It is difficult to summarize this lesson any better than McNamara did below (emphasis added): “I want to say, and this is very important: at the end we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war. We came that close to nuclear war at the end. Rational individuals: Kennedy was rational; Khrushchev was rational; …
Continue reading “The Fog of War – Lesson #2: Rationality will not save us”
On October 27, 1967, the White House found itself in receipt of two messages from Kruschev. The first message said that if the US was to guarantee that it would not invade Cuba, the USSR would withdraw the missiles The second message said that if the US attacked Cuba, the USSR would respond with devastating …
Continue reading “The Fog of War – Lesson #1: Empathize with your enemy”
I watched The Fog of War again today. If you’ve not seen this Academy Award-winning documentary, I highly recommend it! The film outlines, as its subtitle suggests, eleven lessons deduced from the life of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The documentary itself, independent of these lessons, is brilliant but I found the lessons themselves …