Robert McNamara, philosopher and former Secretary of Defense under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, discusses the political and ethical lessons he learned during his career. Of the eleven lessons he cites in the video, “The Fog of War”, two lessons will be examined as they apply to the war in Afghanistan. Lesson #1: Empathize with the enemy and Lesson #8: Be prepared to re-examine your reasoning, are lessons that if applied, to the war in Afghanistan, would positively influence the outcome intended by the allied forces. As McNamara states in the video, there will be no learning period with nuclear weapons. A single mistake will lead to a major catastrophe. According to McNamara, Empathizing with the enemy means that we must try to
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is the most powerful nation on the globe, the policy makers should not misuse their power. If the correctness of policy strategy is coming into question, than we should rethink our reasons on what the nation is doing. In the article, “The Fog of War in Afghanistan”, Gaven Esler, interviews US General David Petraeus who said that the Afghan war is “not a war of choice”. He was repeating a line used by President Barak Obama and many others. According to this thinking, there had to be a war and NATO forces needed to be in Afghanistan to keep terrorists off our streets. This claim is refuted in the article and in fact the opposite perspective is suggested: our presence there increased the threat of terrorism here. According to WikiLeaks files, released in 2010, the data shows that the strength and activtity of the Taliban had grown over the six-year time period since the war began and the violence and Taliban presence has spread through Afghan provinces. This data suggests that the war, which initially was based on an outcome of dismantling al-Qaeda and taking control out of the hands of the Taliban was in fact having the opposite effect and increased the power and strength of the Taliban. Matt Waldman suggests that [The surge] was able to hurt the ranks of the Taliban, but not the overall movement because the lifeblood of the Taliban is
is the most powerful nation on the globe, the policy makers should not misuse their power. If the correctness of policy strategy is coming into question, than we should rethink our reasons on what the nation is doing. In the article, “The Fog of War in Afghanistan”, Gaven Esler, interviews US General David Petraeus who said that the Afghan war is “not a war of choice”. He was repeating a line used by President Barak Obama and many others. According to this thinking, there had to be a war and NATO forces needed to be in Afghanistan to keep terrorists off our streets. This claim is refuted in the article and in fact the opposite perspective is suggested: our presence there increased the threat of terrorism here. According to WikiLeaks files, released in 2010, the data shows that the strength and activtity of the Taliban had grown over the six-year time period since the war began and the violence and Taliban presence has spread through Afghan provinces. This data suggests that the war, which initially was based on an outcome of dismantling al-Qaeda and taking control out of the hands of the Taliban was in fact having the opposite effect and increased the power and strength of the Taliban. Matt Waldman suggests that [The surge] was able to hurt the ranks of the Taliban, but not the overall movement because the lifeblood of the Taliban is