Crucial Coalition: Anglo-danish Military Collaboration and the Message of History

In the summer of 2010, a unit of Danish soldiers known as ISAF-10 deployed to Afghanistan under British command. In Helmand Province, they tried to secure a fragile peace while dealing with the challenges of training an often apparently indifferent Afghan police and army, ensuring a functioning collaboration with the British despite insufficient military intelligence and divergent military cultures, and fell under frequent attack by an increasingly sophisticated and deadly Taliban. In this remarkable book, Kjeld Hald Galster tells their story. He also looks at the wider picture, examining coalitions ranging from Ancient Greece to the Cold War. Exploring the millennia-long history of coalition warfare, he looks at what makes them work, the lessons they teach us, and how they reflect - and predict - the rise and downfall of the coalitions of the willing in Afghanistan and Iraq, and those yet to come.