Lt. General H.R. McMaster
Boards are being asked to take real positions on China exposure, Russia, sanctions regimes, and the next conflict before the analyst notes catch up. Most leadership teams have no internal capacity to read state-level competition with confidence. The cost of getting it wrong now sits in revenue lines, not just risk registers.
H. R. McMaster is a former US National Security Advisor and retired three-star general who helps boards and executive teams read geopolitical competition with the clarity of someone who has both commanded forces in the field and set policy from the West Wing.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with H. R. McMaster
- A National Security Advisor’s view of how the United States, China, Russia, Iran and North Korea actually behave, drawn from the seat where the options are written, not from outside the room.
- A historian’s discipline applied to current events. His PhD-grade work on Vietnam decision-making in Dereliction of Duty is the same lens he turns on present-day strategic mistakes.
- Direct argument over diplomatic hedge. McMaster takes positions, names countries and policies, and explains the reasoning, which is what boards under sanctions and supply-chain pressure actually need.
- Thirty-four years of command experience translated into language executives use. He speaks about decision-making under contact with the enemy, not as metaphor, but as a method that maps onto leadership in volatile markets.
- A working policy interlocutor. Through Battlegrounds with H.R. McMaster at the Hoover Institution he is in regular conversation with serving and former heads of state, defence ministers and intelligence chiefs, which keeps his read of the system current.
Biography highlights
- 25th National Security Advisor of the United States, 2017 to 2018.
- Retired US Army lieutenant general after a 34-year career; awarded the Silver Star for action at the Battle of 73 Easting in the Gulf War.
- Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University; lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
- Author of three bestsellers: Dereliction of Duty, Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World, and At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House.
- Named to TIME’s 100 Most Influential People and Fortune’s World’s Greatest Leaders.
- Host of Battlegrounds with H.R. McMaster, the Hoover Institution’s policy interview series with serving and former heads of state and senior officials.
Biography
The seats where US strategy is actually written are small. McMaster has occupied two of them: command of an armoured cavalry troop in combat, and the office of National Security Advisor in the White House. That combination is what makes his read of geopolitical risk practical for boards rather than ornamental.
His Gulf War record is part of the public file. As a captain in February 1991, his Eagle Troop destroyed 28 Iraqi tanks, 16 personnel carriers and 30 trucks at the Battle of 73 Easting in 23 minutes, without losing a soldier. He was awarded the Silver Star. He went on to command the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar in 2005 and 2006, work that informed the US shift in counterinsurgency doctrine under General Petraeus.
The intellectual record runs in parallel. Dereliction of Duty, drawn from his University of North Carolina PhD, dissected how the Joint Chiefs of Staff failed to challenge the political logic that produced the Vietnam War, and is still on US military reading lists. Battlegrounds, published in 2020, sets out how the United States misread China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, the Middle East, South Asia and the cyber domain over two decades. At War with Ourselves, the 2024 New York Times bestseller, is his account of running the National Security Council under the Trump administration.
Today he is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and lectures at the Graduate School of Business. Through the Battlegrounds interview series he keeps a working line into serving heads of state, defence ministers and intelligence chiefs, which is the substantive update boards want when they ask what is actually happening between Washington, Beijing, Moscow and Tehran.
Key speaking topics
- Geopolitical competition with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea
- US foreign policy and national security strategy
- Decision-making under uncertainty and contact
- Leadership in high-stakes, ambiguous environments
- Risk to global commerce from state-level conflict
- Cyber, technology and the future of national power
- History as a discipline for present strategic choice
Ideal for
- Boards and executive committees stress-testing China exposure, sanctions risk, and country strategy
- CEOs, CFOs and chief strategy officers setting capital allocation against geopolitical scenarios
- General counsel, chief risk officers and heads of government affairs
- Defence, aerospace, energy, financial services and technology leadership audiences with direct geopolitical exposure
Audience outcomes
- A clearer read of how the United States and its rivals actually make strategic decisions, and where that points next.
- A working framework for thinking about competition with China and Russia that goes beyond headlines.
- Sharper questions for the company’s own scenario planning, sanctions exposure and supply-chain assumptions.
- A historian’s perspective on why strategic mistakes repeat, applied to decisions the audience is currently making.
- Confidence to take a position on geopolitical risk inside the company, rather than outsourcing it to consultants.
Talks
A direct briefing on the threats facing the United States and its allies, and what they mean for global commerce.
Key takeaways:
- A current read on China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from a former National Security Advisor.
- The specific pressure points where state competition reaches into corporate operations.
- A practical structure for thinking about national security risk inside a company.
A tour of the major theatres of strategic competition, drawn from McMaster’s book of the same name.
Key takeaways:
- How the United States misread the post-Cold War period and what that produced.
- Why the cyber and technology fronts now sit alongside traditional military theatres.
- What a working strategy of competitive engagement looks like for governments and companies.
A current-affairs briefing built around the most consequential live questions in international affairs.
Key takeaways:
- The fault lines that will most shape the next operating cycle for global businesses.
- How sanctions, export controls and supply chain decoupling are reshaping commercial strategy.
- Where the United States, China and Europe are likely to converge or break apart.
A leadership talk drawn from command in combat and from running the National Security Council.
Key takeaways:
- Decision-making when information is incomplete and the cost of delay is real.
- Building teams that can challenge the leader without breaking the chain of command.
- The discipline of separating the decision from the personality of the person making it.
How AI, cyber, and emerging technology are changing the structure of national power and corporate risk.
Key takeaways:
- Why technology competition is now inseparable from geopolitical competition.
- The implications for companies operating across the US-China technology boundary.
- Where boards should be asking sharper questions of their own technology and security functions.