Don’t be fooled into thinking this is simply a political apologia, stated in doublespeak, with decades-long hindsight, in which Robert McNamara explains his actions about the Vietnam War, which for a long time was absurdly called a "police action." He analyzes his complicity in the decisions made, and we hear, via presidential recordings, his advice to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson – and just as important, their replies.

McNamara looks into the camera and shares his thoughts with us, about not only Vietnam, but also the Cuban Missile Crisis and WWII. At age 85 McNamara’s mind is sharp and his intellect and experiences are more than worth listening to.

Here are a few of McNamara’s deliberations that he shares with the audience in this straightforward and provocative film. We may not have needed to drop the atomic bombs on Japan to bring the war to a prompt close. It may have been a trump card message to all nations "to not mess with the US any more." While that’s debatable, if those bombs were the right cross, it was the saturation bombing on the cities of Japan that were the left jab that set things up. We were a lot closer to nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis than many of us believed. The deepening involvement into Vietnam may not have happened if President Kennedy had lived.

As he talks about these and other events, with supplemental documentary footage, some that has never been seen, this film becomes a modern day history lesson. It might be akin to reading one of those 600+ page novels that James Michener wrote, with a blend of some fiction and a lot of fact (this is not meant to imply that part of the movie is untruthful). Director Errol Morris describes "The Fog of War" as "…neither a work of biography nor a work of history," but the film does provide "…new biographical and historical material."

The 11 lessons of war that McNamara refers to are:

1. Empathize with your enemy – this saved us in the Cuban Missile Crisis
2. Rationality will not save you
3. There’s something beyond one’s self
4. Maximize efficiency
5. Proportionality should be a guideline in war
6. Get the data
7. Believing and seeing are often both wrong. We see what we want to believe
8. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning
9. In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil
10. Never say never
11. You can’t change human nature – do we learn from the past? Does it really matter if we know history, if our nature keeps us from heeding prior lessons?

Based upon the death toll of the 20^th century, it appears that the greatest factor regarding how many people die in military actions is directly related to the technology to quickly inflict death on a large scale. We’ve always believed that the best offense is a good defense but somewhere in the mix, the word disarmament is overlooked. Being the most powerful nation on the earth, we, more than anyone else, can influence the outcome of the 21^st century. The real question is will mankind see another 100 years? Probably not, if we stay on the path we are currently on.