The Wrong Enemy

Carlotta Gall's "The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014" is a sobering and deeply reported account of the American war in Afghanistan, written by a journalist who spent more than a decade covering the conflict for The New York Times. Drawing on years of fieldwork, interviews with Afghan officials, military commanders, and ordinary civilians, Gall constructs a narrative that challenges the official version of events promoted by successive American administrations. Her central argument is provocative and unsettling: that the United States, in its pursuit of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, consistently misidentified the true source of the insurgency, failing to hold Pakistan accountable for its role in sustaining the very enemy American forces were fighting.

The book opens in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, tracing the rapid collapse of the Taliban regime and the initial optimism that characterized the early years of the international intervention. Gall then methodically dismantles this optimism, chapter by chapter, as she documents how the war's trajectory diverged from its stated goals. Her reporting from the ground in Kandahar, Kabul, and the tribal regions along the Pakistan border lends the narrative a texture and immediacy that distinguishes it from more distant, policy-focused accounts of the war. She writes with the authority of someone who witnessed the transformation of Afghanistan firsthand, from the fall of the Taliban to the resurgence of insurgent violence years later.

One of the book's most significant contributions is its detailed examination of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency and its alleged support for Taliban and other militant networks operating across the border. Gall presents evidence gathered over years of reporting to argue that elements within Pakistan's security establishment provided sanctuary, funding, and strategic guidance to insurgent groups, even as Pakistan officially positioned itself as an American ally in the broader war on terror. This argument, while not entirely new to specialists in the region, is presented here with a level of detail and journalistic rigor that makes it difficult to dismiss. Gall does not shy away from naming individuals and describing specific incidents, grounding her claims in documented events rather than speculation.

The book also offers a candid assessment of American strategic missteps, including the diversion of military resources to Iraq at a critical juncture, the reliance on warlords and corrupt local power brokers, and the persistent underestimation of the insurgency's resilience. Gall is careful to distinguish between the sacrifices and intentions of individual soldiers and diplomats, many of whom she portrays sympathetically, and the broader strategic failures of policymakers in Washington. This distinction gives the book a balanced quality, avoiding simplistic condemnation while still delivering a pointed critique of the war's conduct.

Stylistically, Gall's prose is clear and economical, reflecting her background as a foreign correspondent accustomed to filing dispatches under difficult conditions. The narrative moves chronologically for the most part, though it occasionally shifts to follow particular threads, such as the killing of Osama bin Laden or the assassination of Afghan leaders, before returning to the main timeline. Readers unfamiliar with the region's complex tribal and political dynamics may find some sections dense, but Gall generally succeeds in making the material accessible without oversimplifying it.

What ultimately distinguishes "The Wrong Enemy" from other books on the Afghanistan war is its insistence on looking beyond Afghanistan's borders to understand the conflict's true dynamics. By focusing attention on Pakistan's role, Gall reframes the entire narrative of the war, suggesting that American strategy was built on a fundamentally flawed premise. This is a serious, well-documented work of journalism that rewards careful reading. It is not a comprehensive military history, nor does it attempt to cover every aspect of the war, but as an argument about the war's central failure, it is compelling and difficult to ignore. For anyone seeking to understand why more than a decade of American involvement in Afghanistan produced such limited and fragile results, Gall's book offers one of the most persuasive explanations available, grounded in years of firsthand observation rather than distant analysis.