The Fog Of War: Eleven Lessons From The Life Of Mcnamara

Student Name Professor Name Course Date The Fog of War Released in 2003, the Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara is an American documentary about the life of former American Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. This movie illustrated his observations of nature of warfare and was directed by Errol Morris, featuring Philip Glass in the leading role. The title was derived from military concepts of the "fog of war" highlighting difficulties of taking right decisions in the midst of conflicts. In The Fog of War, Robert McNamara was certain about America’s need to have fought the Cold War as it was manifested in Vietnam. Is his vision clear, national and a strong defense of American global power? I must say that Robert’s thinking is absolutely wrong; no nation should create a mess for others, despite the fact that it is superpower or under-developed. In case of the United States, this country has established itself with time and is currently the most dominating and wealthy state. Does that mean America is free to cause problems or become a reason for world’s conflicts? After watching the Fog of War, I got to know that Robert McNamara wanted the United States to fight the Cold War because it was manifested in Vietnam. Is that the only solution to the problem? America could find other ways too to resolve all conflicts and problems. McNamara recounted the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis to highlight how close we were to nuclear war. On one side, he said that he and Kennedy didn’t want the nation to get involved in conflicts, and on the other site, he was urging the United States to fight the Cold War. I believe that both of his points are different from one another and Robert was not himself clear about what actually he wanted. Kennedy received two entirely different messages from Krushev during the conflict, and McNamara named one message as the “hard message” and his second message as the “soft message.” The soft message ensured that the U.S.S.R. would remove all missiles from Cube instantly if the United States promised not to invade. Keeping all these things in mind, I’d like to say that Robert McNamara’s thinking is totally wrong as conflicts could easily resolve if America had amended its ways. He was not supposed to urge ...