The Fog of War

The Fog of War

Richard Blakley reviews the Eleven Tenets from ‘The Fog of War’

The phrase “fog of war” is speaking to “the uncertainty of situational awareness experienced by participants in military operations.  The term seeks to capture the uncertainty regarding one’s own capability, adversary capability and adversary intent during an engagement.  …Military forces try to reduce the fog of war through military intelligence.” 

The term “fog” concerning war, is credited as being introduced by Prussian military analyst Carl von Clausewitz in his book, “Vom Kriege” (1832), where he stated, “War is a realm of uncertainty … .  A sensitive and discriminating judgment is called for; a skilled intelligence to scent out the truth.”

If you want to see a real-life account of the fog of war, I suggest watching the movie “Ike: The Countdown to D-day,” for this excellent historical war drama shows the complications behind the “fog of war.”

Another excellent movie is entitled, “The Fog of War,”  is a 2003 American documentary film about U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who served under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.  He was involved with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the escalation of the Vietnam War.  This man was articulate, sharp, and served our country with wisdom that needs to be heard, and his experience needs heeding today.

This film was awarded the 2003 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the 2003 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature.  In 2019 this film was also selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”  

The director, Errol Morris, distills McNamara philosophy of war into eleven basic tenets.  In a short review, the eleven tenets are as follows:

Tenet one: “Empathize with your enemy.” This in no way means that you agree with your enemy. “Empathy” means “the intellectual identification of the thoughts, feelings, or state of another person.”  You are trying to understand what your enemy is thinking and why. This helps one to predict their enemy’s future moves.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, The White House received both a “soft message” and “hard message” on resolving the issue with Soviet leader Khrushchev.  Being advised, Kennedy ignored the “hard message” and responded to the “soft message” which gave Khrushchev a way out without escalating the situation further.  The thoughts were, it is better to negotiate with an enemy you don’t like, than it is to drive the planet to the brink of annihilation from thermonuclear war.

Tenet two: “Rationality alone will not save us.”  McNamara accounts the prevention of nuclear war during the twelve days of October in 1962 as being due to luck.  Instead, I believe a lot of people were praying.  However, McNamara states rational individuals like Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro came close to destroying themselves and everyone else.  McNamara stated this same possibility exists today, which again would be irrational. Real life consequences are so different from and deadlier than tabletop wargame consequences.

Tenet three: “There is something beyond one’s self.”  This lesson implies we have a responsibility to our society, trying to preserve humanity.

Tenet four: “Maximize efficiency,” where he says to use military to maximize its effectiveness, while minimizing loss of life.

Tenet five: “Proportionality should be a guideline to war.”  Here McNamara talks about the number of Japanese cities that were destroyed before the US dropped the atomic bomb.  He claims it has been stated that if the US had lost the war, we would have been tried for war crimes. 

McNamara did not detail who made these statements concerning the US, but it must be remembered that the US did not start World War II and the Japanese were refusing to surrender.  The Battle of Iwo Jima left 6,800 Americans dead and 26,000 casualties.  In the Battle of Okinawa, over 14,000 American’s died and there were 64,000 casualties.  The dropping of the bomb on Japan, causing the surrender of Japan, saved American lives. 

In June 1945 my father graduated from High School.  He enlisted in the Army and was trained in guerrilla warfare tactics for fighting on the islands of Japan. After completing basic training in August of 1945, the bomb was dropped, Japan surrendered, and my father became one of the first occupying forces in Berlin, Germany as part of the Army Engineers.  Dropping the bomb on Japan probably saved my father’s life and many others.

This idea of “proportionality” has tried to be applied in the case of Israel’s war with Hamas.  With the monstrous barbaric inhuman brutal attack committed against civilians of different nationalities by Hamas, including the taking of over 250 hostages, many of which are still held captive, how can anyone speak of “proportionality” in this case? 

Tenet 6: “Get the data.” 

Tenet 7: “Belief and seeing are both often wrong.” 

Tenet 8: “Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.”  He states, “If we can’t persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we better reexamine our reasoning.”

Tenet 9: “In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil,” but McNamara states “minimize” the evil.

Tenet 10: “Never say never.”  He stated the ultimate responsibility for the Vietnam War was on the president.  Had Kennedy lived, the situation would have unfolded differently.  McNamara resigned as Secretary of Defense in 1968.  Later he became the president of the World Bank.

Tenet 11: “You can’t change human nature.”  McNamara talked about how things become clearer in hindsight.  For example, he now realizes that Vietnam was a civil war.  The US should have never been there.  Unfortunately, like the start of Vietnam, talk is already occurring of sending US military advisers into Ukraine.

Robert McNamara died July 6, 2009.  I hope our modern-day politicians can learn from his wisdom and experience, and like 1962, can figure out a way to de-escalate the Ukrainian war to prevent the unthinkable from happening.