McNamara joined Ford as an executive in 1946. Ford did not have a market research organization when he joined, so he established one. First, he tasked market research to determine who was buying the Volkswagon. The buyers of these vehicles were clearly able to afford more and it occurred to McNamara that there was a segment of the market not… Read more →
Tag: film
The Fog of War – Lesson #5: Proportionality should be a guideline in war
McNamara suggests that General LeMay’s defense of his decision to firebomb so many Japanese cities would ask whether it would have been better to not have firebombed these cities and sent American soldiers to the shores of Japan to be slaughtered by the tens of thousands. LeMay firebombed many other Japanese cities. The table below lists the city, the percentage… Read more →
The Fog of War – Lesson #4: Maximize efficiency
Early in World War II, the B-29 bomber was developed to remedy some of the shortfalls of the B-17 and B-24. It was thought that this plane could destroy targets much more efficiently and effectively. Planes were flown from bases in Kansas to India. The bombers were then loaded with fuel in India and flown into China to Shang-tu to… Read more →
The Fog of War – Lesson #3: There’s something beyond one’s self
While attending university, McNamara found himself excited to learn philosophy. “I never heard of Plato and Aristotle before I became a freshman at Berkeley … I couldn’t wait to go to another class!” A focus on philosophy, logic and ethics stressed values and a responsibility to society — “something beyond one’s self” — and rooted McNamara. He delighted in his… Read more →
The Fog of War – Lesson #2: Rationality will not save us
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; Castro was rational. Rational individuals… Read more →
The Fog of War – Lesson #1: Empathize with your enemy
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 military power Thomas “Tommy” Thompson,… Read more →