>>13327365I dont know if he actually did that, he did run statistical analysis of the fire bombing raids LeMay was running against Japanese cities so its possible.
In Vietnam he was operating with the "Domino Theory of Communism" which stated that a successful communist revolution in one country would lead to the neighbouring country also turning communist through internal revolt or annexation by the said communist neighbour. These communist countries would centralise like the Soviet Union and would then challenge western liberal democracy for hegemony. Mcnamara contends this theory was fallacious.
McNamara states that the North Vietnamese leadership told him years later in Cuba during a meeting with Castro that the Vietnamese would never join China against the West regardless of the experiences with Western Imperialism. This is because China has always been an imperial power and that China is their main geopolitical enemy despite the Chinese self interest in funding the Vietnamese during the war against the US.
McNamara used low iq troops and ethnic minorities with disastrous results whilst also half heartly waging a geopolitical war not an existential one. The US was trying to appear as not imperialist and they didnt wage the war brutally enough. General Westmoreland was hampered in doing just that.
Despite this, and with negative media coverage at home, the US decimated the Vietcong and communists in battle. Public opinion turned against General Westmoreland and mcnamara and the war began to be lost.
