This is a critical look at the war in Afghanistan in the Helmand province. While there has been a lot written about the failures in Afghanistan, this stands out since it looks at, among other things, the failure of the US military to address rampant corruption in the Afghan government. This corruption affect local public opinion and money often found its way back to the Taliban.

This book was written by a British army officer turned psychologist. He examines significant military disasters with the assumption that the individual psychology of the commander plays a key role. Dixon discerns a common personality type, The Authoritarian, throughout these mistakes. The Authoritarian is afraid to fail and is not intellectually curious. These two traits make him create his own reality and ignore facts that contradict him. This creates the failure that he was afraid of originally.

The prototypical Civil Affairs officer, Ed Lansdale fought the Huk Rebellion in the Philippines by pushing good governance, responsive military forces, and innovative tactics that prioritized capturing insurgents rather than killing them. He tried to follow the same agenda in South Vietnam without the necessary support from the American chain of command, as detailed in Max Boot's book "The Road Not Taken," also recommended.