I was browsing at this book on amazon, on the synopsis there it says this :

Matthias and his comrades undergo a rite of passage as they, soldiers of a Western force whose code was secular and humanist, struggle to subjugate a fiercely proud Eastern warrior nation of deeply-held beliefs and a fervent willingness to die for their cause. Simply to survive, Alexander's men must shake off the trappings of 'civilization' as they know it and adopt the same unorthodox and barbaric tactics as their foe - but at what cost?
Which imho seems a very undisguised way of exporting a current situation ( of the war on Afghanistan and elsewhere, and the differences between ocidentals and orientals etc etc) to Alexander's time, which, imho again, sounds pretty ridiculous.

How strongly does the book address this point ? Or is it more of a marketing point ?