Afghanistan's security forces are the subject: journalist Ben Anderson spent six years embedded with British and American troops in Helmand province and returns with footage of drug abuse, sexual misconduct, and outright incompetence inside the Afghan army and police units the West is counting on to hold the country together. The film opens with the 2006 deployment, when UK Defense Secretary John Reid hoped troops could finish the mission "without a single shot being fired," then tracks the escalation that followed: rising casualties, a surge of tens of thousands of US troops ordered by General Stanley McChrystal, and suicide bombings that increased sevenfold. Anderson's camera catches IED aftermaths and the daily menace of just walking a road. The title comes from General John R. Allen, who on his last day commanding NATO forces in Afghanistan declared Afghan forces defending Afghan citizens "this is what winning looks like." Anderson's footage, gathered as US and British forces prepare their withdrawal, argues the opposite conclusion.