I tore through an excellent book this break, one that was supposedly scrutinized and dissected by the Obama White House before they made their Great Misdecision on Afghanistan...Lessons in Disaster, by Gordon Goldstein.
Goldstein's biography of McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor to JFK and LBJ from 1961 to 1966, largely focuses on the decisions that led to our entanglement in the morass of Vietnam. The primary lesson of the book can be distilled to a couple of highly pertinent lessons...
1. Machismo is the enemy of common sense.
2. Caution and skepticism are highly underrated, as well as scarce, in the highest circles of decision-making.
