That brings the discussion back to strategy. A visceral determination to push back against every single one of this country’s adversaries is an admirable patriotic trait, baffling only to those who don’t share it. But it’s not enough. On the international chessboard, as it really exists, we cannot move at maximum speed in every direction at once. There is also a place for cool analysis of how necessary moves on one front may require temporary adaptations on another, precisely in order to secure the whole.  No successful strategy has ever done otherwise.

This is exactly the dilemma that the United States will face in the coming years, no matter who is president: How can the United States gather its energies and reorient its foreign policy so as to best match the domineering challenge from China, without either losing in other directions or engaging in a kind of strategic autism? Only the glib will suggest they already have every precise answer. This is going to take time. Meanwhile, McMaster offers hard-earned wisdom regarding the road ahead.

Commissioned U.S. Army officers take an oath, swearing that they will support and defend the Constitution of the United States “against all enemies.” Immigrants to this nation take a very similar oath. It’s difficult to think of many living Americans who’ve kept such an oath more dutifully than H. R. McMaster. He defends his country against all enemies.

Colin Dueck is a professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and a Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His most recent book is Age of Iron: On Conservative Nationalism (Oxford, 2019).

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