PAB BLOG 12

The Fog Of War is a documentary of what seems to be Robert S. MacNamera’s attempt to reconcile his past mistakes. The length of the film consisted of MacNamera’s explanations of actions and decisions made by him and the American government. The film is divided into eleven lessons. These lessons were derived from retrospective observation of the actions in the Vietnam War but most of them can theoretically be applied to any situation.

Lessons one to four, observed at a shallow depth, appear to be reasonable methods for succeeding in war. His first two lessons, about the reality of empathy and luck, are reasonable and disconnected from the evils of war. Lesson four approaches a stronger connectivity with the evil of war when MacNamera discusses the night when 100,000 Tokyo civilians were killed. This same event leads into lesson five, which reveals the true monstrosity of what happened in the Vietnam War. In order to kill those 100,000 people, fire bombing was necessary. This proportionality between the numbers of deaths on opposing sides of war represents a change in MacNamera’s change in subject tone.

His views seem to change at lesson seven as well. This lesson, “belief and seeing are both often wrong”, is explained by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. From this lesson onward, the lessons pertain to human flaws and mistakes. The lessons include reexamining your reasoning, doing evil in order to do good, and to persist. The final lesson says “you can’t change human nature”. MacNamera lists flaws that manifest themselves during time of war. He is aware of these flaws because he was a major example of them all. He attempts to save himself by explaining that these are regular human flaws and you can’t change it. In the interview, MacNamera says “We all make mistakes. We know we make mistakes. I don't know any military commander, who is honest, who would say he has not made a mistake. There's a wonderful phrase: 'the fog of war.' What 'the fog of war' means is: war is so complex it's beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend all the variables. Our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate. And we kill people unnecessarily.”

By the end of The Fog Of War it has become apparent that Robert Strange MacNamera tries to save face by blaming his actions on unfortunate human nature and not his personally flawed decision making.