A former US national security adviser during Donald Trump’s presidency has dismissed the Republican White House nominee’s boasts that he would broker an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine if elected in November as “a real myth”.
“I don’t really buy it,” HR McMaster said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation. “I think it’s a real myth – it’s a real misunderstanding of war – to assume that you can get a favorable political outcome without a favorable military outcome.
“That’s never really happened in war.”
The retired US army lieutenant general’s comments came nearly three months after a major poll of 15 countries showed most Europeans believed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would most likely end in a negotiated outcome rather than an outright victory by the Ukrainian military.
Meanwhile, three days earlier, Trump met with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump afterwards claimed to have “a very good relationship” with both Zelenskyy and the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin – and the former US president pledged to get the war between the two countries “resolved very quickly” if voters returned him to power.
“I really think we’re going to get it … but, you know, it takes two to tango,” Trump remarked.
In his interview on Sunday with the Face the Nation correspondent Robert Costa, McMaster said, “I don’t really buy it.”
McMaster said the only way Ukraine ends up with “a favorable settlement” is for Putin to be convinced that he’s losing the war, regardless of what Trump says about the role he could play in ending the conflict.
“How do you do that? You demonstrate our resolve to continue to support the Ukrainians as they defend themselves against this continued onslaught by the Russians,” McMaster said. “That’s how you get to – maybe – favorable conditions for negotiation.”
The US says it has provided about $61.3bn in military assistance to Ukraine since Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022. But Trump has put in doubt whether the US would cut off that aid if American voters give him a second presidency.
Not only has Trump frequently complimented Putin – he has also spoken about cutting off aid to Ukraine in order to force the country to negotiate a truce with Russia.
“It has to end,” Trump said on Friday of the war in Ukraine. Adding that Ukraine had “gone through hell”, the former president added: “At some point, it has to end.”
McMaster, a decorated combat veteran who won a famous tank battle in the first Gulf war, was the second of four national security advisers to serve in the Trump White House. He developed a reputation as one of the senior figures around Trump during the first two years of his presidency who were able to rein in the commander-in-chief’s most pugnacious instincts.
In August, McMaster published a memoir about working for Trump. The book described how Trump “lacked basic knowledge of how the government runs” – and how the former president struggled to comprehend that Ukraine was an independent country separate from Russia.
Shortly before McMaster’s interview on Face the Nation, the retired US army general Stanley McChrystal – who was fired as commander of American forces in Afghanistan during Barack Obama’s presidency – said he was endorsing the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, in November’s presidential election.
McMaster told the Face the Nation he would not endorse a presidential candidate because he was concerned about the US military “getting drug into partisan politics”.
