Following is our discussion, which was edited for clarity and flow.
BERGEN: You’ve described the Taliban peace agreement with the United States that was signed by the Trump administration in 2020 and implemented by the Biden administration this year as a “surrender agreement.” Who’s responsible for this surrender?
And then the Trump administration for doubling down on those same flaws, not understanding the nature of the enemy, and again, giving a timeline for a withdrawal, making concession after concession, and then thinking you’re going to get a favorable agreement.
Then President Biden could have reversed those horrible decisions and that fundamentally flawed approach to the war, and he didn’t.
So, I would say three administrations share responsibility for what I would call the “surrender” to a terrorist organization.
We created the enemy we would prefer in Afghanistan: A Taliban that would be more benign, a Taliban that was separate from other jihadist terrorist groups, and that was a complete pipedream. All of us knew it, but you kept hearing the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the secretary of state, the President describing an enemy that didn’t exist in Afghanistan, and then surrender to terrorists.
BERGEN: Are you talking about Trump or Biden or both?
BERGEN: Switching gears, it seems the Taiwan situation is heating up. Is this just the Chinese doing what they always do and is nothing particularly new, or is this something different?
What China really wants is the annexation of Taiwan by invitation, and they want to do that through intimidation in a sustained campaign of political subversion against the Taiwanese people to affect their will. This has many components to it: Economic coercion is involved, the co-option of elites, a sustained campaign of disinformation and propaganda, and military intimidation is part of that as well.
BERGEN: What’s America’s best policy here?
McMASTER: I think “strategic ambiguity” is still a solid policy. If it’s made clear to the Chinese Communist Party and the people of the People’s Liberation Army that they can’t accomplish their objectives using force because of the possibility of US intervention and because of the capabilities that we have positioned forward in the area of Taiwan.
But the real key is to help Taiwan develop its own defensive capability, so it becomes indigestible from the perspective of the Chinese Communist Party.
BERGEN: Do you see continuities or differences between the Trump administration’s China approach that you were deeply involved in and the Biden team’s China approach?
McMASTER: I think there are mainly continuities. I think there’s a recognition that we can no longer adhere to the flawed assumptions of the past, and the primary assumption was (that) China, after having been welcomed into the international order, would play by its rules, and as it prospered would liberalize its economy and liberalize its form of governance.
BERGEN: Should the Biden administration be saying more about the Uyghurs, more about Hong Kong?
What we need across the free world is for China and the Chinese Communist Party to become the number one ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) issue in boardrooms. How can genocide not be an ESG issue?
BERGEN: Biden: What’s he getting right? What’s he getting wrong?
BERGEN: Is it a good thing that the US is back in the Paris Climate Agreement?
McMASTER: The danger of thinking that everything is OK by being a member of the Paris Agreement is complacency, and the Paris Agreement will not achieve anything because even if the United States and the developed economies meet all their goals, emissions from China, India, Africa, and across developing economies are going to poison the world. So, it’s important that we pursue solutions and do not present what I think is a false dilemma between carbon emission reduction and energy security, because we have a broad range of solutions available, but we’re pursuing those solutions only selectively.
So, we should move to next-generation nuclear power, which is much safer, much more advanced technology that produces waste that is less toxic with a much shorter half-life.
BERGEN: The North Koreans? Where are they going?
McMASTER: Well, we don’t know. This is the only hereditary Communist dictatorship in the world, and our view into it is imperfect. But it’s quite likely that they are in a crisis that could threaten the Kim family regime in a substantive way. The crisis is one associated with food security and potential famine as well as the devastation that Covid brought to what was already a failing economy. And so I think what is important is to keep the pressure on North Korea, to convince Kim Jong-un that his regime is safer without nuclear weapons than he is with them. What you’re seeing is the regime still pouring resources into its missile program and into its nuclear program, even though it’s under severe economic duress and experiencing food insecurity.
BERGEN: What about Iran?
McMASTER: Iran is a great danger because we’re exuding weakness there as well, as we did in Afghanistan. We have a negotiating team that is anxious to make concession after concession as they did on the previous Iran nuclear deal that would result in a weak agreement that I think will just provide cover for Iran to continue its nuclear program, but it’s even worse than that. The concessions we make in lifting the sanctions will enrich the regime. Money associated with new contracts with Iran go right into the coffers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or into the coffers of the businesses that are run mainly by the children of the clerical order, and therefore, what they do is they give Iran more resources to intensify its four-decade-long proxy war against the great Satan, the United States, the little Satan, the United Kingdom, and Israel. And so the danger to Israel and Iran’s Arab neighbors will increase, and I think a weak agreement with Iran will make the chances of war very high because the Israeli Defense Force will conclude that it has no option other than to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.
BERGEN: What is Putin’s plan now?
McMASTER: Putin is under tremendous duress, and he’s under duress because of the stagnation of the economy, and he’s under duress because of the extremely poor Russian response to Covid and the ongoing health crisis associated with it. And he’s under duress because I think a lot of Russians are just tired of having him around.
BERGEN: Should Trump run again?
McMASTER: I try and stay out of domestic politics. However, what I think is the American people need to pick somebody who can get to the politics of addition, who can convene a broader range of Americans around the issues we face and begin discussions with what we agree on, because I believe we can get a heck of a lot done if we just start with that. So, I think what we want are leaders who can help really bring Americans together, and I don’t think we’ve seen that in recent years. And that’s what we need.
BERGEN: Which brings me to the final question: The assault on the US Capitol on January 6th. Any thoughts?
McMASTER: January 6th was an assault on the first branch of government, and I think that what we must do is recognize that it was conspiracy theories that were used by the President and others used to whip up a crowd and incite an assault on the first branch of our government.
The investigation that’s ongoing is immensely important to understand why that happened. I hope they take a broader approach, and they consider why people felt so disenfranchised that they thought they were so easily convinced that their vote didn’t matter. Maybe we can conclude that we can ensure that every American who should vote can vote, but also increase the transparency and accountability of our system so that there’s no room any more for these conspiracy theories and for this demagoguery.
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