Readers of Canadian military history, as well as those with an interest in the Afghan conflict, will snap up No Lack of Courage, the first battle narrative written by a Canadian military historian. But the account Colonel Bernd Horn offers is nevertheless problematic.

Horn, a Canadian Forces officer and history professor, has compiled an account of a key battle in September 2006, when the Royal Canadian Regiment Battle Group, augmented by U.S. and Afghan units, fought an entrenched Taliban force in the Panjwayi district in Kandahar province. The result was the defeat of the Taliban, which suffered more than 500 casualties. Canada lost five soldiers during the assault, one from friendly fire.

Despite the unusually aggressive nature of the battle – the Taliban had never before (and has never since) faced off against Canadian forces in such numbers – the book admirably sketches in material on tactical operations, about which there had previously only been incomplete press reports and breathless, soldier’s-eye-view accounts. Horn’s descriptions of the battle’s lead-up and aftermath are informative and refreshingly frank.

Horn concludes that, had the Taliban not been defeated in Panjwayi, Kandahar may have fallen, with Afghanistan as a whole likely following. Further, as the first major test of NATO ground forces, a failure would have discredited the alliance, undermining its unity and effectiveness as a counter-insurgency force. Four years later, the war continues with no end in sight, and control of Panjwayi continues to be disputed. Given these uncomfortable facts, the book’s conclusions, even if true, ring hollow.

As a whole, the work resides awkwardly between the accout of a comrade-in-arms saluting Canadian bravery and that of an objective historian. These tensions only serve to illustrate that military history cannot be written while it is being made, nor by those making it.