As the United States approaches the end of its 12th year of conflict in Afghanistan, much of the history of the war has already been written. Although magisterial works setting the U.S. intervention in the context of the broad sweep of Central Asian history, or into the somewhat narrower sweep of America’s wars, may have to wait until the war has a perceptible end, studies of specific characteristics of the conflict, of the key events, and of the politics surrounding the war have been in publication almost since the first U.S. air strike in 2001. In particular, recent literature has focused on the development and implementation of the Afghan counterinsurgency “surge” strategy by the Obama administration over the course of 2009.