In this review for The Washington Post, Elliot Ackerman assesses "American Cipher: Bowe Bergdahl and the U.S. Tragedy in Afghanistan," by Matt Farwell and Michael Ames, which tells Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl's story of walking off his base and into Taliban captivity alongside a history of the broader Afghan war.

A Soldier's Fantastic Plan

Ackerman recounts how Bergdahl, disillusioned within a month of arriving in Afghanistan, convinced himself he could walk to a nearby base and become his command's savior by manufacturing his own crisis, a plan that instead ended in his capture and five years of Taliban captivity.

A Nation's Schizotypal Delusion

Ackerman highlights the authors' central argument: that Bergdahl's court-martial diagnosis of schizotypal delusion, a condition marked by becoming lost in one's own fantasies rather than a full break from reality, doubles as an allegory for America's own delusion that it could deliver the Afghan people from a crisis of its own making.

The Cost Paid by Others

Ackerman singles out the testimony of Shannon Allen, whose husband, Mark, was shot in the head while searching for Bergdahl and left largely in a vegetative state, and Bergdahl's own court-martial apology, which prosecutor Maj. Justin Oshana rebutted bluntly: "It wasn't a mistake. It was a crime."

Read the Original Article

This review originally appeared in The Washington Post.

Read “In Afghanistan, delusions of a soldier — and an army” at The Washington Post →