The American War In Afghanistan: a History

Sinopsis

A New York Times Notable Book
Winner of 2022 Lionel Gelber Prize
The first authoritative history of America's longest war by one of the world's leading scholar-practitioners.
The American war in Afghanistan, which began in 2001, is now the longest armed conflict in the nation's history. It is currently winding down, and American troops are likely to leave soon -- but only after a stay of nearly two decades.
In The American War in Afghanistan, Carter Malkasian provides the first comprehensive history of the entire conflict. Malkasian is both a leading academic authority on the subject and an experienced practitioner, having spent nearly two years working in the Afghan countryside and going on to serve as the senior advisor to General Joseph Dunford, the US military commander in Afghanistan and later the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Drawing from a deep well of local knowledge, understanding of Pashto, and review of primary source documents, Malkasian moves through the war's multiple phases: the 2001 invasion and after; the light American footprint during the 2003 Iraq invasion; the resurgence of the Taliban in 2006, the Obama-era surge, and the various resets in strategy and force allocations that occurred from 2011 onward, culminating in the 2018-2020 peace talks. Malkasian lived through much of it, and draws from his own experiences to provide a unique vantage point on the war. Today, the Taliban is the most powerful faction, and sees victory as probable. The ultimate outcome after America leaves is inherently unpredictable given the multitude of actors there, but one thing is sure: the war did not go as America had hoped. Although the al-Qa'eda leader Osama bin Laden was killed and no major attack on the American homeland was carried out after 2001, the United States was unable to end the violence or hand off the war to the Afghan authorities, which could not survive without US military backing. The American War in Afghanistan explains why the war had such a disappointing outcome.
Wise and all-encompassing, The American War in Afghanistan provides a truly vivid portrait of the conflict in all of its phases that will remain the authoritative account for years to come.


Chapter One: Thinking About America's War in Afghanistan
Chapter Two: The Country and Peoples of Afghanistan
Chapter Three: The First Taliban Regime
Chapter Four: The United States Enters Afghanistan
Chapter Five: The Karzai Regime
Chapter Six: Disorder in Kandahar
Chapter Seven: The Taliban Offensive
Chapter Eight: A Second Taliban Regime, 2007-2010
Chapter Nine: The War in the East
Chapter Ten: Kandahar City and Lashkar Gah
Chapter Eleven: The New Administration and the Surge
Chapter Twelve: The Surge in Helmand
Chapter Thirteen: The Surge in Kandahar
Chapter Fourteen: End of the Surge
Chapter Fifteen: Ghazni and the East
Chapter Sixteen: The new army and police, insider attacks, and the bilateral security agreement
Chapter Seventeen: The 2014 Elections
Chapter Eighteen: The Taliban Offensives of 2015 and 2016
Chapter Nineteen: The Trump Administration
Chapter Twenty: Peace Talks
Chapter Twenty-One: Looking Back on Eighteen Years of War in Afghanistan
References
Notes
Index