Fog of War

The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

This film won an Academy award for best documentary last night . It was directed by Errol Morris, who also directed the phenomenal The Thin Blue Line.

Go see this film!

This is like Errol Morris's other films, both a work of art, as well as an amazing film that is fascinating and illuminative. Another folk about there wondered what Errol might say in his acceptance speech, and specifically whether he would thank Robert McNamara. Well I watched the Oscars, as I do every year, and it was clear when Morris grasped his little gold statue, that he is slight off center. He went through a list of people to thank.

I want to thank XXX
And I want to thank XXX

Then he paused and said:

And Robert McNamara, without him this film would not have existed and I wouldn't be here

He stopped just short of actually using the word thank in the same sentence as McNamara, but he came as close as I am sure Mr. Morris could. You see Errol was during the 60's an avid anti-Vietnam war protestor, and Robert McNamara had a little bit to do with that war. If you don't know much about McNamara or the Vietnam war, go see this movie.

Salient Facts

• Cuban missile crisis
  In the game of brinkmanship, when we pushed the Russian to the edge of nuclear war, there were actually 160 missles with 90 nuclear war heads on the island of Cuba! When McNamara met with Castro years later and asked him if he would have recommended their usage to Kruschev-. Castro asserted not only would I have I did!


• Fire bombing of Tokyo
  McNamara's characterization of applying statistical efficiency to the fire bombing of Tokyo. We killed more people and destroyed more property in the bombings of Tokyo than we did with the nuclear bombs we dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. This was something I had already learned in college, but it was startling to consider it again, especially when McNamara posits that if the US had lost the war we should have probably been tried as war criminals.


• Misunderstanding our Enemy in Vietnam
  McNamara acknowledge that both the Vietnamese and the United States misunderstood each other in their approach to the war. The Vietnamese viewed us a colonial power replacing the French and that they were fighting for their independence. We viewed them as allies of communist China and we were stopping the domino effect of communism is south east Asia


• Take no military action alone
  Regarding our military action in Vietnam, McNamara argued that (psuedo quote) "we should never engage in overt militarism against another country alone. If our plans are justified and warranted we should be able to convince our peers in the international community." This is a particularly interesting point to ponder in light of the US-Iraq question, where we have only been able to convince Great Britan, and the rest of our international peers remain unconvinced.

The Lessons

#1 Empathize with the Enemy.
#2 Rationality will not save us.
#3 There is something beyond yourself.
#4 Maximize efficiency.
#5 Proportionality should be a measure in war.
#6 Get the data.
#7 Belief and seeing are often both wrong.
#8 Be prepared to re-examine your reasoning.
#9 In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.
#10 Never say never.
#11 You can't change human nature.