After leaving Reuters, MacDonald began work on a new book, "Defeat is an Orphan: How Pakistan Lost the Great South Asian War", which was published in 2017. In the book, MacDonald focuses on the India–Pakistan relations over the past almost two decades since the two countries conducted nuclear weapons tests in 1998 and declared themselves as nuclear powers. It is in this framework, she says that it is precisely this declaration that emboldened the Pakistani establishment into believing that it could continue with its "reckless reliance" on its "militant proxies" to target India and destabilize Afghanistan. In the book, she explores the past many incidents of terrorism targeting India, starting from the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814, which was on its way to Delhi from Kathmandu, in December 1999 to the December 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian parliament, 2008 Mumbai attacks, and terrorist attacks on the Pathankot Air Force base and the Indian army base in Uri in January 2016 and September, that same year, respectively, that were all executed at the behest of Pakistan by its proxies.