In the graveyard of empires
This book is a definitive account of the American experience in Afghanistan from the rise of the Taliban to the depths of the insurgency. After the swift defeat of the Taliban in 2001, American optimism has steadily evaporated in the face of mounting violence; a new "war of a thousand cuts" has now brought the country to its knees. In the Graveyard of Empires is a political history of Afghanistan in the "Age of Terror" from 2001 to 2009, exploring the fundamental tragedy of America's longest war since Vietnam. After a brief survey of the great empires in Afghanistan-the campaigns of Alexander the Great, the British in the era of Kipling, and the late Soviet Union-Seth G. Jones examines the central question of our own war: how did an insurgency develop? Following the September 11 attacks, the United States successfully overthrew the Taliban regime. It established security throughout the country-killing, capturing, or scattering most of al Qa'ida's senior operatives-and Afghanistan finally began to emerge from more than two decades of struggle and conflict. But Jones argues that as early as 2001 planning for the Iraq War siphoned off resources and talented personnel, undermining the gains that had been made. After eight years, he says, the United States has managed to push al Qa'ida's headquarters about one hundred miles across the border into Pakistan, the distance from New York to Philadelphia.
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What Hacker News says
- Highly recommend Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 and the sequel Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are long but very detailed and really lays out the complex relationships between the CIA, Pakistani ISI, and the various groups that came and went leading up to 9/11 in the first book, and post 9/11 in the second.
Descent into Chaos: The United States & the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan & Central Asia and In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan are also great reads about Afghanistan.
Not as on topic, but still good would include The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth about how the CIA shifted towards more targeting operations and the military shifted to more intelligence gathering and how that has blurred the lines between the two. And The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One about how insurgencies work, how local people are recruited and coopted by globally minded jihadists using local problems, and how a counter insurgency operation requires understanding and addressing local dynamics and issues, and breaking the connection between locally focused fighters and global jihadists.
- Don't underestimate the possibility, and the horror, of just muddling through. The US is in an oil boom, which would feel like an actual boom if it wasn't propping up an economy that was really very badly damaged by the 2008 bust. That means we can pay down the wars without learning that we're on track to get dragged down by a bloated security state. Heck, we managed to spend ten years in the Graveyard of Empires and all we learned were some cheesy anecdotes in a fraudulent book about tea drinking. And that generals shouldn't date their hagiographers.
