Blog 12 NC

The documentary describes 11 key ideas that McNamara uses to try and teach lessons:

1. Empathize with your enemy
2. Rationality will not save us
3. There's something beyond one's self
4. Maximize efficiency
5. Proportionality should be a guideline 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

The title of the film The Fog of War emphasizes the uncertainty during the war that McNamara faced. His main reason behind the film seems at first glance to be about the mistakes made by the government during the Vietnam War. On a deeper level, it is about McNamara's personal guilt. Kennedy wanted McNamara to join him in the White House due to his successes in the auto industry, but McNamara was reluctant to accept due to his lack of experience and knowledge in such matters but eventually gave in. This choice made him Secretary of Defense, and he remembers when the war became his top issue he was not qualified to make recommendations and advice. Though the war was not his fault, his participation in mistakes resulted in American deaths, and cries during the film in his reflection.

The ideas about the war shift between rules 5 and 7. Rule 6 is 'get the data,' but after getting the data and realizing what was truly going on, the rules shift into a theme of questioning, revealing a lack of confidence and realization of the inevitability of a loss. Rules 1 - 5 appear to be about planning a confident victory, but the rule in which data is received turns the tables and makes the first rules feel faulty. The doubt in these last rules leaves the impression that the rules are out of order if meant to be set sequentially, as the first rules seem like good ideas before entering the war but the last rules recognize their failures.