POLS 3440 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Nikita Khrushchev, Rationality
15 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
Put yourself into the shoes of your enemies and then look back on yourself to see what you look like in the eyes of your enemies. In the case of vietnam, the united states didn"t know them enough to understand them enough. Saw vietnam as an element of the cold war, whereas vietnam itself saw itself in civil war. Vietnam was fighting for independence, whereas the united states were fighting to enslave them (in the eyes of the vietnamese) It was luck that prevented nuclear war - not rationality. Kennedy, khrushchev and castro were all rational but all three almost brought the world to nuclear destruction. Mcnamara analysed bombing missions and figured out how to make them more efficient in target destruction. The higher the bombers went up, the less loss rate but also the less accurate for target destruction = more civilian casualties. Lesson 5: proportionality should be the guideline of war.
