Indeed, despite their military status, the gendarmes do not have a mission to fight but to participate in building a state structure based on a reliable and credible police force. Extensive program, which the author does not hide the difficulties in a country marked by thirty years of war but also by a strong tribal culture and - in many ways - does not live at the same time that the Western world.
Moreover, as the author mentions at the outset, it is not to do, but to do, explaining also re-explaining the mission to the Allied soldiers who themselves are mostly there to fight (with except members of the OMLT that perform a similar task to that of the police but to the Afghan army).
Colonel Le Bras, who commanded at the time a mobile gendarmerie group, explains very clearly the mission, the structure chosen (two of his squadrons, reinforced by some officers of the provincial gendarmerie), the preparation, the conduct of the mission and the return.
If one can legitimately ask the question of the sustainability of the results, especially given the precipitous withdrawal of French a few years later, the author, which itself carries a very clear look at the situation, fully able to explain the role of its gendarmes in a very different scenario from that of recent commitments of the gendarmerie in OPEX (Kosovo, Ivory Coast etc.). And we understand by reading this book how the dual military and police culture gendarmerie is a trump card in a world in which every crisis is atypical and unique.
The book is fairly short but covers all aspects of the mission (operational as well as humans) not forgetting the role of those who - within the gendarmerie and other armed forces - have contributed to its preparation and to its success . It is clear and well written (with some abuse "for indeed") and reads quickly. I recommend it highly, not only to those interested in the Afghan conflict ...
