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Robert Strange McNamara is gone

Ministr obrany Robert S. McNamara ve své kanceláři v Pentagonu, 17. března 1961. Foto ministerstvo obrany USA, Master Sgt. Frank Hall, U.S. Army.

Dnes, v 93 letech, zemřel Robert S. McNamara (3. června 1916 – 6. července 2009). Byl by hřích nezmínit se o něm na tomto blogu. Osmý ministr obrany Spojených států byl totiž velice zajímavou a zároveň důležitou figurou v historii USA. Mnozí lidé mu nemohou zapomenout „vietnamské dobrodružství“, jiní zase jeho reflexi „vietnamských chyb“.

Je otázka, zda i bez McNamary by USA nespadly do stejné pasti. Doporučení k navýšení americké přítomnosti v Indočíně ostatně předával mladému Johnu F. Kennedymu spolu s úřadem Dwight Eisenhower. On i jeho poradci se obávali především domino efektu – pád Vietnamu do komunistických rukou by znamenal pád celé oblasti pod vliv Číny, resp. Moskvy. McNamara patřil k těm, kteří toto uvažování převzali a prosazovali i po Kennedyho smrti v Johnsonově administrativě.

Tato úvaha byla chybná, k čemuž McNamara postupně dospěl až se stal pro Johnsonovu administrativu nepřijatelným, takže v roce 1968 úřad opustil. Posledních téměř 40 let si kvůli Vietnamu sypal popel na hlavu (což mohlo působit sympaticky, někdy však až strojeně a jenom pro forma) a snažil se formulovat na základě popisu chyb poučení pro budoucnost (uvádím je na konci).

McNamarovy postřehy jsou zajímavé a mohly napomoci především administrativě George W. Bushe, respektive jeho ministru obrany Donaldu Rumsfeldovi v přístupu k Iráku (stejně jako další rady, třeba ohledně protipovstaleckých aktivit, kterých se mu dostalo už v roce 2003). Ovšem kdyby někdo byl ochotný naslouchat… Podobností mezi McNamarou a Rumsfeldem by se dalo najít více podobností. Ale samozřejmě, stejně jako jakékoli jiné analogie, je nutné je brát s rezervou.

Oba byli podobně kontroverzní. Oba nastupovali do úřadu ze zkušenostmi z byznysu a pokoušeli se aplikovat privátní postupy řízení na ministerstvo obrany, které chtěli transformovat. Oba uměli být dosti autoritářští a nesnesitelní a byli ministry v době, kdy se jejich země a prezidenti, kterým sloužili „zapletli“ do válek v dalekých zemích. I úkoly, se kterými nastupovali do úřadu byly do jisté míry podobné. Především jim šlo o to „zatřást“ s Pentagonem a přinést změnu v tamní byrokracii tak, aby byla lépe schopná sloužit zájmům USA. Jak píše McNamara v knize In Retrospect:

I made it clear that I was determined to subordinate the powerful institutional interests of the various armed services and the defense conctractors to a broad conception of the national interest. I wanted to challenge the Pentagon´s resistance to change, and I intended that the big decisions would be made on the basis of study and analysis and not simply by perpetuationg the practice of allocating blocs of funds to the various services and letting them use the money as they saw fit.

The New York Times zase popisují jednu výstižnou historku s Donaldem Rumsfeldem, který chtěl provést „transformaci“ Pentagonu podobně jako McNamara:

In his trademark blunt style, Mr. Rumsfeld convened a Pentagon “town hall“ meeting on Sept. 10, 2001. “The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America,“ he pronounced. “It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy.“

Válka ovšem každého z nich brzy zaměstnala, takže proměna Pentagonu byla spíše ve vleku událostí, než aby se stala motorem. Nicméně tato slova neznamenají, že žádná reforma neproběhla, že se nic nezměnilo. Je pouze otázkou, do jaké míry byly změny zamýšlené a do jaké důsledkem nečekaných a nezamýšlených událostí. Výstižně popsal před třemi lety Rumsfeldův konec Peter J. Boyer v textu Downfall, který vyšel v The New Yorkeru (a do jisté míry se následující slova vztahují i na McNamaru):

Donald Rumsfeld might have made a fine peacetime Defense Secretary. But it may also be that Rumsfeld would never have lasted in peacetime. He survived in the job because war came, and he used the wars to force change upon a recalcitrant professional military. In a real sense, the war in Iraq allowed Rumsfeld to create his transformed military, even while presenting it with a mission that it may not be able to win—a war like Vietnam.

Michiko Kakutani píše v recenzi na knihu Bradleyho Grahama By His Own Rules o Donaldu Rumsfeldovi, že bývalý ministr obrany James Schlesinger Rumsfelda oceňoval jako člověka, který se snažil proměnit americké ozbrojené síly, ale že jako ministr obrany v době války za moc nestál. Totéž se prý dá říct i o McNamarovi. Nicméně mezi oběma muži je však jeden rozdíl:

The big difference between the two men, Mr. Graham adds, is how they ultimately viewed their own tenures: “despite his public cheerleading for the Vietnam War, Mr. McNamara privately became dubious about its wisdom and effectiveness while still in office” and came to recognize “that he had failed as defense secretary because of mistakes he and others had made in Vietnam.” In contrast, Mr. Graham writes, Mr. Rumsfeld “did not leave office doubting his handling of the Iraq war” and “has acknowledged no major missteps or shown any remorse on the subject to date.”

McNamara postupně prohlédl, Rumsfeld nikoli a zřejmě se to od něj nedá ani čekat. Takže zde je 11 McNamarových lekcí z války ve Vietnamu (převzatých z knihy In Retrospect, vydání z roku 1996, strany 321-323):

  • 1) We misjudged then – as we have since – the geopolitical intentions of our adversaries (in that case, North Vietnam and the Vietcong, supported by China and the Soviet Union), and we exaggerated the dangers to the United States of their actions.
  • 2) We viewed the people and leaders of South Vietnam in terms of our own experience. We saw in them a thirst for – and a determination to fight for – freedom and democracy. We totally misjudged the political forces within that country.
  • 3) We underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate people (in this case, the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong) to fight and die for their beliefs and values – and we continue to do so today in many parts of the world.
  • 4) Our misjudgments of friend and foe alike reflected our profound ignorance of a history, culture and politics of the people in that area, and the personalities and habits of their leaders. We might have made similar misjudgments regarding the Soviets during our frequent confrontations – over Berlin, Cuba, the Middle East, for example – had we not had the advice of Tommy Thompson, Chip Bohlen, and Geroge Kennan. These senior diplomats had spent decades studying the Soviet Union, its people and its leaders, why thay behaved as they did, and how they would react to our actions. Their advice proved invaluable in shaping our judgements and decision. No Southeast Asian counterparts existed for senior officials to consult when making decisions on Vietnam.
  • 5) We failed then – as we have since – to recognize the limitations of modern high technology military equipment and forces in doctrine in confronting unconventional highly motivated people’s movements. We failed as well to adapt our military tactics to the task of winning the hearts and minds of people from a totally different culture.
  • 6) We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of a large-scale U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia before we initiated the action.
  • 7) After the action got underway, and unanticipated events forced us off our planned course, we fail to retain popular support, in part, because we hadn’t explained fully what was happening and why we were doing what we did. We had not prepared the public to understand the complex events we faced and how to react constructively to the need for changes in course as the nation confronted uncharted seas and an alien environment. A nation’s deepest strength lies not in its military prowess but, rather, in the unity of its people. We failed to maintain it.
  • 8) We did not recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are omniscient. Where our own security is not directly at stake, our judgement of what is in another people´s or country´s best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our own image or as we choose.
  • 9) We did not hold to the principal that U.S. military action – other than in response to direct threats to our own secutity – should be carried out only in conjunction with international forces supported fully (and not merely cosmetically) by the international community.
  • 10) We failed to recognize that in international affairs, as in other aspects of life, there may be problems for which there are no immediate solutions. For one whose life has been dedicated to the belief and practise of problem solving, this is particulary hard to admit. But, at times, we may have to live with an imperfect, untidy world.
  • 11) Underlying many of these errors lay our failure to organize the top echelons of the executive branch to deal effectively with the extraordinarily complex range of political and military issues, involving the great risks and costs – including, above all else, loss of life – associated with the application of military force under substantial constraints over a long period of time. Such organizational weakness would have been costly had this been the only task confronting the president and his advisers. It, of course was not. It coexisted with the wide array of other domestic and international problems confronting us. We thus failed to analyze and debate our actions in Southeast Asia – our objectives, the risks and costs of alternative ways of dealing with them, and the necessity of changing course when failure was clear – with the intensity and thoroughness that characterized the debates of the Executive Commitee during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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František Šulc
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