Ben Barry was commissioned into the Light Infantry and later commanded its second battalion. He is now Senior Fellow for Land Warfare in the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a visiting professor at the Department of War Studies, Kings College London. He is the author of Blood, Metal and Dust: How Victory Turned into Defeat in Afghanistan and Iraq (Osprey), which was shortlisted for The Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History 2021, the British Army Book of the Year 2021, a finalist for the 2020 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award and awarded First Runner Up in the Templer Medal Book Prize 2021.