Simon Akam

The Changing of the Guard Simon Akam

A revelatory, explosive new analysis of the military today.

Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century, Western militaries changed enormously. Multi-year campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan had a considerable financial and human cost. Yet neither war achieved its objectives. This book questions why, and provides challenging but necessary answers.

Composed from assiduous research including hundreds of interviews, The Changing of the Guard is a strikingly rich, nuanced portrait of a military institution in a time of great stress. It is informed by conversations with soldiers who served in the British Army, and the politicians who directed them, as well as interviews with members of the US military and other allies who accompanied them, and the family members who loved and--on occasion--lost them.

Award-winning journalist Simon Akam, who spent a year in the British Army when he was 18, returned a decade later to see how the institution had changed. His book examines the relevance of the armed forces today--their social, economic, political, and cultural role. This is as much a book about the politics of failure, as it is about the military.