A Different Kind of War is the US Army’s preliminary history of its campaign in Afghanistan between October 2001 and September 2005. Based on hundreds of oral interviews and unclassified documents, this study offers a comprehensive chronological narrative of the first four years of Operation Enduring Freedom. A Different Kind of War tells the story of how the Coalition planned the campaign against the Taliban regime and then used its military forces to overthrow that regime in 2001. The study then focuses on the Army’s lead role in the campaign that evolved after the establishment of a new government for Afghanistan in 2002. As this work shows, that new campaign slowly evolved into a broad counterinsurgency effort that featured combat operations, reconstruction projects, and training programs for a new Afghan Army. A Different Kind of War closes with a discussion of key historical insights from this period of military operations in Afghanistan. Maps, photographs and tables support this important study throughout.