How We Won and Lost the War in Afghanistan 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. The story follows a small group of Americans as they work to empower the only people who would be able keep out the Taliban in years to come; the Afghans themselves.

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Wide ranging, insightful and above all personal, with copious quotations and descriptions of life in the field, it places the reader at the heart of the American counter-insurgency effort and reveals the Afghans who won the war to be hard-working, competent officials who were seldom given a chance to succeed.

This is a story that has never been told.  It is the first look at what motivated the Afghans, and reveals what the Afghans thought of how the war was run.  Often the Afghans were dumbfounded at the American decisions that routinely foiled their plans and desires.  And it overturns the conventional wisdom that has pegged the Afghans as disorganized, lazy and corrupt.