In Fog of War, Secretary of Defense McNamara makes very difficult decisions, teaching the audience lessons he has learned along the way. Based on the beginning of the movie, it is clear that he was not the most popular man when he held his position and was called egotistical.
However, I do think that McNamara was a good leader, which is what this class is all about. He is reflective on his actions, which is one of the most valuable things a leader can do. The lessons he captures are very important for any leader to follow. I think that he is easy to sympathize with in the movie because we can tell that he has put a lot of thought into his past actions, and because he was trying to achieve his goals in the best possible way.
The lessons that I want to highlight are #1 "empathize with your enemy" and #6 "get the data". In order for a leader to make the best decisions, these are two very important components. He demonstrated that it was important for Thompson to know that Khrushchev only wanted to be able to say that he stopped Kennedy from invading. Additionally, he showed his interest in gathering the facts through his time at General Ford.
While these are two components that he includes now, McNamara failed to consider them when making the decision to use agent orange over fire bombs. He did not get the data and how much damage they could cause, which was irresponsible. Also, he did not empathize with the enemy and consider how many innocent lives would be lost in major cities, compared in the movie to American cities.
I would say that McNamara is a leader, however he made poor decisions during his time. Through reflection, it is obvious that he understands what went wrong and has considered it since.
Although McNamara seemed to act like a leader, I would like to add that he may have been seen as a ineffective leader for the US. The US used a lot of hard power in the war, however still managed to avoid a nuclear war with the Soviets. These battles did not cause as much casualties as a regular military war or a nuclear war, but it still did show lack of leadership from the US side since the attacks they made were immoral (fire shootings and Agent orange) against citizens
ReplyDelete