McNamara and the perpetual fog of war

A few thoughts on the death of Robert McNamara, the Sec of Def during the Vietnam war.

The following quote is from an article about McNamara in today's New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/us/07mcnamara.html?ref=opinion):

“What went wrong was a basic misunderstanding or misevaluation of the threat to our security represented by the North Vietnamese,” he said in his Berkeley oral history. “It led President Eisenhower in 1954 to say that if Vietnam were lost, or if Laos and Vietnam were lost, the dominoes would fall.” He continued, “I am certain we exaggerated the threat.”

The parallels between the Vietnam War and today's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are disturbing. The rational espoused by McNamara for escalating US involvement in the Vietnam War is eerily similar - and just as problematic - to the current thinking behind the "surge" in Afghanistan. Are we are again fighting in Afghanistan to "prevent the dominoes from falling," so to speak? In other words, are we so afraid of "another 9/11" that we are blind to the actual forces at work on the ground?

For example, are we (1) fighting an international terrorist network hellbent on destroying the US; or are we (2) fighting various tribal militias trying to conquer their own little fiefdoms; or are we (3) fighting multiple warlords with their own private armies, financed by competing outside interests?

If we are engaged in the first, then we should probably be actively eliminating this threat.
If we are dealing with the 2nd or 3rd, however, then we should probably rethink the strategic significance of Afghanistan to the US.
Yet, if we are confronting all three at the same time then we are caught in a maelstrom with little chance to actually control events.

I suspect it is all three, and I think we are probably deluding ourselves in thinking that our present strategy will work. But like McNamara we seem to be caught up in the fog of war, and keep charging forward blind to the consequences...

grant