H.R. McMaster Is Up To His Old Tricks on North Korea

Daniel R. DePetris

Security,

Offering early sanctions relief in return for simple promises, in McMaster’s telling, would be “the definition of insanity.”

Retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster may not be churning out policy papers for the president or chairing meetings of the National Security Council anymore, but that doesn’t mean he intends to be quiet and ride into the sunset. 

Since his resignation, the former national security adviser has been working for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy (FDD), one of the more hawkish think tanks in Washington, D.C. (and perhaps not coincidentally, one of the most influential in the Beltway) and chairing its relatively new Center on Military and Political Power program. From his perch, McMaster has continued to dispense what he sees as wisdom to his former boss from the outside.

He did it again last week. Speaking at an event at FDD, McMaster threw bows and arrows at President Trump’s North Korea policy and warned the White House about falling for Kim Jong-un’s voodoo. While he defended Trump’s summitry with the North Korean leader as a necessary move to get the diplomatic process up and running, the 3-star General also sent his former colleagues a message: if you intend to continue negotiating with Pyongyang, you better do so with awareness of North Korea’s trickery, in which they grab whatever economic relief they can get before reneging on their own commitments. Offering early sanctions relief in return for simple promises, in McMaster’s telling, would be “the definition of insanity,” a visible example of an administration that doesn’t understand North Korea’s diplomatic history.