“The book offers a fresh and illuminating interpretation of how, by whom, and when decisions were made in the Netherlands and United Kingdom as they sought to take part in the NATO operation in Afghanistan. The analysis is original and shows convincingly that the practice had little relationship to the theory upon which political and military processes for the use of armed force are structured.”

General Sir Rupert Smith

“In this book, Mantas proposes a radical and subversive thesis. She shows that the Dutch and British decision to deploy to the NATO mission in southern Afghanistan in 2006 was not made independently by the respective governments of these countries, as might be expected. Rather, both countries were mutually committed to the operation by their transnational military interconnections and obligations. The book represents a major contribution not just to understanding NATO's campaign in Afghanistan but strategy in the twenty-first century.”

Anthony King, University of Warwick