The Distinguished Lecture Series presented by the Honors College at Boise State University will feature H. R. McMaster, the 26th Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, at 7 p.m. March 2 at the Morrison Center for the Performing Arts. The event is free – no tickets are required – and is open to the public. Free parking also will be available.
McMaster designed the future Army as director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center and deputy commanding general of the Futures, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command from 2014-17. As commanding general of the Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, he oversaw all training and education for the Army’s infantry, armor and cavalry force. His extensive experience leading soldiers and organizations in wartime includes commander of the Combined Joint Inter-Agency Task Force Shafafiyat in Kabul, Afghanistan from 2010-12; commander of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq from 2005-06; and commander of the Eagle Troop Second Armored Cavalry Regiment in Operation Desert Storm from 1990-91. McMaster also served overseas as advisor to the most senior commanders in the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan.
McMaster led important strategic assessments, including the revision of Iraq strategy during the “surge” of 2007 and efforts to develop security forces and governmental institutions in post-war Iraq. In 2009-10 he led an assessment and planning effort to develop a comprehensive strategy for the greater Middle East.
McMaster was as an assistant professor of history at the United States Military Academy from 1994-96 where he taught undergraduate courses in military history and history of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, as well as a graduate course on the history of military leadership for officers enrolled in the Columbia University Master’s of Business Administration program.
McMaster has published scores of essays, articles and book reviews on leadership, history and the future of warfare in many publications including Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. He was a contributing editor for Survival magazine from 2010-17, and is a current senior fellow at The Hoover Institution. His award-winning book, “Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies that Led to Vietnam,” is a New York Times bestseller.
McMaster was commissioned as an officer in the United States Army upon graduation from the United States Military Academy in 1984. He holds a doctorate in military history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His military awards include the Silver Star Medal, Army Distinguished Service Medal with oak leaf cluster, the Bronze Star Medal with oak leaf cluster and the Purple Heart.
The Distinguished Lecture Series brings in renowned figures in the world of politics, academics and humanitarian activism to present on a range of powerful topics at Boise State. The series has featured former Deputy Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, German filmmaker Werner Herzog, New York Times’s Magazine staff writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, political analyst David Brooks, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Carl Wieman and Australia’s first woman Prime Minister Julia Gillard, to name a few.