The American War in Afghanistan

Description

The first authoritative history of American's longest war by one of the world's leading scholar-practitioners, this New York Times notable book of 2021 has now been updated to cover the final phase of the conflict.

The American war in Afghanistan, which began in 2001 and ended in 2021, was the longest armed conflict in the nation's history. In The American War in Afghanistan, Carter Malkasian provides the first comprehensive history of the entire conflict. Drawing from a deep well of local knowledge and a rich array of primary sources, Malkasian moves through the war's multiple phases: the 2001 invasion and after; the resurgence of the Taliban in 2006; the Obama-era surge; the various resets in strategy that occurred from 2011 onward, culminating in the US exit from the war in 2021; and finally the calamitous ending. Today, the Taliban run the country, having achieved the victory they always thought inevitable. Although the al-Qa'eda leader Osama bin Laden was killed and no major attack on the American homeland occurred after 2001, the United States was unable to end the violence or hand of the war to the Afghan authorities, which did not survive without US military backing. This new paperback edition explains why the war had such a disappointing outcome and also includes a detailed account of the end of the war. A wise and all-encompassing portrait of the conflict, The American War in Afghanistan will remain the authoritative account for years to come.

About the author:

Carter Malkasian, Special Assistant for Strategy to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (General Joseph Dunford), from 2015 to 2019. Carter Malkasian was the Special Assistant for Strategy to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, from 2015 to 2019. He has extensive experience working in Afghanistan through multiple deployments throughout the country.

Table of contents

List of Maps
List of Figures
Chapter One: Thinking About America's War in Afghanistan
Chapter Two: The Country and Peoples of Afghanistan
Chapter Three: The Taliban Emirate
Chapter Four: The United States Enters Afghanistan
Chapter Five: The Karzai Regime
Chapter Six: Disorder in Kandahar
Chapter Seven: The 2006 Taliban Offensive
Chapter Eight: Taliban Rule, 2007-2010
Chapter Nine: War in the East
Chapter Ten: Taliban Advances
Chapter Eleven: The Obama Administration and the Decision to Surge
Chapter Twelve: The Surge in Helmand
Chapter Thirteen: The Surge in Kandahar
Chapter Fourteen: End of the Surge
Chapter Fifteen: Ghazni and the Andar Awakening
Chapter Sixteen: Intervention and Identity
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
Notes
Glossary and Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index