Decision by Mike Martin will allow him to publish critical account of Helmand conflict without interference from MoD

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

A captain in the Territorial Army has resigned after a dispute with the Ministry of Defence over a book he has written that is critical of the conduct of the campaign in Afghanistan's Helmand province.

The MoD commissioned the book by Dr Mike Martin, but took exception to parts of the account. The dispute has gone on for more than a year.

In a statement, the MoD said it "has a strong record of learning from previous campaigns and encourages its officers to challenge existing norms and conventional wisdom. However, the publication of books and articles by serving military personnel is governed by well-established policy and regulations. When these are breached, the MoD will withhold approval."

Involvement in Afghanistan cost the British military 448 deaths, many of them casualties of the ferocious fighting in Helmand. British forces seemed unprepared for Helmand, a Taliban stronghold and one of the major poppy-growing regions of the country.

The MoD has a fixed process for serving personnel who write books that allows it to raise objections, including claiming breach of the Official Secrets Act. Martin's resignation means the MoD has largely lost its hold over him and he is relatively free to publish his book, An Intimate War – An Oral History of the Helmand Conflict, 1978-2012.

The book presents a bleak picture of British and American involvement, claiming that troops failed to grasp that it was primarily a tribal civil war. "This meant that we often made the conflict worse, rather than better," Martin wrote, according to the Times.

The book is scheduled for launch in London on Wednesday.

The row echoes an incident three years ago in which Sunday Times journalist Toby Harnden had his book, an account of a British deployment to Helmand, pulped because of MoD objections.

The MoD bought up the entire first run of Dead Men Risen: The Welsh Guards and the Real Story of Britain's War in Afghanistan and pulped it. After minor amendments, it was reprinted.

Writing in the Telegraph at the time, Harnden said: "The truth is that the MoD was really motivated by politics and by embarrassment."