The Army Strategist Association is excited to host our rescheduled event with  Ben Barry, Senior Fellow for Land Warfare at ISSS, as he discusses his new book, Blood, Metal, and Dust: How Victory Turned into Defeat in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This event is open to the public, so please invite friends and collegues to this virtual event. Zoom link will be sent to attendees that RSVP 24 hours prior to the event.

About Blood, Metal, and Dust:

SHORTLISTED FOR THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON MEDAL FOR MILITARY HISTORY 2021, THE BRITISH ARMY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021, AS A FINALIST FOR THE 2020 ARMY HISTORICAL FOUNDATION DISTINGUISHED WRITING AWARD. FIRST RUNNER UP IN THE TEMPLER MEDAL BOOK PRIZE 2021.

'With a soldier's eye for telling operational details, Ben Barry offers an authoritative, compelling and inevitably bleak account of the American and British campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.'  Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies, King's College London

Written by the author of the official British military analysis of the Iraq campaigns, Blood, Metal and Dust is the first authoritative military history of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to tell the detailed story of what happened on the ground.

From the high-ranking officer who wrote the still-classified British military analysis of the war in Iraq comes the authoritative history of two conflicts which have overshadowed the beginning of the 21st century. Inextricably linked to the ongoing ‘War on Terror', the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dominated more than a decade of international politics, and their influence is felt to this day.  Blood, Metal and Dust is the first military history to offer a comprehensive overview of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, providing in-depth accounts of the operations undertaken by both US and UK forces. Brigadier Ben Barry explores the wars which shaped the modern Middle East, providing a detailed narrative of operations as they unfolded. With unparalleled access to official military accounts and extensive contacts in both the UK and the US militaries, Brigadier Barry is uniquely placed to tell the story of these controversial conflicts, and offers a rounded account of the international campaigns which irrevocably changed the global geopolitical landscape.

About Ben Barry: As Senior Fellow for Land Warfare for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Ben Barry has written extensively for IISS publications including Survival, its journal, and Strategic Survey, its annual assessment of world affairs. He is one of the authors of the annual Military Balance, an authoritative assessment of global military affairs, and his publications with Military Balance include ‘Combat and Capability: Military Trends since 9/11', a concise analysis of the decade of military conflict from 2001 to 2011, published in 2012. Before leaving the British Army in October 2010, he wrote A Cold War: Front-line Operations in Bosnia 1995­-1996 describing his battalion's operational tour under both UN and NATO flags in the mid-1990s. The book was shortlisted for the British Army Book of the Year 2009 award. His final appointment was leading the British Army's analysis of the lessons of the Iraq campaign, which informs Blood, Metal and Dust.