This is good news. H.R. McMaster has finally been promoted to Brigadier General after being passed over twice. McMaster is a true military intellectual, the author of a definitive book about the Army in Vietnam. He was a supporter and practitioner of counterinsurgency tactics, commanding a battalion in Tal Afar in 2005-6, and was recruited by David Petraeus as an occasional advisor on the pacification of Baghdad in 2007. Those who know him well–(I don’t)–say that he is not only an excellent battlefield commander, but also a brilliant strategist and tactician. Indeed, there was real disgust in the ranks that McMaster didn’t receive his star on the first try. “This guy is the future of the Army,” one colonel told me. “At least, he should be.”
Also notable on the promotion list is Sean McFarland, the colonel who helped pacify Ramadi and began the tribal negotiations in Ramadi that led to the Anbar Awakening. McFarland did excellent work under very difficult circumstances.
Kudos should go to Defense Secretary Robert Gates for bringing Petraeus back to Washington last autumn to sit on this promotion board. It’s about time the Army began to value its thinkers and innovators as much as it does its standard-issue, by-the-book general officers.
Update: Commenter Paul Dirks provides this valuable link re McMaster.