“A public informed about challenges to national security and issues that adversaries use to sow dissension, such as race, gun control, and immigration, will prove less vulnerable to manipulation. Education inoculates society against efforts to foment hatred and incite violence based on race, religion, politics, sexual orientation, or any other sub-identity. Finally, education combined with the restoration of civility in public discourse can reduce the vitriol that widens the fissures in society that Russia and others exploit” (77).

H.R. McMaster, using his background as a historian and experience as National Security Advisor, provides a great overview in his book “Battlegrounds – The Fight to Defend the Free World” (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2020), of the challenges that the United States faces as our nation tries to navigate relations with Russia, China, South Asia, the Middle East, Iran, and North Korea. Of course, I do not agree with everything that he says in the book, and he is writing from a Republican Party’s perspective. You can perceive the difference in the treatment of Democratic presidents versus Republicans, but it is definitely a great resource to understand the intricate connections of governance in our modern world. The book is divided into seven parts, six covering the areas of the world mentioned above and the last part titled “Arenas,” where the author covers how cyber, social media, and other technologies are presenting a threat to free societies.

One of the main themes in this book is what the author calls “strategic narcissism,” a term derived from Hans Morgenthau’s essay, “Roots of Narcissism.” McMaster defined it as the tendency to view the world only in relation to the United States and to assume that the future course of events depends primarily on U.S. decisions or plans (15). The other is strategic empathy as a corrective measure. Strategic empathy is a concept by historian Zachary Shore and is described as the skill of understanding what drives and constrains one’s adversary (16).

On Russia, one comment that caught my attention was from the former National Security Council’s director for Russia, Joe Wang, stating that “the prospect for a near-term improvement in U.S.-Russia relations were dim mainly due to Mr. Putin’s need for an external foe to prevent internal opposition” (30). McMaster goes on to explain Putin’s playbook, which is part of the long-standing Russian military strategy using tactical deception and disguise. Putin’s playbook combined disinformation with deniability. The new playbook added disruptive technologies and the use of cyberspace to enable conventional and unconventional military forces (33). Later on page 41, McMaster added that “Russian disinformation is designed to shake citizens’ belief in their common identity and in their democratic principles, institutions, and processes by manipulating social media, planting false stories, and creating false personas.” He also mentioned that “the mainstream media often aided Russian disinformation even as reporters tried to debunk conspiracy theories: falsehoods reported tended to be falsehoods believed” (49). In my opinion, the highlight of the Russia chapters was a comment made by Dr. Fiona Hill during her deposition to Congress, captured on page 63. She observed that “when we are consumed by partisan rancor, we cannot combat these external forces as they seek to divide us against each other, to degrade our institutions and destroy the faith of the American people in our democracy.”

On China, the main point is that “the Chinese Communist Party was relentlessly pursuing the ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ and that this great rejuvenation is an inevitable return to an earlier era during which Imperial China was a powerful ‘Middle Kingdom'” (93). China’s strategy, according to the book, involves co-option, coercion, and concealment, integrating a range of cultural, economic, technological, and military efforts. What makes this strategy potent and dangerous, not only to the United States and the free world but also to China’s citizens deemed a threat to the party’s ambitions, is the integrated nature of the party’s effort across government, industry, academia, and the military (104).

“China’s expanding influence in the world, what scholars and policymakers call the ‘everything under heaven,’ aims to put in place a modern-day version of the tributary system that Chinese emperors used to establish authority over vassal states. Under that Imperial system, kingdoms could trade and enjoy peace with the Chinese Empire in return for submission. China intends to establish the new tributary system through a massive effort organized under three overlapping policies: Made in China 2025, One Belt One Road (OBOR), and Military-Civil Fusion. Made in China 2025 is designed to make China a largely independent science and technology innovation power. OBOR calls for more than one trillion dollars in new infrastructure investments across the Indo-Pacific and Eurasian continents and beyond. The Military-Civil Fusion policy is the most totalitarian of the three prongs; ‘all organizations and citizens’ must support, assist with, and collaborate in national intelligence work and guard the national intelligence work secrets they are privy to. Chinese companies work alongside universities and research arms of the People’s Liberation Army not only to achieve its economic goals but also to extend China’s influence internationally” (110-115).

On the South Asia chapters, the book covers the war in Afghanistan, the different terrorist groups operating in the area, and how Pakistan is enabling terrorist groups. On the initial pages, McMaster describes how “Bin Laden built Al-Qaeda on hatred of those who did not adhere to its extremist interpretation of Islam. The hatred was directed at Sunni Muslims, or ‘apostates,’ who did not support Al-Qaeda’s sanctioned cruelty and misogyny. Later, under Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and other terrorist organizations such as ISIS, hatred expanded to include Christians and Jews, or ‘unbelievers’; Shia Muslims, or ‘rejectionists,’ who regarded Ali, the fourth caliph, as Muhammad’s first true successor; and Sufis, who reject violence in favor of introspection and spiritual closeness with God. Al-Qaeda believed that members of these groups had only two choices: either surrender and convert, or else be killed” (168-169). Later on page 173, the book explains that the ecosystem that sustained Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, ISIS-K, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other terrorist organizations exposed flawed assumptions that our policymakers had made about the enemy. U.S. leaders often imagined bold lines between terrorist groups – lines that simply did not exist. Although the Taliban and numerous terrorist organizations in Afghanistan and Pakistan sometimes clashed with one another, they more often formed alliances or shared resources to pursue their common cause (173). “Under Taliban rule, women were denied education and brutally punished for actions such as venturing outside the home unaccompanied by a male relative or talking with men to whom they were not related, even by telephone” (189). “Jihadist terrorists depend on ignorance. Decades of war and the brutality of the Taliban denied education to a population that became susceptible to the demagoguery of the Taliban and terrorist groups” (194). Lastly, on page 205, McMaster indicated that “most of that abject disappointment was based on the Pakistan Army’s failure to confront a particularly brutal Mujahideen militia that sought control of territory along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the Haqqani network. The Haqqanis provided another compelling example of how the terrorist ecosystem in Pakistan is a danger to that country and the world. The Haqqanis are also an example of the Pakistan Army’s unwillingness to stop using terrorists as an arm of Pakistan’s foreign policy.”

On the Middle East, the chapters focus on the religious divide, providing some background on the Shia and Sunni conflict. “After the prophet Muhammad died in 632, Islam split between Shia (which means followers of Ali, those who believed that Ali ibn Abi Talib, a cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, was Muhammad’s designated successor) and Sunnis (those who believed that Muhammad did not appoint a successor and who considered Abu Bakr to be the first rightful caliph after the Prophet” (235). Also, the political and religious power struggle between Shia-majority Iran and Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia (236) and highlighting the Syrian Assad regime’s long history of sponsoring Sunni and Shia terrorist organizations, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Kurdish terrorist organization the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (238). On page 263, McMaster states one of the reasons why the U.S. engages in the region, “The argument to war-weary U.S. citizens as well as NATO and EU nations sharing the burden in the Middle East is that preventing the rise of terrorist organizations is less costly than responding after they become an inescapable threat.”

McMaster then proceeds to chapters about Iran and their forty-year proxy wars. Regarding their nuclear weapons ambitions, he says, “The Iranian bomb was meant to be the ultimate weapon in the Islamic Republic’s proxy wars to push the United States out of the Middle East, dominate its Arab neighbors, and destroy Israel” (306). McMaster also explains the concept of “bonyads” and how Iran uses them to exert influence across the government to maintain their power through moral and financial corruption. Bonyads are “religious foundations that provide cover for extensive patronage networks from which the ayatollah and government officials profit. Bonyads control businesses, receive government contracts, launder money, operate without any external audits, and pay no taxes. The Supreme Leader appoints the heads of the bonyads” (313).

On North Korea, McMaster explains the relationship between the two Koreas and why North Korea is pursuing a nuclear weapon. “Kim Jong Un and his father both spoke of their planned nuclear arsenal as a ‘treasured sword’ designed to cleave the alliance between the United States and South Korea and make the United States think twice about ever coming to South Korea’s aid in time of war. Because the United States would likely determine that the security of South Korea was not worth a nuclear holocaust on its own territory, nuclear weapons would help push U.S. forces off the peninsula as the first step toward ‘red-colored unification’, or ‘final victory’, after which South Korea would submit to Kim family rule” (374-375). It also discusses how North Korea is sharing nuclear and missile technology with Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Iran (376-377).

The last chapter of the book is called “Entering the Arena,” in which the author discusses technology such as the internet and the use of social media. He highlights the pros and cons of using the internet, particularly how people and organizations are using it to foment hatred and disinformation. “The cyber-enabled effort to erode the effectiveness of U.S. foreign policy through disparagement and dissension would, with the advent of deep fakes and other new technologies, become only more prevalent and more dangerous” (400). “Viewing the internet and social media as an arena of competition rather than an unmitigated good is a mindset we need to take advantage of the free exchange of information while protecting against dangers. Perhaps most importantly, citizens should not wait for political leaders or the media to counter cyber-enabled information warfare. Individuals can decide to reject the toxicity and disinformation in the social media ecosystem and reintroduce civility into the discussions important to a thriving democracy” (403).

McMaster concludes his book with some key points. “An important first step in developing policy and strategy, I believed, was to understand how the past produced the present” (426). “The four fundamental continuities in the nature of war: war is political, war is human, war is uncertain, and war is a contest of wills. As General George Marshall observed in his address to the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in 1939, ‘In our democracy where the government is truly an agent of the popular will,’ foreign policy and military policy are ‘dependent on public opinion,’ and our policies and strategies ‘will be as good or bad as the public is well informed or poorly informed regarding the factors that bear on the subject'” (433).

Throughout the book, McMaster proposes frameworks to solve each of the problems. For example, on climate change, he states, “strategic narcissism obscures solutions as some climate activists imagine a world consistent with what they want to achieve but take no practical steps to seize opportunities to address the problem. Their conceit leads them to overlook political and economic realities that would shatter their dreams. Climate deniers evince a different form of strategic narcissism; theirs is based on willful ignorance. What the world needs is a comprehensive strategy based on the recognition that countries will not suppress their security and economic interests to join an international agreement. Proposals must have broad commercial and political appeal not only in prosperous nations but also in developing economies. And those solutions must avoid focusing on only one aspect of this complex problem set and thereby creating problems in other areas” (417-418).

The author’s hope is that “this book contributes to improving U.S. strategic competence through enabling a better understanding both of the history of how crucial challenges to national security developed and of the ideology, emotions, and aspirations that drive the other. But to preserve our competitive advantages, Americans need to focus inwardly as well as outwardly” (439). I believe that the author met his objective with this book and is definitely a good starting point as we try to understand our part in this complicated world. The book is well researched with 68 pages of references. He also included a recommended reading list and a selected bibliography. I highly recommend this book.

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