New York Review of Books Review

If I were Donald Rumsfeld's son, I'd give him "Horse Soldiers" for Father's Day. During his tenure as George W. Bush's defense secretary, Rumsfeld championed a mode of warfare that relied on limited numbers of soldiers armed with high-tech equipment and backed by precise, devastating air power. The Rumsfeld doctrine clashed with the Powell doctrine, Secretary of State Colin Powell's theory that wars are best won with overwhelming ground forces, specific political goals and a clear exit strategy. Rumsfeld carried the day, and has left us in a hell of a fix in Afghanistan and Iraq. Back in early 2002, though, Rumsfeld's idea looked pretty good. In late 2001, small units of elite Special Forces soldiers, working with C.I.A. operatives and Air Force bombers, joined forces with Afghanistan's Northern Alliance to defeat the country's ruling Taliban. They didn't need tanks and 100,000 troops. They rode into battle on horses. Doug Stanton tells the story of that brief shining moment in "Horse Soldiers," a rousing, uplifting, Toby Keithsinging piece of work. This isn't Afghanistan for those who enjoy (I use the word loosely) Iraq through the analytical lens of a book like "The Assassins' Gate," by George Packer. It's for those who like their military history told through the eyes of heroic grunts, sergeants and captains. Think of Stephen E. Ambrose's "Band of Brothers" or Stanton's own best seller, "In Harm's Way," the story of the survivors of the cruiser Indianapolis, which sank in shark-infested waters during World War II. The heroes of "Horse Soldiers" are members of the Army's Fifth Special Forces Group based in Fort Campbell, Ky., an elite corps trained to be both guerrilla fighters and wartime diplomats. In the weeks after 9/11, Fifth Group soldiers scrambled to prepare for the coming war in Afghanistan. Intelligence on the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Northern Alliance was so thin that the men resorted to old Discovery Channel shows and back issues of National Geographic. There wasn't time to requisition supplies through the Army, so they scooped up tents at REI, ordered fleece jackets direct from the North Face and bought every Garmin eTrex GPS unit they could find. As the soldiers stocked their kits, C.I.A. paramilitary officers slipped into northern Afghanistan and met with local warlords who, when they weren't feuding among themselves, came together as a loosely knit anti-Taliban coalition known as the Northern Alliance. A deal was struck: a small number of Special Forces soldiers would fight alongside the Alliance, calling in precision smart-bomb airstrikes on Taliban positions. There was only one problem. Nobody told the Special Forces guys about the horses. Northern Alliance soldiers traveled and fought on horseback, which was why they hadn't had much success against the Taliban, who fought with heavy artillery, including anti-aircraft guns that when pointed groundward proved exceptionally effective at cutting men and horses in half. Upon being dropped in country, Special Forces Capt. Mitch Nelson climbed in the saddle and gave his men an impromptu lesson: "'Listen up,' Nelson croaked. 'Here's how you make this thing go.' He heeled the horse in the ribs and it walked a few steps. 'And here's how you turn,' he said, pulling a rein and drawing the narrow muzzle around. 'And here's how you stop.' He pulled back the reins and sat looking at the guys. 'Got it?'" In early November 2001, Northern Alliance forces fought their way toward the strategic city of Mazar-i-Sharif. "If a man held Mazar," Stanton writes, "then he could hold the north. And if he held the north, he could capture the capital, Kabul. From there, he could attack the desert wastes in the south stretching from Kandahar to the border with Pakistan. His army would rule Afghanistan." Commander Dostum and American soldiers in the Darya Suf Valley, Afghanistan. Mitch Nelson, the Special Forces captain, takes on the role of leading man in this huge cast (a list of the book's key players runs to more than 100 names), but the author sketches Nelson and his comrades in such bland macho superlatives that they all tend to blend into one intense, hard-as-nails G.I. Joe. And they're all itching for a fight. A bucking helicopter ride into the combat zone wasn't merely exciting for Nelson. "It completed Mitch," Stanton writes. "Made him new." When another Special Forces commander reaches a forward base near the fighting, the author writes: "He was in. Game on." We're galloping toward Clive Cussler territory here - and raising some unsettling echoes of a bring-it-on mind-set that, while understandable in a combat soldier, invites disaster when it percolates up to the Oval Office. Nelson's Special Forces unit fought alongside Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum of the Northern Alliance, a courageous, relatively liberal leader who pulls double duty here by liberating his country and breaking out of the book's broad-shouldered tough guy mold. Dostum's a hoot. As he battled toward Mazar, he worked his satellite phone like Jeremy Piven rocking the headset in "Entourage," lobbying congressmen, spinning journalists and occasionally baiting his Taliban enemies. When Nelson demanded proof that a certain bunker was a Taliban emplacement, Dostum picked up a walkie-talkie. "Come in, come in, come in," he said. "This is General Dostum." "The small speaker popped to life," Stanton writes. "Dostum had raised the Taliban on the radio." After informing them that Americans had arrived to kill them, Dostum figured it couldn't hurt to ask: "Tell me," he said, "What is your position?" The Americans located the Taliban position soon enough - thanks to those eTrex GPS units - and called in precision bomb strikes that destroyed the Taliban's big guns and turned the battle. The war wasn't won with fancy gear alone, though. Bravery was required. And here again Dostum delivered. When a Taliban antiaircraft gun halted his army's horseback charge, he rose up as if he were attacking Aqaba in "Lawrence of Arabia." "Nelson watched as Dostum leaped from his horse, reached into a saddlebag and retrieved several magazines of ammunition for his AK-47," Stanton writes. "And then he started to run. Straight down the hill toward the Taliban line." Dostum's men followed, overran the Taliban position and ultimately took Mazari-Sharif. Dostum wasn't infallible. When 600 Taliban soldiers - including John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban" - surrendered at Mazar, Dostum ordered them held in an old fortress that doubled as an armory. The arrangement worried the Special Forces. Northern Alliance troops weren't searching the Taliban for hidden weapons, and the Americans felt powerless to intrude. "It's their surrender," one officer said. The next day the prisoners overwhelmed their guards, killed a C.I.A. officer, Mike Spann, and ignited a battle that, as Stanton writes, put the United States and the Northern Alliance "within minutes of losing the entire war in Afghanistan." THERE'S a lot to admire about "Horse Soldiers." Stanton packs a huge amount of research into a thrilling action ride of a book. The valor exhibited by Afghan and American soldiers, fighting to free Afghanistan from a horribly cruel regime, will inspire even the most jaded reader. The stunning victory of the horse soldiers - 350 Special Forces soldiers, 100 C.I.A. officers and 15,000 Northern Alliance fighters routing a Taliban army 50,000 strong - deserves a hallowed place in American military history. What haunts "Horse Soldiers," though, are the events that came later. The early success of the Special Forces teams in Afghanistan, through no fault of the soldiers, bolstered Rumsfeld's case for going to war light on ground troops. With Afghanistan seemingly secured, the Bush administration turned its attention to an ill-conceived and undermanned invasion of Iraq. Afghanistan foundered. Stanton brings us up to date in an epilogue: "At present, in early 2009, the Taliban once again control large portions of Afghanistan." Today the Rumsfeld doctrine lies in tatters, while the achievement of the horse soldiers stands on its own. The book tells a story without an ending. It celebrates the heroic bravery of the men who were there when the war began. Whether that war will end with similar glory is a thing still very much in doubt. Intelligence on the Taliban was so thin that the men resorted to old Discovery Channel shows. Bruce Barcott is the author of "The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw."