A searing indictment of US strategy in Afghanistan from a distinguished military leader and West Point military historian―“A remarkable book” ( National Review ). In 2008, Col. Gian Gentile exposed a growing rift among military intellectuals with an article titled “Misreading the Surge Threatens U.S. Army’s Conventional Capabilities,” that appeared in World Politics Review . While the years of US strategy in Afghanistan had been dominated by the doctrine of counterinsurgency (COIN), Gentile and a small group of dissident officers and defense analysts began to question the necessity and efficacy of COIN―essentially armed nation-building―in achieving the United States’ limited core policy objective in the destruction of Al Qaeda. Drawing both on the author’s experiences as a combat battalion commander in the Iraq War and his research into the application of counterinsurgency in a variety of historical contexts, Wrong Turn is a brilliant summation of Gentile’s views of the failures of COIN, as well as a trenchant reevaluation of US operations in Afghanistan. “Gentile is convinced that Obama’s ‘surge’ in Afghanistan can’t work... And, if Afghanistan doesn’t turn around soon, the Democrats . . . who have come to embrace the Petraeus-Nagl view of modern warfare . . . may find themselves wondering whether it’s time to go back to the drawing board.” ― The New Republic