PositiveThe Sunday Times (UK)He is clearly not a man who suffers fools gladly and Battlegrounds, his assessment of the US’s strategic imperatives, does not shy away from exposing the many weaknesses in the country’s foreign policy ... Like all commanders who have spent time in conflict—he commanded the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar, Iraq, in 2005—McMaster draws too heavily, I suspect, on his own experiences on the ground in making some of his judgments. He thinks his success as a battalion commander in bringing communities together in one area of Iraq could have been repeated on a national scale. Yet a limited tactical success could never have worked more widely when the national strategy was so deeply flawed. The most striking chapters are on Iran ... Battlegrounds carries an important alert for the West.
