Prince Harry’s new Netflix feature film will dramatize the heroism and sacrifice of British troops in Afghanistan—details of the project coming just months after President Donald Trump sparked controversy by claiming NATO forces “stayed a little back” from the front lines during the war.
The Duke of Sussex and Meghan Markle are producing an adaptation of No Way Out: The Searing True Story of Men Under Siege, a bestselling memoir by British Army Major Adam Jowett, about a small British unit under relentless attack in Helmand Province in 2006.
It comes after Trump in January appeared to question the contribution of NATO forces, which included Britain, to the war in Afghanistan, telling Fox News at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: “We’ve never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them. You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that. And they did—they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”
A source close to the production, who has been granted anonymity so they can speak freely, told Newsweek the film was not a deliberate clapback but doubled down on Harry’s support for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
“May a bit of a stretch to say it was ‘deliberate,’ the source told Newsweek. “The Duke obviously has a deep affinity and connection with all those NATO forces who served in Afghanistan, given his own operational experience in that particular theater.”
Why It Matters
Trump has argued NATO countries would not come to America’s aid if called upon, specifically citing the Iran war. European leaders counter that the U.S. remains the only NATO member ever to invoke Article 5—the alliance’s collective defense clause—after the 9/11 attacks that triggered the war in Afghanistan.
Prince Harry denounced Trump’s remarks through a spokesperson at the time they were made and his new Netflix project will give him a chance to bring to life on the silver screen a major chapter in the sacrifice that British forces made during the war.
No Way Out’s Story of British Heroism in Afghanistan
Against that backdrop, Harry’s latest project returns the focus to the experience of British troops on the ground. The book No Way Out recounts the experiences of Easy Company, a mixed unit of paratroopers and Royal Irish Rangers tasked with holding the district center of Musa Qala, a town in which Harry later operated.
The adaptation is being written by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Matt Charman, whose previous work includes the acclaimed Bridge of Spies, suggesting the film will aim for a grounded and character-driven portrayal of war rather than spectacle.
No Way Out stands out among modern war memoirs for its unflinching depiction of a specific and intense episode of the Afghan campaign. The book chronicles the events of July 2006, when Jowett and his unit were ordered to hold Musa Qala against overwhelming Taliban forces.
Cut off, outnumbered and under constant assault, the soldiers faced what many accounts describe as near-impossible odds, enduring weeks of sustained Taliban attacks.
Harry’s own memoir Spare references the battle: “Five miles away was Musa Qala, a town that had once been a Taliban fortress. In 2006 we’d seized it, after some of the worst fighting British soldiers had seen in half a century. More than a thousand Taliban had been subdued.
“After paying such a price, however, the town was quickly, carelessly, lost again. Now we’d won it a second time, and we aimed to keep it. And a nasty job it was. One of our lads had just been blown up by an IED.
“Plus, we were despised in and around the town. Locals who’d cooperated with us had been tortured, their heads put on spikes along the town walls. There would be no winning of either hearts or minds.”
The soldiers of Easy Company found themselves isolated in a makeshift compound, surrounded by hostile territory and cut off from reinforcements. Over the course of more than three weeks, they endured sustained attacks described as wave after wave of insurgent assaults, pushing them to the brink of exhaustion and collapse.
Jowett writes not only about the physical danger but about the psychological strain of command—making life-and-death decisions while responsible for the survival of his men. The narrative captures moments where ammunition ran low, defenses were close to breaking, and hope appeared almost extinguished.
Despite these conditions, the unit held its ground, and the siege eventually ended in a dramatic and unexpected turn that has become emblematic of British military resilience in Afghanistan.
During his Fox Business interview, Trump argued that the United States had carried the burden of the Afghanistan War largely alone, framing the alliance as unreliable.
The reaction across Europe was swift and intense, particularly in Britain, where 457 service personnel died during the conflict. Politicians, veterans and families of the fallen accused Trump of dismissing decades of shared sacrifice.
Prince Harry said in a January statement released to Newsweek: “In 2001, NATO invoked Article 5 for the first—and only—time in history. It meant that every allied nation was obliged to stand with the United States in Afghanistan, in pursuit of our shared security.
“Allies answered that call. I served there. I made lifelong friends there. And I lost friends there. The United Kingdom alone had 457 service personnel killed.”
“Thousands of lives were changed forever,” he continued. “Mothers and fathers buried sons and daughters. Children were left without a parent. Families are left carrying the cost. Those sacrifices deserve to be spoken about truthfully and with respect, as we all remain united and loyal to the defense of diplomacy and peace.”
Trump later partially walked back his comment following a backlash, stating on Truth Social: “The GREAT and very BRAVE soldiers of the United Kingdom will always be with the United States of America!
“In Afghanistan, 457 died, many were badly injured, and they were among the greatest of all warriors. It’s a bond too strong to ever be broken. The U.K. Military, with tremendous Heart and Soul, is second to none (except for the U.S.A.!). We love you all, and always will!”
Prince Harry’s Tours of Afghanistan
As Harry’s statement shows, he speaks from personal experience having served two tours in Afghanistan, including one as a co-pilot gunner on an Apache helicopter. In his memoir Spare, he said he killed 25 Taliban.
“While in the heat and fog of combat, I didn’t think of those twenty-five as people,” he wrote. “You can’t kill people if you think of them as people. You can’t really harm people if you think of them as people.
“They were chess pieces removed from the board, Bads taken away before they could kill Goods. I’d been trained to “other-ize” them, trained well. On some level I recognized this learned detachment as problematic. But I also saw it as an unavoidable part of soldiering.”
Harry spent a decade in the British Army, completing two operational tours of Afghanistan, the first over 2007 and 2008, when he served as a forward air controller, directing bombing raids on Taliban positions in Helmand Province.
Harry’s second tour, between 2012 and 2013 saw him serve as an Apache helicopter co-pilot gunner, actively engaging insurgent targets from the cockpit of one of the Army’s most formidable attack aircraft. The role placed him in direct combat, including missions in support of troops on the ground.
It was during his first tour that Harry described going on patrol in the area around Musa Qala, where No Way Out takes place.
“I drove with a convoy of Scimitar tanks from FOB [Forward Operating Base] Edinburgh through Musa Qala, and beyond,” Harry wrote. “The road took us down through a wadi, in which we soon came upon an IED. The first one I’d encountered. It was my job to call in the bomb experts.”
“A team quickly hopped out, approached the IED,” he continued. “Slow, painstaking work. It took them forever. Meanwhile, we were all totally exposed. We expected Taliban contact any second; around us we heard whizzing motorbikes. Taliban scouts, no doubt.”
A day or so later they came under attack while on patrol with some embedded journalists: “Moments later, the guys ahead of us came under attack. Rounds went sizzling over our heads.
“The journalists froze, looked at me, helpless. ‘Don’t just stand there! Get back in!’ I didn’t want them there in the first place, but I especially didn’t want anything happening to them on my watch. I didn’t want any journalist’s life on my ledger. I couldn’t handle the irony.”
The dispute over Trump’s remarks has sharpened the political debate around the war’s legacy, giving Harry an opportunity to show American Netflix viewers the experiences of British forces operating in Helmand.
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