Battlegrounds

From Lt. General H.R. McMaster, former National Security Advisor during Trump’s administration, a bold assessment of the most critical foreign policy and national security challenges of our age.

There has been a shift in power since the end of the Cold War. In Battlegrounds, bestselling author, commander, scholar and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster examines the rising strength of Russia and China, the threat from hostile states Iran and North Korea, the complex battlegrounds in South Asia and the Middle East, and the new arenas of international competition – space, cyberspace and emerging technology.

How can foreign policy, which has across multiple administrations proved itself outdated, misconceived, inconsistent and poorly implemented, be transformed to face the challenges of today? How can Western countries like America and the UK stay relevant, secure and humane? How can we abandon what McMaster calls ‘Strategic Narcissism’ in favour of ‘Strategic Empathy’ – an approach that relies on understanding other nations’ motivations and ideologies?

A groundbreaking reassessment of international security and survival, McMaster gives vital insight to life inside the most powerful office and military force in the world, and makes bold arguments for how to achieve a safer, more peaceful future.

About the Author

H. R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Stanford University. He is also the Susan and Bernard Liautaud Fellow at The Freeman Spogli Institute and Lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He serves as chairman of the advisory board of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Japan Chair at the Hudson Institute.

A native of Philadelphia, H.R. graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1984. He served as a U.S. Army officer for thirty-four years and retired as a lieutenant general in 2018. He remained on active duty while serving as the twenty-sixth assistant to the president for national security affairs. He taught history at West Point and holds a PhD in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.