How We Won and Lost the War in Afghanistan

Two Years in the Pashtun Homeland

Douglas Grindle Start

Narrated by Peter Lerman

Available from Audible

Book published by University of Nebraska Press

Douglas Grindle provides a firsthand account of how the war in Afghanistan was won in a rural district south of Kandahar City and how the newly created peace slipped away when vital resources failed to materialize and the United States headed for the exit.

By placing the reader at the heart of the American counterinsurgency effort, Grindle reveals little-known incidents, including the failure of expensive aid programs to target local needs, the slow throttling of local government as official funds failed to reach the districts, and the United States’ inexplicable failure to empower the Afghan local officials even after they succeeded in bringing the people onto their side. Grindle presents the side of the hard-working Afghans who won the war and expresses what they really thought of the U.S. military and its decisions. Written by a former field officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development, this story of dashed hopes and missed opportunities details how America’s desire to leave the war behind ultimately overshadowed its desire to sustain victory.

REVIEWS:

“A well-told story and a must-read for those who want to understand the obstacles to success in Afghanistan.”

—Publishers Weekly

“In this personal account, analyst Douglas Grindle writes on spending two years in southern Afghanistan working for the United States Agency for International Development.... Grindle's book embodies Afghans' perspective to highlight the US's failure in adequately providing and directing aid, and its failure to empower local officials to build and maintain permanent institutions. Drawing from experiences on the ground, Grindle's book is illustrative of the realities of Afghanistan and the state the US has left it in”

—Middle East Journal

“The best book yet to explain what the civilians in Afghanistan at the district level actually were doing and trying to do. Highly readable: it contains much from which we could learn if we have the will to do so.”

—Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann, author of The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan