MacNamara and his “Whiz Kids” brought in the use of the idea of game theory to warfare. The idea of game theory is that you demonstrate to the opponent that you can hurt them more than he hurts you then he will give up. This stupid theory of course does not take into account national pride, patriotism and just plain pig headedness.

In game theory one also starts out with the minumum exenditure that would “prove” this. Increase force in small amounts until the other player “enemy” concedes. Unfortunatly this just served to convice the North that they could withstand whatever the US threw at them.

That was until 1972 when Linebacker II was unleashed on North Vietnam. The nearly unlimited targeting then allowed the North’s infrastructure to nearly be destroyed. It is now evident that that nearly defeated North Vietnam in and of itself. So much for incrimentalism. One would think they never looked at airpower in WW II!

MacNamara doesn’t take all the blame though. I have seen pictures of LBJ crawling around on the floor on a map of North Vietnam picking individual targets for US bombers.

Madness.