Blog 12 ABM

The Fog of War is a movie that details the life of Secratary of Defense Robert Macnamera. It shows how critical events he lived through such as both world wars, the Cuban Missle Crisis, being president of the Ford Motor Company and Vietnam shaped his life and his policies while he was acting as the Secratary of Defense. In the movie Macnamera highlighted 11 points that he used to guide his desision making during times of crisis.

I noticed that the first five points that were more applicable to soldiers and the next six seemed to be more applicable to commanders. The first point is to empathize with your enemy. This is something that all soldiers should do. This prevents horrific acts such as the My Lai masacar. War crimes would drop dramatically and war would be more humane if soldiers treated the enemy like human beings and not just animals that can be tortured, beaten and put down. The second point is another important point for a soldier to know. They cannot always rely on rationality to save them especially in times of war. As we have learned from the books we have read everything is permitted in war and what soldiers thought was right could be wrong and vise versa. Soldiers need to approach each situation differently and think outside of the box to survive. The third point is there is something beyond ones self. This is another great point for a soldier to know. Every action that they make has consiquenses that effect many more people then just them. Every enemy they kill affects the family of the dead soldier back home. Every airstrike they call in could kill hundreds of innocents. Soldiers need to consider the consiquences of their actions at all times during battle. The fourth point is maximizing efficiency. One thing that occured during Vietnam was extreme waste. Soldiers wasted everything from ammunition to time by cutting corners and treating the war like a vacation. Soldiers need to be cool and do their jobs and missions or they will surely fail as they did in Vietnam. War is not a joke and something to be taken lightly. The final point that seems to apply to soldiers that Macnamera made while he was a soldier is keep in mind proportionality. During war soldiers should not be excessive in the damage they cause. This will often cause civilians to turn against and hate them. Also, proportionality will reduce waste and increase efficiency.

The final six points seem to be formed after he became a commander and Secratary of Defense. Point six is to get the data. This is something that command needs to do efficiently. If they do not know the enemy and its positions, strength and how it is supplied and its strategy they cannot win. It seems that in Vietnam this rule was broken because the United States greatly underestimated the enemy. The next point is belief and seeing are both wrong. This point is another point inreference to the Vietnam war and seems to try and explain what went wrong. Despite the high body counts and the fact that the United States seemed to be pushing the North Vietnamese back they still managed to lose the war. The reports were grossly over estimated and contradicted what was actually going on in country. Number eight is an excellent point and possibly one of the ones that Macnamera focuses on when he discusses his regrets of the war. Number nine is be prepared to rethink your reasoning. Many of the generals were convinced that there was no way that America could lose the war. They also employed battle strategies that worked in previous wars such as World War 2 and the Korean War thinking that the strategies that won those wars would work in Vietnam two. They failed to take into account the terrain, enemy and climate differences. Towards then end Macnamera began reavaluating the battle stragies and eventually realized that the war was futile and that America had no business being there. Number nine is it is necessary to commit evil acts to do good. This is saying war is a necessay evil and that during war evils like murdering occur so that innocents are protected. This also justifies the dropping of agent orange. Even Macnamera admits that he knew it would cause a lot of damage but at the time it was worth the damage. Later he retracts that statement because of all the lasting effects that it caused.

This film seemed to be largely and explanation of Macnamera's thought process for his actions. Also, the second half of the movie seemed to be an apology for some of the actions in the Vietnam war.