulnerable.

“We are outranged and outgunned by many potential adversaries,” McMaster said. “[And] our army in the future risks being too small to secure the nation.”</s>PALM BEACH, FL (AP) — President Donald Trump has tapped Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as his new national security adviser.

Trump announced the pick Monday at his Palm Beach club, Mar-a-Lago. He says McMaster is “a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience.”

Trump says retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who had been his acting adviser, will now serve as the National Security Council chief of staff.

Trump had been looking for a replacement for retired Gen. Michael Flynn, who was ousted last week.</s>US President Donald Trump named Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as his new national security advisor on Monday (20 February). He replaces Michael Flynn who resigned last week over a potentially illegal phone call he made to the Russian ambassador before taking office.

Two other candidates interviewed for the position on Sunday were former Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, and Superintendent of the US Military Academy at West Point, Lt. Gen. Robert L. Calsen Jr.

Trump named McMaster at the Mar-a-Lago resort that has been the subject of some security concerns itself, after Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe were photographed by members discussing international security issues in a crowded restaurant.

McMaster is described by the New York Times as "one of the army's leading intellectuals", known for his criticism of senior military staff during the Vietnam war and the handling of the invasion of Iraq. Trump described McMaster as "a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience".

Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who had been serving as acting national security advisor after Flynn's departure, will return to his role as chief of staff of the National Security Council (NSC). In late January, Trump reshuffled the council to give a permanent seat to his chief strategist, former Breitbart executive Steve Bannon.

The previous national security advisor, Michael Flynn, came under fire when it was reported that he conducted a phone call with the Russian ambassador in which he discussed lifting US sanctions on the country. The conversation took place before Flynn had taken office, and under US law private citizens cannot engage in foreign policy.

The scandal also indicated rifts in the administration, with Vice President Mike Pence having publicly defended Flynn against the accusations while the Justice Department had already warned the White House that there were security concerns over Flynn.</s>(CNN) President Donald Trump has announced Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as the new national security adviser, and Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg remains the National Security Council chief of staff.

The President made the announcement at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Developing story - more to come</s>WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has announced Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as the new national security adviser, and Gen. Keith Kellogg remains the National Security Council chief of staff. The President made the announcement Monday afternoon at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

McMaster replaces Michael Flynn who resigned last week, an abrupt end to a brief tenure.

Flynn’s departure came just after reports surfaced the Justice Department warned the Trump administration last month that Flynn misled administration officials regarding his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States and was potentially vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians.

“I inadvertently briefed the Vice President-elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the President and the Vice President, and they have accepted my apology,” Flynn wrote, according to a copy of his resignation letter.</s>PALM BEACH, Fla. – President Donald Trump has tapped Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as his new national security adviser, replacing the ousted Michael Flynn.

Trump announced the pick Monday at his Palm Beach club and said McMaster is “a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience.”

Trump says retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg who had been his acting adviser, will now serve as the National Security Council chief of staff. He also said he would be asking John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to work with them in a “somewhat different capacity.”

Trump made the announcement from a luxurious living room, sitting on a couch between McMaster and Kellogg. He has been looking for a replacement for retired Gen. Michael Flynn, who was ousted last week.

Trump brought four options for the position to Mar-a-Lago over the weekend for in person interviews, McMaster among them. McMaster called the appointment a “privilege.”

The president told reporters as he exited the room that Vice President Mike Pence had been involved in the process.

The position of national security adviser does not require Senate confirmation.

Trump pushed out Flynn a week ago after revelations that the adviser had misled Pence about discussing sanctions with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. during the presidential transition. Trump said in a news conference Thursday that he was disappointed by how Flynn had treated Pence, but did not believe Flynn had done anything wrong by having the conversations.

Trump’s first choice to replace Flynn, retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward, turned down the offer.</s>WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has chosen a decorated and outspoken Army lieutenant general to be his next national security adviser.

He announced his selection of Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster for the job Monday, after retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was forced to resign only weeks into the job.

“He is a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience,” Trump said of McMaster while announcing the appointment Monday in Palm Beach, Florida.

A graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, McMaster commanded troops during the first Gulf War, receiving the Silver Star for his role commanding a tank during the Battle of 73 Easting, one of the biggest tank battles since World War II.

McMaster is also known for his intellectual pursuits, receiving a PhD in history from the University of North Carolina. In 1997 he also wrote a book taking the military to task for aspects of its public posture during the Vietnam War.

“I’d just like to say what a privilege it is to be able to continue serving our nation,” McMaster said while appearing alongside Trump. “I’m grateful to you for that opportunity. And I look forward to joining the national security team and doing everything I can to advance and protect the interests of the American people.”

Trump was also flanked by the acting national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg. Kellogg, a decorated Vietnam veteran and campaign adviser to Trump, will return to his duties as chief of staff of the National Security Council.

McMaster, currently serving as the director of the Army’s Capabilities Integration Center, is the first active-duty military officer to take the post since Gen. Colin Powell served in the role during the final years of the Reagan administration. As an active-duty service member, McMaster would likely have had difficulty turning down a job the commander in chief had asked him to fill.

His book, “Dereliction of Duty,” examined the military’s failure to communicate to US policymakers that America’s Vietnam War strategy was not working.

Retired Col. Cedric Leighton called the book “one of the great works to come out of military thinkers in the last two decades.”

“He talked about, in essence, the military’s responsibility to talk to civilian leaders, to challenge the status quo, and I think that’s what we need in the White House,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican and veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, told CNN’s Jim Sciutto. “I think it’s a great pick.”

McMaster redeployed to Iraq following the 2003 invasion, receiving praise for his command of US troops during efforts to secure Tal Afar from insurgents.

He was key in the development of the military’s counterinsurgency doctrine under Gen. David Petraeus, serving as his special assistant while Petraeus commanded US troops in Iraq from 2007 to 2008. Some of the counterinsurgency tactics he pioneered formed the backbone of the 2007 “surge” of additional American forces for the Iraq war effort, stabilizing the country and tamping down increasing violence.

He also deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 and oversaw military planning and anti-corruption efforts.

McMaster was named to Time Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in 2014.

“McMaster might be the 21st century Army’s pre-eminent warrior-thinker,” Ret. Lt. Gen. David Barno wrote of McMaster in an accompanying profile.

He went on to call him “the rarest of soldiers — one who repeatedly bucked the system and survived to join its senior ranks.”

“I watched senior Army generals argue over ways to end his career,” Barno added. “But he dodged those bullets.”

While praised publicly by many of his military colleagues, McMaster has a reputation for speaking his mind within military ranks, causing some to wonder if that’s why he wasn’t promoted more rapidly.

Some believe his advancement was met with some resistance in part because of his willingness to write publicly about military strategy and having such a high public profile while serving, something not necessarily encouraged within the ranks.

But Sen. John McCain, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee and sometimes-Trump critic, offered a quick endorsement of his selection, calling him “an outstanding choice for national security adviser.”

“I have had the honor of knowing him for many years, and he is a man of genuine intellect, character and ability. He knows how to succeed,” McCain said in a statement, adding, “I give President Trump great credit for this decision.”

Leighton told CNN: “I do wonder if the President thought that this was somebody who could shake things up, but shake things up in a way where the institutions would survive so they would become more effective.”</s>U.S. President Donald Trump has tapped Army Lt. Gen. H R McMaster, a prominent military strategist known as a creative thinker, as his new national security adviser, replacing the ousted Michael Flynn. Trump announced the pick Monday at his Palm Beach, Florida, club and said McMaster is “a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience.” Sitting next to Trump for the announcement, McMaster said he was honoured to take on the role and added that he looks forward to “doing everything that I can to advance and protect the interests of the American people.”

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The president’s choice further elevates the influence of military officers in the new administration. Trump, who has no military or foreign policy experience, has shown a strong preference for putting generals in top roles. In this case, he tapped an active-duty officer for a post that’s sometimes used as a counterweight to the Pentagon. McMaster, who wore his uniform for the announcement, joins Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, both retired generals, in Trump’s inner circle of national security advisers.

The White House said Monday McMaster plans to remain on active military duty.

He will take on the challenge of leading a National Security Council that has not adjusted smoothly to Trump’s leadership. The president suggested he does not trust holdovers from the Obama administration and complained about leaks to reporters. His decision to put his top political adviser on the senior committee of the National Security Council drew sharp criticism. On Friday, the head of the council’s Western Hemisphere division was fired after he criticised Trump’s policies and his inner circle of advisers.

Trump said Monday that retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who had been his acting adviser, will now serve as the National Security Council chief of staff. He also said he would be asking John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to work with them in a “somewhat different capacity.”

McMaster is viewed as soldier-scholar and creative thinker. He has a doctoral degree in history from the University of North Carolina and has been heavily involved in the Army’s efforts to shape its future force and its way of preparing for war. He is the director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, a sort of military think tank, at Fort Eustis, Virginia.

Outside of the Army, he may be best known for his 1997 book, “Dereliction of Duty,” a searing indictment of the U.S. government’s mishandling of the Vietnam War and an analysis of what he called the “lies that led to Vietnam.” The book earned him a reputation for being willing to speak truth to power.

McMaster commanded troops in both American wars in Iraq — in 1991, when he fought in a storied tank battle known as the Battle for 73 Easting, and again in 2005-2006 in one of the most violent periods of the insurgency that developed after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. He is credited with using innovative approaches to countering the insurgency in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar when he commanded the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. He later served as a special adviser to the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

McMaster was Trump’s second choice to replace Flynn, who has been under FBI investigation for his contacts with Russian officials. Trump dismissed Flynn last week after revelations that the adviser had misled Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of his discussion with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. during the presidential transition. Trump said in a news conference Thursday that he was disappointed by how Flynn had treated Pence, but did not believe Flynn had done anything wrong by having the conversations.

Trump’s first choice to replace Flynn, retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward, turned down the offer.

Trump announced his choice sitting between McMaster and Kellogg in a luxurious living room at the resort property. The president told reporters that Vice President Mike Pence had been involved in the process, but he did not elaborate.

Trump brought four candidates for the position to Mar-a-Lago over the weekend for in-person interviews, McMaster among them. McMaster called the appointment a “privilege.”

It was not clear how closely McMaster’s and Trump’s views align. On Russia, McMaster appears to hold a much dimmer view than Trump of Moscow’s military and political objectives in Europe.

In remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in May 2016, McMaster said Russia managed to annex Crimea and intervene militarily in eastern Ukraine “at zero cost” from the international community.

McMaster said Moscow’s broader goal is to “collapse the post-Cold War security, economic and political order in Europe and replace that order with something that is more sympathetic to Russian interests.”

In his current role, McMaster has been studying the way Russia developed and executed its campaigns in Crimea and Ukraine, where it used what some call “hybrid warfare” — part political, part disinformation, part military.

`”He is a man of genuine intellect, character, and ability. He knows how to succeed,” he said in a statement. “I give President Trump great credit for this decision, as well as his national security Cabinet choices.”

The position of national security adviser does not require Senate confirmation.</s>PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump has announced Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as the new national security adviser, and Gen. Keith Kellogg remains the National Security Council chief of staff.

The President made the announcement at his Mar-a-Lago resort.</s>President Donald Trump announced Monday that Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster will serve as his next national security adviser, filling the void left last week by the sudden dismissal of Michael Flynn.

McMaster, the head of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, will become one of Trump’s top national security and foreign policy advisers, taking the helm of the White House’s National Security Council, which was left rudderless after Flynn was forced to resign after just 24 days on the job.

Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who had been serving as the acting national security adviser since Flynn’s exit, will return to his role as chief of staff of the National Security Council.

Trump announced his decision Monday seated alongside McMaster and Kellogg at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, where a day earlier he interviewed McMaster and several other candidates for the national security adviser post.

“He is a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience,” Trump said of McMaster. “I watched and read a lot over the last two days. He is highly respected by everybody in the military, and we’re very honored to have him.”

McMaster called the appointment a privilege and said he looks forward to doing “everything I can to advance and protect the interests of the American people.”

McMaster was not Trump’s first choice to assume the role of national security adviser. Trump initially offered the position last week to retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward, who turned it down amid concerns about how the White House was being run, sources told CNN last week.

The search for a new national security adviser was sparked by a report that revealed Flynn had discussed sanctions with Russia’s ambassador to the US, Sergei Kislyak, before the Trump administration came into office and did not disclose that detail of the conversation to Vice President Mike Pence. Trump said he fired Flynn because of his failure to disclose those details to Pence, but not because of the conversation itself with the Russian ambassador.
President Donald Trump names United States Army Lt. General H. R. McMaster as National Security Advisor and says that U.S. Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who has been the acting NSA, will remain as the NSC's Chief of Staff.