The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan is Ronald E. Neumann’s account of how the war in Afghanistan unfolded in the two years after he arrived in Kabul from Baghdad in July 2005 as the United States ambassador. A career diplomat, Ambassador Neumann brought to the job a lifetime’s professional experience in the greater Middle East, retiring thirty-eight years after he had begun in the same country–Afghanistan. With previously unexamined details of operations, tensions, and policy decisions, Ron Neumann demonstrates why the United States was slow to recognize the challenge it faced and why it failed to make the requisite commitment of resources. Recounting failures as well as successes, he analyzes the problems of alliance warfare in conducting simultaneous nation building and counterinsurgency.