Product Description
Afghanistan: An Abridged History is a condensed version of Adbul Hai Habibi's 1967 A Short History of Afghanistan. Updated to include Afghanistan's latest events, it provides a narrative of the country's history from pre-historic times to the present. It testifies to the infighting among local warlords, the impact of numerous foreign invasions on the land, as well as the changes that resulted from outside influences. Such incursions continue until this day. ... Read more

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US and international officials are hopeful that Afghanistan is emerging from over 22 years of warfare and instability, although substantial risk to Afghan stability remains. This new book examines Afghanistan's historical past and the future of a post-Taliban Afghanistan, along with the US role in reconstructing a stable and moderate state. Also, this book reviews the economy of Afghanistan and the obstacles it must overcome. ... Read more

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The book may have numerous typos or missing text. It is not illustrated or indexed. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website. You can also preview the book there.Purchasers are also entitled to a trial membership in the publisher's book club where they can select from more than a million books for free.Subtitle: A Short Account of Afghanistan, Its History, and Our Dealings With It. With Additional Vol., Bringing the History of the Afghan Question Down to 1885, 2 VolsPublication date: 1885Subjects: Afghanistan; Great Britain ... Read more

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Edited by Charles Nash.This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1843 edition by Thomas Brooks, London. ... Read more

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Although previous governments have attempted to build a strong state to initiate economic development and modernization of Afghanistan, such plans have not been fully realized.This text highlights the rivalry between British India and Tsarist Russia over Afghanistan; new rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union; Afghan social and cultural issues; lack of women contribution in the national development; and the draconian Taliban rule as major reasons for the failure of an Afghan state. ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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Why did so many Afghan people leave their country to become refugees? What was it like to be a woman living in Afghanistan during the repressive Taliban rule? What was it like to be a witness to history? Step back to the time of the wars in Afghanistan and

... Read more

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With the unleashing of the "War on Terror" in the aftermath of 9/11, Afghanistan has become prominent in the news. However, we need to appreciate that no substantive understanding of contemporary history, politics and society of this country can be achieved without a thorough analysis of the Afghan encounter with cultural and literary modernity and modernization.

Modern Persian Literature in Afghanistan does just that. The book offers a balanced and interdisciplinary analysis of the rich and admirable contemporary poetry and fiction of a land long tormented by wars and invasions. It sets out to demonstrate that, within the trajectory of the union between modern aesthetic imagination and politics, creativity and production, and representation and history, the modernist intervention enabled many contemporary poets and writers of fiction to resist the overt politicization of the literary field, without evading politics or disavowing the modern state.

The interpretative moves and nuanced readings of a series of literary texts make this book a major contribution to a rather neglected area of research and study.

Winner of the Iranian World Prize for Book of the Year in Islamics Studies 2009

Product Description
This book follows a generally linear historical form. It starts with an account of the country and its people, and then describes and analyses its history, with particular reference to its relations with neighboring powers and its dominant internal theme, the ongoing struggle between its rulers and tribal society. Attention is paid to the growing dichotomy during the twentieth century between an increasingly urban elite and the traditional countryside, and its culmination in the communist coup and Soviet invasion. This is followed by an analysis of the reasons for the Soviet withdrawal and the subsequent civil war. The book continues with a description of the rise to, and fall from, power of the Taliban and the consequences this has had, both internally and internationally. It ends with an analysis of the country post-Taliban. ... Read more

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This monumental book examines Afghan society in conflict, from the 1978 communist coup to the fall of Najibullah, the last Soviet-installed president, in 1992. This edition, newly revised by the author, reflects developments since then and includes material on the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. It is a book that now seems remarkably prescient.Drawing on two decades of research, Barnett R. Rubin, a leading expert on Afghanistan, provides a fascinating account of the nature of the old regime, the rise and fall of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, and the troubled Mujahidin resistance. He relates all these phenomena to international actors, showing how the interaction of U.S. policy and Pakistani and Saudi Arabian interests has helped to create the challenges of today. Rubin puts into context the continuing turmoil in Afghanistan and offers readers a coherent historical explanation for the country's social and political fragmentation.Amazon.com Review
The tortured history of Afghanistan is illuminatingly outlined byBarnett S. Rubin, an American academic and human rights monitor in theregion. In the 19th century, the country successfully resisted colonial rule,becoming a buffer between the imperial superpowers, Britain and Russia. Thatdangerous position resulted in an isolation that held back modernization andthe emergence of a modern central government. In this century, the SovietUnion and the United States maintained the status quo up until the earlyseventies, when a communist coup heralded massive outside intervention. Thecountry was ripe for a disastrous fragmentation. This scholarly study iscomplemented by a sequel: TheSearch for Peace in Afghanistan. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Fragmented and encapsulated, but never led
Barnett Rubin established himself as America's leading expert on Afghanistan during the 1990s, when the total number of academics focused on that benighted country was virtually in the single digits."The Fragmentation of Afghanistan" was written in the early 1990s, before the Taliban took over and long before a group calling itself Al Qaeda established a presence.There is a 25-page preface to the second edition that sheds some light on this critical phase of Afghanistan's history, but it does not alter the fact that "Fragmentation" is essentially a history of the period of Soviet occupation, with a few helpful introductory chapters to set the scene for the events of the late 1970s and 1980s.

I had the chance to read this book while actually living and working in Afghanistan.There were two distinct aspects that I found especially helpful and illuminating.

The first is an academic argument that forms the foundation of Rubin's thesis.The author maintains that the strife owing to Afghanistan's tribal system and ethnic diversity has been deliberately fomented and the exacerbated by outside influence and internal elements seeking to dominate.The end result has been something close to anarchy."Where state authority is too weak to provide structure to civil and political society, the objectives of opposition come to resemble those of competitive state building.Without law or political institutions, the struggle for power becomes as unstructured as the wars among the princes of early modern Europe."

Rubin goes all the way back to the period of Ahmed Shah Durrani to develop his argument.He writes that national leadership in Afghanistan - to the extent it has ever truly existed - has always relied on manipulating tribal relations to secure their positions.Furthermore, foreign aid has long played a critical role in enabling central leaders to maintain power - and when that flow of aid runs out for whatever reason, the "national leaders" are left helpless and quickly abandoned by internal allies because they have never developed a foundation of civil society that goes beyond the basic distribution of money and resources.

The second aspect of this book I found particularly useful was Rubin's close study of the history and make-up of the Afghan communist party, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), and its relationship with the Soviet Union.Rubin provides a meticulous study of where the PDPA members came from (province, ethnic group and tribe), where they went to school (high school and college), which departments they were in (engineering, Islamic studies, arts & letters).Rubin writes that there was no genuine (or at least fundamental) ideological schism between the two main wings of the PDPA, Parcham and Khalq.It was Parcham that saw value in working inside the Daoud government with progressive elements before the Sawr Revolution, while Khalq advocated for a hazily defined revolution.Like the split in the Islamist ranks between Hezb and Jamiat, it was more "political and strategic" than ideological/theological.

Rubin argues that the major fronts in revolutionary Afghanistan - Parcham (urban, close to the old elite, and Persian speaking), Khalq (more rural, tribal and Pashto speaking) and Islamist (mostly rural) - were all products of the new education system brought to the country in the 1960s that depended on outside, foreign assistance to survive and grow.They were, he says, "rentier revolutionaries produced by a rentier state."

Rubin also does a good job explaining the events and motivations behind Soviet intervention and the various phases of their failed counterinsurgency campaign.The author argues that radical social changes sought by Hafizullah Amin and his Khalq faction in the immediate aftermath of the revolution, combined with the high level purges of the army, led to a rapid disintegration of the military, including mutiny, all across the country.Rubin says that it was this disintegration of the army and then the internal disintegration of the state and party that allowed revolt to spread so quickly in late 1978 and early 1979, and it was this disintegration, rather than the military force of the resistance, that prompted Soviet intervention.Moscow could not and would not tolerate anarchy on its soft underbelly, especially when the government ostensibly in charge was a fellow traveler of rather orthodox Marxist-Leninist persuasion.

Even after the Soviets ousted Amin and his Khalqi regime and backed a Karmal-led Parcham government, Rubin claims that the Parcham/Khalq split dominated the entire history of the Soviet occupation.The Khalqi contingent still played a central role in the government and had powerful advocates in the Red Army and military intelligence, the GRU.The author describes the Soviet advisor experience in Afghanistan as similar to the US in Vietnam as different internal alliances developed, often at cross purposes with each other.

In sum, this is excellent introduction to Afghan tribal and ethnic dynamics and one of the most authoritative political reviews of the PDPA during the Soviet era.

The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System
This book is excellent.It describes in great detail how Great Britain, Russia, Th U.S. and now Pakistan have contributed to the destruction of the basic fiber of the country and the reasons this happened.

Fragmentation of Afganistan
I received two copiesof book and returned one. I did enjoy the book very much.

very detailed and well researched, but a tough read
Barry Rubin's account of the fragmentation of Afghanistan and the failure of the state is a very detailed in-depth account of the different parties involved, and the cobweb of international and national actors. I especially appreciated the new post September 11 preface to the second edition. It is a great book for the academic or those looking for a serious book on Afghanistan, however I would not recommend it for someone with little knowledge of the region and its and religous political struggles. Without an understanding of the region, the reader is not likely to get past the first chapter.

Solid academic political analysis
Afghanistan, in the perceptions of many, is a small, seemingly inconsequential country. It has experienced encroachment from the Soviets, Pakistanis, Persians, Mughals, Mongols, Ottoman Turks and has been on the receiving end of a mixed positive and negative American presence. The people of Afghanistan have endured governmental incompetence, nepotism, torture, murder, political Islam, political negligence, state formation and collapse, ethnic and tribal strife and civil war. Afghanistan has been affected by all major international economic and political crises and as Rubin suggests is "The Mirror of the World" as the first chapter is titled.

Barnett Rubin clearly knows his subject and gives the reader a masterful analysis of the social and political realities of Afghanistan and how those played out in the (many times lack of) governance of the country. The analysis includes the interrelationships and rivalries of tribes, the communist party, political elites, and fundamentalist Islamic clerics and their supporters. Rubin also discusses the origins as well as the failures of the state system to administer to even a small portion of the citizens. The state, unable to withstand the factional vying for power of those groups as well as those more on the margin of Afghan politics, collapsed.

There was little if any legitimacy to the state in much of recent Afghan history. In fact, most of the funding for social programs, infrastructure, as well as government employee paychecks were from international aid. There was exceedingly little investment in industry, which prevented the Afghans from repayment of loans. The feudal relations of tribes and khans many times held strong even through short sighted goverment incursions and policies enacted to assert its own hegemony. The reasons for the collapse of the Afghan government become quite clear when one reads such a compelling account of political failure.

Soviet control and manipulations are treated comprehensively and are well documented.

Rubin presents a thorough, nuanced, very well researched piece of sholarship and deserves much credit for teaching us the intricacies of state and political policy formation.

The one negative element I see is that it can be dry. However, that is usually a quality assigned by non-academics to academic writing. Although this is not light reading it should be clear that the book is highly informative. ... Read more

Product Description
During the 19th Century Britain entered into three brutal wars with Afghanistan, each one an imperial struggle for power that saw the British forces trying, and failing, to gain control of an inhospitable and impenetrable region.The first two wars (1839 - 42, 1878 - 81) were attempts to expunge pro-Russian sympathies, and thehe third, in 1919, a result of an Afghan-declared holy war against British India. In the last of the three, over 100,000 Afghans answered the call for a holy war, generating a military force that would prove too great for the British Imperial army. Each of the three wars were plagued with military disasters, lengthy sieges and costly engagements for the British, and history has proved the Afghans a formidable foe and Afghanistan an unconquerable territory. This book reveals the history of these three Anglo-Afghan wars, the imperial power struggles that led to conflict and the torturous experiences of the men on the ground as they struggled against the inhospitable Afghan terrain and an unrelenting enemy. The book concludes with a brief overview of the motives for today's conflict and draws the historical parallels between the past and present. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A Land Made for War
Afghanistan has been called the "graveyard of empires" due to the negative experiences there by would-be British and Russian imperialists and now that the U.S. and NATO are embroiled in an enduring counter-insurgency campaign in that country themselves, a look at the mistakes of the past can prove edifying. Sandhurst professor Gregory Fremont-Barnes provides a well-written narrative of the three wars that Britain fought in Afghanistan from 1839 to 1919 and the lessons learned from each. As usual, Osprey's Essential Histories series does not have space to delve into tactical details, but the overview provided allows the reader to understand what happened, why it did and what the results were, which is probably sufficient for most readers. Dr. Fremont Barnes' The Anglo-Afghan Wars 1839-1919 delivers a cogent analysis of the perils of fighting in such a remote and harsh environment, surrounded by swarms of hardened guerilla fighters.

The volume is divided into three parts, each covering one of the conflicts, but the bulk focuses on the first two wars. In sketching these first two wars, the author notes that British strategy and policies were driven by a persistent fear of Russian intervention in Afghanistan, followed by a threat to the British position in India - which he admits was an exaggerated fear. Nevertheless, the Afghan Wars formed the central motif in "the Great Game" - the Anglo-Russian struggle to extend their spheres of influence in Central Asia in the mid-Nineteenth Century. Thus, the author outlines how the British in India committed about 10,000 troops on an expedition into Afghanistan in April 1839 to overthrow an unfriendly Afghan Amir who possessed no standing army. The author notes that British firepower was capable of smashing any Afghan fortifications and that ample subsides provided to local tribal chiefs greased the skids for British intervention; both dynamics were in play for the Americans again when they intervened in Afghanistan in 2001. While the British handily captured Kabul in a short four-month campaign and believed that `major combat operations' were over, they settled into occupation duty surrounded by a hostile countryside. As winter approached, the British garrison in Kabul found itself under virtual siege and made a run for the Khyber Pass, but was destroyed enroute by Afghan irregular forces.The author's description of the retreat from Kabul in January 1842 is the best part of this volume and it is gripping. Later in the `Portrait of a Civilian' section, he provides a look at Lady Sale, wife of a British general, who participated in the retreat and left a vivid written impression of the experience.Although the British sent an "Army of Retribution" (aptly named but no longer chic in our age) to punish some of the Afghan border tribes, the First Afghan War ended as an expensive failure for the British.

Part Two begins with a discussion of how 36 years after the end of the first war, Britain resumed the `great game' and made efforts to bring Afghanistan into its sphere of influence.As the author explains, the British didn't recognize Afghanistan's autonomy and tried to dictate a series of treaties to them that would have reduced it to a client state. When the Afghans refused, the British sent a larger, 26,000-man invasion force in late 1878. The military dynamics were a bit different in this second go, since the Afghans had a regular army (the author mentions that they had modern artillery but fails to mention where this came from. A discussion of foreign arms sales to Afghanistan in the 19th Century would have been useful) this time and were less dependent upon tribal levies. Although the British invaded with three columns that were too widely separated for mutual support, they routed the regular Afghan troops and seized both Kabul and Kandahar in a short campaign. Then, with victory in their grasp, things started to go wrong for the British, beginning with cholera epidemics that ravaged their troops. The Afghans massed their forces against the isolated Kandahar column and inflicted a crushing defeat on the British at Maiwand in July 1880 (scratch off another British battalion) and besieged the survivors in Kandahar.Responding to this crisis, the British Kabul column marched 313 miles in 21 days - which the author rightly notes as one of the great feats of the British Army - to defeat the Afghans and raise the siege. Despite ending with a tactical victory, the British realized that they had too few troops to hold the hostile countryside and decided to evacuate the country while they were still ahead.

Part Three is shorter than the other two, but covers in brief the hostilities in 1919. In short, the new Amir of Afghanistan incited jihad against British India for local advantage and the British mobilized military resources to prevent this. Rather than full-scale invasion as in the previous instances, the Third Afghan War was more of a border conflict. Interestingly, the British lost any control they had over Waziristan - now a focal point on the modern Afghan-Pakistan border - and their previously loyal units such as the Khyber Rifles had to be disbanded.

In conclusion, the author makes a number of interesting assessments, without trying to stretch too hard to make them relevant to the current war in Afghanistan. He notes that British strategy was driven by false assumptions about Russian/Afghan intentions and a failure to understand the people and environment of the country. His enduring lesson is: "that while modern, well-equipped armies can defeat their conventional Afghan counterparts, vanquishing their irregular compatriots in the countryside presents altogether more complex and perhaps insoluble military problems."The author provides a chronology and a bibliography. There are six maps in the volume, which are good, but not quite sufficient to follow everything mentioned in the text (particularly no map for the Third War).

The fortunes of Western armies in a pesky, obdurate land
"And yet, under the most favorable events, I would have you share the feeling which is growing strongly upon me - that the maintenance of the position which we attempted to establish in Afghanistan is no longer to be looked to, and ... it must appear to be, if not in vain, yet upon every consideration of prudence far too hazardous and costly in money and I life for us to continue to wrestle against the universal opinion, national and religious, which has been so suddenly and so strongly brought into array against us." - Major-General William Elphinstone, commanding Anglo-Indian forces in Kabul during the First Anglo-Afghan War

Hindsight is a conveniently easy perspective, but that doesn't mean lessons can't be learned.

THE ANGLO-AFGHAN WARS 1839-1919, written by Gregory-Fremont Barnes, is part of the multi-volume "Essential Histories" series on war seen from political, strategic, tactical, cultural and individual perspectives.

At first surprised glance, this quarter-inch thick, soft-cover volume seems almost a pamphlet at a mere 85 pages of narrative text. However, in width and height it's the size of a standard hardcover, and the closely-spaced, relatively small font size provides a wealth of information.

THE ANGLO-AFGHAN WARS 1839-1919 begins with an Introduction and a Chronology. The meat of the history is contained in three Parts: "The First Anglo-Afghan War, 1839-42", "The Second Anglo-Afghan War, 1878-81", and "The Third Anglo-Afghan War, 1919". The volume ends with Conclusion and Consequences and a Bibliography. Each of the three main parts has sections entitled: "Origins and Background of the War", "Warring Sides", "The Fighting", and "How the War Ended".

Part One also includes the sections: "Portrait of a Civilian: Florentia, Lady Sale (1787-1853)" and "The World Around War: The Playground of the Great Game". Part Two also includes "Portrait of a Soldier: Arthur Male, Army Chaplain, 13th Hussars".

The book is liberally sprinkled with photographs, maps and art reproductions with some of the latter two in color. This aspect of the work could've benefited from better editing: a painting of General Sir Samuel Browne entering Jalalabad in September 1878 during the Second War appears in the chapter dealing with the First as well as in that dealing with the Second for no apparent reason; a reproduction of the same painting, one in color and one in black and white, of the Jagdalak Pass appears twice over four pages; and Part Two contains a drawing of Major-General Sir Charles Napier pursuing tribal forces in 1843, which is more appropriately placed in Part One.

I'm old enough to have observed via news reports, from the beginning to the end,the Soviet Union's Afghanistan debacle (1979-1989), a modern power defeated by rag-tag mujahideen armed with U.S. weapons. Now, the United States is embroiled in its own Afghani quagmire fighting those same mujahideen in Obama's War (no longer Bush's). And no American politician can convincingly define for me what a "victory" will, or should, be.

THE ANGLO-AFGHAN WARS 1839-1919 provides the reader with a commendably concise and satisfying narrative summary of the essential facts surrounding the First, Second and Third Anglo-Afghan conflicts. Cutting the losses of national treasure and the lives of its young men was, apparently, the Empire's only victory.

An Excellent Exploration of the Causes of this War
In view of current events,this is an excellent book of not only warfare, but of the cultural facts which make this war even more brutal and cruel than what I had read previously in other history books.

released at the right time
This book arrived in the mail the week Obama gave his Afghanistan speech at West Point. Talk about remarkable timing.

The book deals with the three wars the British fought in Afghanistan----twice, because of the the threat of Russia, and once because some Afghans declared a jihad against India.

In all three wars, the British had a terrible time of it. And one can see why.Afghanistan is a wonderful place to defend, and a hellish place to invade. Even getting into the country poses
a problem---and supply is a monstrous difficulty.

The British suffered some terrible defeats at the hands of the Afghans, who could hide in the mountains and rocks, and shoot at the British soldiers with ease.God help the poor
British soldier who was captured alive.That fate even led to some grim lines by Kipling.

On does have to wonder what, precisely, the Obama administration hopes to gain from their foray into the horrors of the HIndu Kush.Afghanistan is barely fit for human
habitation, and what is there is a nightmare of squabbling feudal warlords, vicious tribesmen, and determined foes. This slim little book makes one think.

The illustrations in the book are very fascinating .There are pictures of hiding Afghans, ready to shoot at the advancing British columns, and, of course, pictures of the
mountains and terrain.Not a place any army really wants to be.

I recommend this book to those interested in the subject. And there should be plenty, given the situation we are about to face. ... Read more

Product Description
U.S. Army Special Operations in Afghanistan chronicles the "boots on the ground" actions by U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) from September 11, 2001, until May 15, 2002. What makes this book so significant is that the history was captured as USASOC troops (Green Berets, Rangers, PsyOps, SpecOps Aviation and Civil Affairs) were fighting the war, providing an easily understood snapshot of the war as it happened during those first critical months. The authors include the mistakes, frustrations and failures of the war along with the successes. Rather than an armchair historian's overall strategic view 10 years later, it is an account of what individuals and small teams did with bravery, skill and honor on a day-to-day basis to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists, and assist the Afghan people and begin the vital work of rebuilding the infrastructure of Afghanistan ... Read more

Product Description
Intelligence specialist Leigh Neville identifies, describes and illustrates the Special Operations Forces (SOF) of the US and other Allied (Coalition) forces committed to the 'War on Terror' in Afghanistan since 2001, providing a fascinating insight into specific operations detailing weapons, equipment and experiences in combat. With a surprising amount of recently unclassified material from government departments that are yet to be published in the mass media, this is a ground-breaking analysis of the largest mobilization of Special Forces in recent history.

Extensive first-hand accounts provide an eyewitness perspective of the fighting including a description of the assault on Tora Bora, all illustrated with an array of unpublished photos and full color artwork. Containing detailed information on the US Delta Force, the British SAS, Australian and Canadian Special Forces as well as CIA and MI6 operational units this book provides a crucial study of their skills and success amidst Afghan mountains. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

SPECIAL FORCES IN AFGHANISTAN
ALTHOUGH IT'S ONE OF THE FIRST TO COVER OTHER COUNTRIES SOF, THE BOOK IS TOO SHALLOW IN COVERAGE FOR THE 6 YEARS THAT IT LISTS IN ITS TITLE.

Special Operations Forces in Afganistan 2001-2007
Excellent. Good to have an reasonably current account of the methods of operations in Afghanistan.Illustrations quite impressive.Every operation was different, mistakes noted and lessons learnt makes it a useful read.Notable difference in these operations was the effort to work with and support thelocals instead of doing the whole thing on our own. We must leave it to the locals sometime. AP.

Decent, but comes with limited shelf-life
Osprey has always been keen to get books out quickly on on-going conflicts and this carries with it the advantage of immediate relevancy but the disadvantage of limited data available. One of the latest volumes in the Elite Series, Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan by Australian researcher Leigh Neville, is typical of this trend. It is an attractive volume, with numerous color photos, that offers an appealing subject for a fairly wide audience. However, like Osprey's earlier volumes on the Soviet War in Afghanistan or the Modern Soviet Army Today, this is the kind of volume that has a limited shelf-life of approximately 2-3 years before it is OBE. I have a number of similar earlier Osprey volumes on my shelves, on Panama and Grenada, that now seem rather trite. In any case, this volume does offer some nice photos and information to readers today, even though it is likely to seem rather thin in a few years. Furthermore, the volume is heavily focused on operations in 2001-2002, with only brief coverage of later years.

The volume begins with a brief discussion of the American decision to intervene in Afghanistan in 2001, the nature of the Taliban and the initial organization of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). General readers should beware that this volume is loaded with so much special forces acronyms and jargon (the author does provide a short glossary on page 2 - keep that handy) that it becomes unpleasant to read at times. The author then moves into a 9-page section on initial operations in October-December 2001 and a 5-page section on Operation Anaconda in 2002. After that, the author provides a 4-page sub-section on UK Special Forces (SAS and SBS) and a 5-page section providing capsule descriptions on other coalition special forces (incl. Australia, Canada, Czech, France, Germany, Italy, etc). Final sections cover special operations since Anaconda (6 pages) and weapons and other equipment. There is also a brief nod to private security contractors. The color plates in the center include four pages of `uniforms' (rather an oxymoron with special forces), two battle scenes and one plate depicting vehicles.

On the positive side, the author has approached this subject earnestly and he has attempted to provide as comprehensive a picture of SOF (Special Operations Forces) in Afghanistan as possible in a 64-page format. However, the focus seems to rest heavier on the `sexy' aspects of SOF: Direct Action and Surveillance by `operators' with only a nod given to training Afghan militias, civil affairs and psyops (all part of special operations). There is virtually no mention of SOF logistics or C3I in this volume, but a great deal on every different variant of the M4 that is carried. Hence, the volume is a bit weighted toward `action' content. The author does provide a number of comments from anonymous SOF troops in the field (I think a number of non-anonymous interviews are available, if he had bothered to check US Army publications or lessons learned), which add a nice-folksey touch, but which don't add much. There is virtually no attempt at analyzing SOF operations or looking at how SOF has adapted over time, or lessons learned. As such, this volume was written at the very low tactical end of SOF operations, rather than trying to size up how they really contributed to Coalition strategic objectives in Afghanistan.

The volume is also a bit too rosey and uncritical of its discussion of SOF operations. Anaconda is described as merely a `partial-success' rather than as the poorly executed operation that it really was (issues like poorly-coordinated C2, lack of artillery support, Afghan intell leaks not even mentioned). Some of the photos also raise questions: for example, a photo on page 4 depicts SF armed troops in civilian clothes but standing next to a HUMVEE with a Confederate flag - what is the purpose of attempting to be covert but driving around in a US military vehicle with a Rebel flag? While it is clear that some SOF troops need to be covert and blend in (growing beards and wearing Afghan clothes), it is far from clear what SOF troops gain by wearing jeans, Harley Davidson T-shirts and a New York Yankees cap instead of wearing standard battle-dress. This attire doesn't seem to contribute to any tactical necessities but appears more due to distance from normal military environments; I've served with some troops who if left unsupervised for a few days would quickly start dressing like a biker gang. Several vehicle photos raised the same issue: why did SOF troops choose to use a cherry red Toyota pickup instead of a camouflaged HUMVEE. There may be good reasons for some of these choices, but none of it is explained here. Interestingly, I don't see any photos in this volume of the non-US SOF troops pulling this (they're all in proper uniform and military vehicles) and it somehow makes some of our troops seem less professional in comparison. I suspect that some of these individuals were actually contractors, even though the author has identified them as US troops.

NOT VERY ACCURATE
Good book in general but not very accurate in details about SOF orgnisations and TOE. Artwork is nothing to talk home about.

A survey of the Western response to terrorist attacks on the U.S.
Military libraries strong in modern operations need Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan: it's a survey of the Western response to terrorist attacks on the U.S. and describes the results achieved by specific units operating in Afghanistan. From successes to failures, chapters cover strategy, include many rare private photos and use the author's SOF contacts for unusual embellishment.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch ... Read more

Product Description
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1879 edition by Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, London. ... Read more

Product Description
Focusing principally on events and policy missteps in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s, award-winning journalist Roy Gutman weaves a narrative that exposes how and why the U.S. government, the United Nations, and the Western media "missed the story" in the leadup to 9/11. He advances this narrative carefully and persuasively and approaches his subject with an objective, journalistic eye, drawing heavily on his own original research and extensive interviews with key players both in the United States and abroad. Arguing that the U.S. government made a strategic mistake by categorizing bin Laden's murderous assaults prior to 9/11 as terrorism, he ultimately concludes that the core failure was in the field of U.S. foreign policy.Sure to attract a wide audience, this first-rate, deeply engaging volume makes a highly original contribution to our understanding of the events and mistakes that ultimately led to 9/11 and offers much-needed insight so that such a story is not missed again. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

What went wrong
A more appropriate title might be "What we did wrong in Afghanistan."The book is carefully researched and well worth reading for anyone interested in how al Quaeda took control of Afghanistan.

Failure is not an orphan
John F. Kennedy famously observed that "Success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan." Roy Gutman demonstrates that JFK had it backwards.

Many of us are old enough to remember the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. We're old enough too to remember the Reagan years when plucky bands of raggamuffin fighters, supplied with weapons by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, drove the world's most feared fighting force, the Red Army, out of their homeland and back across the "Friendship Bridge" from whence they'd come. Back then, new words enriched our vocabulary. We spoke of "Mujaheddin" as men of courage and considered their "Jihad" as righteous and good. And even if you don't remember this, even if your only exposure to these events is that you saw "Charlie Wilson's War" down at the local Multi-plex Movie House, it's hard to consider the history of Afghanistan in the 80s and conclude that our involvment there made us anything other than comrades in arms with the Mujaheddin, and friends of the Afghan people.

So explain to me how 9/11 happened?

This is the job that Roy Gutman undertakes in "How We Missed the Story."

From page to page you are reminded of vaguely familiar events and long-forgotten names from the war years and you think, retrospectively, how so little effort on our part was needed to break the chain of events that led to 9/11. So why didn't we do it?

Was it an intelligence failure? Sure. The CIA dropped the ball. Was it a political failure? Absolutely. The Clinton Administration was so mesmerized by the notion of the "Peace Dividend" that they quit paying attention to what was going on in distant lands with hard-to-pronouce names. But there is another group of people who should have done better but let us down as well: Journalists. The result of these myriad failures and oversights was that Osama bin Laden hijacked the Afghan government, unnoticed and without challenge.

Gutman explains the message of his book in this way:

"...The message is that in the world we live in, insularity will get us in trouble. Journalists who think inside the box drawn by government -- and who don't go where they aren't wanted -- are bound to miss the story and lose their franchise; government which ignores its primary function of assuring the country's security will open the way to calamity; and government which operates blindly, without reference to facts on the ground -- as journalists should be providing -- will only make bad problems a good deal worse..."

So, why should you read this book? Let me offer two reasons:

The first comes from something my professors taught me in engineering school. We learn best not from our successes but from our faiures. It's only because the bridge fell down, or the train went off the rails, or truck crashed or the wing broke off that we leared to build stronger, better, faster, taller and lighter things. Afghanistan represents a failure, but one we can learn from if we take the time and make the effort to learn what went wrong.

The second reason comes from something the late New York Times Science Reporter, James Gleick, wrote in his wonderful book, "Chaos." In there he coined the phrase "The Butterfly Effect" to describe the notion of how a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon River basin could set off a cascade of meteorological events culminating in a tornado sweeping through Kansas.

Long-range weather forecasting, said Gleick, can never happen because there are not enough reporting stations to know about every rising air current or gust of wind. And yet there are enough reports, from various sources - professional and amateur - so that we have sufficient information to accurately predict blizzards, tornadoes and hurricanes and to give adequate warning to those in the path of harm.

Today we live in a world where a meeting of a few men on a snowy mountain-top in the Hindu Kush, or in a dusty village in the Horn of Africa, or a in crowded city in South Asia can cause a cascade of events that result in the death of thousands, continents away. We need sufficient reporting stations to predict and prepare for this kind of trouble as well.

So from where do we need reports? Gutman suggests that the best place to look for trouble is in the places where goverments either restrict reporters activities or deny journalists access completely. We need to know more about what's happening in places like Somalia, or Burma, or the Congo, or, maybe, the failed-state Central Asian Republics of the former Soviet Union. Just like weather data, some information can come from satellites, some from government employees stationed at embassies around the world, but maybe the best source is from the legion of journalists combing the globe for a good story to tell.

It is a cliche to say, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." But it is the phrase's self-evident truthfulness that makes it trite. You should read this book to remind yourself there's a price to be paid for letting down your guard in a troubled world.

Important Contribution with Some Errors and Omissions
I cannot second-guess the author's findings based on his extraordinary direct research, but I do question some of what he was told (Madeline Albright, for example, misled this author), and I also have some issues with how the book's findings over-state, under-state, and ignore other credible sources I have reviewed here at Amazon.

Up front, seven excellent insights from this book:

1.The U.S. in the 1990's had no idea that Information Operations (IO) was going to be important, and that the dissemination of deadly knowledge (e.g. from the Afghanistan wars, on how to create Improvised Explosive Devices, etcetera) was going to become a global threat.Tracking "dangerous knowledge" has now become one of my top "indicator & warning" elements.See my review of Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography

2.Small wars cannot be ignored, power vacuums cannot be allowed or they will be filled negatively.Non-state actors can hijack a state and we need to notice when they do.It is at this point I begin to feel the author is over-stating Bin Laden's reach, especially when compared to criminal states around the world.See my review of Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy.

3.Successive administrations, from Bush Senior to Clinton to Bush Jr, had no clue about the importance of the "cultural roots" that Bin Laden was spreading with his financing of madrasses across Afghanistan (it is at this point I grow concerned that the author is ignoring the Saudi government's financing of both Bin Laden and the madrasses all over the world and especially in Indonesia).I have scheduled a book on CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE: Beliefs, Faiths, Ideologies, and the Five Minds for 2009.This is clearly an area where the US Intelligence Community and the foreign policy/national communities know nothing.

4.If journalists are not on the scene in every clime and place, then it is easier for the US Government to ignore problems that will inevitably ignore borders and come home to America.See A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility--Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change.The author ignores the fact that with the exception of The Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, and the Boston Globe, virtually every newspaper and journal is a paid huckster for their corporate owners.

5.IMPORTANT:Administration must not only HAVE a grand strategy, but within that strategy must craft BOTH a domestic message for the US public and an inter-agency foreign policy campaign plan for achieving OUTCOMES, not just "messages."This was the book's strongest point.

6.American indifference reinforces instability enablers and formentors.I know for a fact that Madeline Albright repressed INR reporting on terrorism becoming a real problem.She chose to accept Iran's attack on Khobar Towers and the Al Qaeda attacks on two embassies and the USS Cole as "acceptable losses."That alone disqualifies her from advising Hillary Clinton on anything.

7.UN and UN negotiated for the Soviet pull-out but not for a stable follow-on regime.Deja vu in Iraq.Over-all the author does an excellent job of depicting a generally blase, sometimes naive, and often inattentive US foreign policy establishment across all three administrations.See my review of Running The World: the Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power for a sense of the clowns our Presidents tend to appoint for lack of a stronger TRANSPARTISAN bench.

Without regard to how the author may have been led by those telling their story as they would have it come out, there are a number of "dots" that I found worthy of note:

+ Bin Laden is reported to have forecast Iraq's attack on Kuwait and eventually on Saudi Arabia.

+ Over-emphasis on Bin Laden's anti-Americanism and I have noted, "a hit job of Clarke and Scheuer."It was the US keeping bases in Saudi Arabia that set Bin Laden off, together with the Saudi refusal to allow him to attack Hussein directly.

+ US reliance on Pakistan and failing to deal direct with the Afghan regimes and principal tribes was a fatal error

+ Author avoids any mention of the fact that it was the Saudi regime that funded Bin Laden and global spread of virulent Wahabbism from 1988 onwards.

+ Although Cheney appears in the Index several times, the book and the author, rather astonishingly, fail to to report:

- Cheney was given the mandate for terrorism from day one under Bush Junior, and it was Cheney who first, failed to take terrorism seriously, and then allowed it happen in order to justify an invasion of Iraq.See, among MANY other books, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Fourth Edition among many other works.

- Both the Clinton and Bush Junior Administrations were actively negotiating with the Taliban over oil and natural gas pipelines.See Crossing the Rubicon, The Long Emergency, and many other works along these lines.

+ Senator Jesse Helms not only destroyed the US Information Agency, the only US agency with a clue on foreign cultures and belief systems, but he also castrated the Agency for International Development (AID) at precisely the time it was most needed.

+ Karzai flagged the Taliban as a group worthy of supporting.

+ US Intelligence had astronomical sums for "getting" Bin Laden but almost nothing for fostering stabilization and reconstruction in Afghanistan, including support to nationalists like Moussaud.

+ In 1999 Pakistan and Iran cut a deal--THAT IS THE SECOND STORY WE MISSED.[We know have a great deal of reporting in the open on Iranian funding of Pakistani nuclear program, and in my view, likelihood that the quid pro quo was an Islamic nuclear warhead for the Russian Sunburn missiles (carrier killers, 3.0 mach straight, 2.2 mach zig-zag).

+ The author is naive or poorly informed or duplicitous in his stating that Bin Laden was outraged at the illegitimate Arab rules, stating it in such as way as to question Bin Laden's sanity.Michael Scheur and I are agreed on this point: Bin Laden has had good cause to condemn US presence in the Middle East.See my review of Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025 as well as Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror.

+ He reminds us that Ambassador Bill Richardson accomplished nothing in his mission to Afghanistan.

+ He reminds us that Khalizad, the darling of Bush Juniors regime, was part of the problem within the Clinton Administration.

+ He tells a very good story over-all of how conflicted the Department of State was in on the one hand, considering the Taliban not bad over all (what does not come out is the oil and gas deals in the background) and their record on human rights, which included mass murders and atrocities against women and children.

+ The THIRD BIG STORY WE MISSED was the Arabization of the Taliban, to include their changing to the Arabic calendar, the Arabization of libraries (which is to say the burning of most books), and the destruction of Hindu and other religious antiquities, something Pakistan tried to stop.This is new to me, I have not seen reference to it before, and I consider Bin Laden's influence over the Taliban to be seriously over-stated, but I accept this as useful perspective and certainly a good example of how the US simply does not "do" cultural intelligence.

The book ends with a focused chronology (focused instead of incomplete--the author did not set out to do a global review on this missed story, one is still needed) and a generally good index.

I put this book down thinking once again how desperately we need a private sector or public ABLE DANGER able to connect all the dots across all the books.I have tried for years to get Jeff Bezos to realize he can monetize micro-text for micro-cash and also sense-making across literatures, but he is in denial on World Brain possibilities, at least for now.

This is a solid four-star book, certainly worthy of buying and reading if you are responsible for South Asia, Central Asia, terrorism, or understanding why US foreign and national security policy continue to be managed by cronies with little deep knowledge of the real world and no holistic strategic model for addressing threats, policies, and state and non-state partners in a coherent sustainable manner.

My final three links:
Preparing America's Foreign Policy for the 21st Century
Security Studies for the 21st Century
The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century ... Read more

Product Description
The first edition of "Afghanistan in a Nutshell" was introduced in October 2001 -- only a month after the terrorist attack on U.S. cities.It was listed on the LA Times bestseller list soon after -- kicking off the growing Nutshell Notes book series (which also includes titles on Pakistan, Islam, Iraq and Israel-Palestine).A year later, a second edition was printed that included information on Hamid Karzai, the appointed head of Afghanistan’s interim government, and other updated information.

In 2004, the 3rd edition of "Afghanistan in a Nutshell" was published with short, easy-to-read chapters on the Taliban, Islam, Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan’s foreign relations (with Pakistan, Iran and the United States).The book also answers some of the basic questions about terrorism, opium, Afghan women, refugees, mines, oil, art and al Qaeda and navigates through Afghanistan’s recovery after the 2001 war with the United States. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Helpful overview
I found the book to be a useful overview of Afghanistan history in under 100 pages. Because any book is slightly outdated when it is published, some figures might be better downloaded from the internet, such as current population estimates. The historical background was very helpful in understanding recent events, and trends over the years.

This IS Afghanistan in a nutshell
A great guide for anyone who wants background information on a volatile country ... This book is a well-rounded assembly of facts, timelines, definitions, and general information that covers an array of topics from the origin of Muslim influence in Afghanistan, to the current state of the Taliban rule and its affects on its people. We also get background information on Osama Bin Laden leading up to and following his declaration of war on the United States. Overall, I give this book a very high rating. It both summarized what I've already learned about Afghanistan..., and has also given me a broader understanding of the region and its history. ... Read more

Product Description
Focusing on Afghanistan's relations with the West during the latter half of the 20th century, this study offers new insights on the long-term origins of the nation's recent tragedies. Roberts finds that, since the 1930s in particular, Afghanistan pursued policies far more complex, and considerably more pro-Western, than previous studies have surmised. ... Read more

Product Description

It has been said that Canada is a country with too much geography and too little history. Afghanistan has too much of both. As the war escalates in Afghanistan, more Canadians are asking what we are doing there. For a country that has specialized in peacekeeping, this war is a shock — one that we have not yet comprehended. As the casualties mount, Canadians will want to know why we are there.

Canada in Afghanistan introduces readers to Afghans and their culture, gives historical background from our involvement since 9/11, and covers operations casualties and the results. Also included is an examination of a new strategic experiment — the provincial reconstruction team and the technological advances used in this war. Cautionary predictions conclude the book. Canada in Afghanistan is an introduction to what is happening in Afghanistan and what we can expect through 2009.