Good Fog Of War Essay Example

The movie “Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara”, is a documentary expressed through the viewpoint of U.S Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara, who worked during Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. In the movie, McNamara describes the reasons for the Vietnam War, Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crises. Regarding the cold war, the movie expresses the domino theory, which explains that if a state in a country is ruled by communism, then the neighboring countries follow the domino effect. Throughout the movie, it is understandable that war occurs because of a conflict between two groups due to some misinterpretation which is not cleared at initial stages.
McNamara describes about Khrushchev, who had participated in a couple of wars and knew it very well that a war ends when it destroys the cities and villages, causing death and destruction, and only this truth can be considered as the logic of war. McNamara even argues if it is necessary to kill a million people in a night or firebomb them in order to win a war against different nations. As per McNamara the Vietnam War was observed as cold-heartedness toward human beings. McNamara speaks of eleven lessons for American foreign policy and a majority of these lessons of war that McNamara speaks were not practical in Vietnam and, in perception after the fact, were the main mistakes made by the United States while controlling the state of affairs in Vietnam. During the World War II and Cold War McNamara’s superiors concentrated on military power and the reliability of its use. McNamara claims that they won the war to eliminate any other wars in the future, with a feeling that wars will continue to happen until the human’s change their nature and perception about wars.
Overall, McNamara suggests that the war culture must follow the lessons such as empathizing the enemy, being irrational, to be something beyond one’s self, maximize efficiency, be proportional in war, understand the facts, not to be confident in seeing and believing, have a good reasoning, and finally never say never.