For those who liked Black Hawk Down

I am about half-way through Not A Good Day to Die, which concerns the planning and execution Operation Anaconda (Afghanistan, March 02) . It is quite good at exploring what caused the Operation to nearly collapse in disaster. The author illustrates the problems in coordinating special operations and "Big Army" units, the problems in reconciling political directives with military operational concerns, the challenges in planning, or in this case poor planning, the challenges in gathering and integrating intelligence and the particular problems of operating in a country like Afghanistan. The author writes for Army Times and is critical of the service and CENTCOM, although he is quite fair. He assumes a certain knowledge of the Army, but you can always blow past the confusing parts. Also if you want rah-rah USA books, you won't like it.

A lot of the reviews on Amazon complain that there is too much emphasis on the background and not enough on the fighting. In fact, the combat is highly detailed but you do need the context to understand why the battle became so closely fought. If you want a look at how the Afghan war was (is?) being fought, this is as good a place as any.

If you have lots of time and interest, you might to look at the debate on whether the nature of war has changed. Read Stephen Biddle's take on why the Afghan experience does not change the way wars will be fought in the future. He wrote a shorter version for Foreign Affairs, but you will Lexis or something similar for that. Max Boot disagrees and says war has changed. I'm with Biddle on this one.