Seth Jones - In the Graveyard of Empires - America's War in Afghanistan
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- Название:In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan
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In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация
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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.
While observing the tense and often adversarial relationship between NATO allies in the Coalition, Jones—who has distinguished himself at RAND and was recently named by
as one of the “Best and Brightest” young policy experts—introduces us to key figures on both sides of the war. Harnessing important new research and integrating thousands of declassified government documents, Jones then analyzes the insurgency from a historical and structural point of view, showing how a rising drug trade, poor security forces, and pervasive corruption undermined the Karzai government, while Americans abandoned a successful strategy, failed to provide the necessary support, and allowed a growing sanctuary for insurgents in Pakistan to catalyze the Taliban resurgence.
Examining what has worked thus far—and what has not—this serious and important book underscores the challenges we face in stabilizing the country and explains where we went wrong and what we must do if the United States is to avoid the disastrous fate that has befallen many of the great world powers to enter the region. 12 maps and charts
From Publishers Weekly
Since 2001, RAND Corporation political scientist Jones (
) has been observing the reinvigorated insurgency in Afghanistan and weighing the potency of its threat to the country's future and American interests in the region. Jones finds the roots of the re-emergence in the expected areas: the deterioration of security after the ousting of the Taliban regime in 2002, the U.S.'s focus on Iraq as its foreign policy priority and Pakistan's role as a haven for insurgents. He revisits Afghan history, specifically the invasions by the British in the mid- and late-19th century and the Russians in the late-20th to rue how little the U.S. has learned from these two previous wars. He sheds light on why Pakistan—a consistent supporter of the Taliban—continues to be a key player in the region's future. Jones makes important arguments for the inclusion of local leaders, particularly in rural regions, but his diligent panorama of the situation fails to consider whether the war in Afghanistan is already lost.
Review
“A useful and generally lively account of what can go wrong when outsiders venture onto the Afghan landscape.” (
* )
“This is a serious work that should be factored in as a new policy in Afghanistan evolves.” (
* )
“Offers a valuable window onto how officials have understood the military campaign.” (
* )
“[An] excellent book.” (
* )
“How we got to where we are in Afghanistan.” (
* )
“[Zeroes] in on what went awry after America’s successful routing of the Taliban in late 2001.” (
* )
“A blueprint for winning in a region that has historically brought mighty armies to their knees.” (
* )
“Seth Jones . . . has an anthropologist’s feel for a foreign society, a historian’s intuition for long-term trends, and a novelist’s eye for the telling details that illuminate a much larger story. If you read just one book about the Taliban, terrorism, and the United States, this is the place to start.” (
* )
“A timely and important work, without peer in terms of both its scholarship and the author’s intimate knowledge of the country, the insurgency threatening it, and the challenges in defeating it.” (
* )
“A deeply researched and well-analyzed account of the failures of American policies in Afghanistan,
will be mandatory reading for policymakers from Washington to Kabul.” (
* )
“Seth Jones has combined forceful narrative with careful analysis, illustrating the causes of this deteriorating situation, and recommending sensible, feasible steps to reverse the escalating violence.” (
* )
“Seth G. Jones’s book provides a vivid sense of just how paltry and misguided the American effort has been.…
will help to show what might still be done to build something enduring in Afghanistan and finally allow the U.S. to go home.” (
* )
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31. United Nations, A Review of the Taliban and Fellow Travelers as a Movement: Concept Paper Updating PAG Joint Assessment of June 2006 (Kabul: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, August 2007), pp. 5, 8.
32. Afghan Ministry of Defense, The National Military Strategy, 2005 (Kabul: Afghan Ministry of Defense, 2005), p. 3.
33. Statement of Lieutenant General Karl W. Eikenberry, Testimony Before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, February 13, 2007, p. 5.
34. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2008 (Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2008).
35. Author interview with Doug Wankel, director of the Office of Drug Control, Kabul, Afghanistan, November 23, 2005.
36. Ibid.
37. Jon Lee Anderson, “Letter from Afghanistan: The Taliban’s Opium War,” The New Yorker, July 9, 2007.
38. Interview with Doug Wankel, director of the Office of Drug Control, Kabul, Afghanistan, November 23, 2005.
39. Correspondence with former Afghan Minister of Interior Ali Jalali, September 5, 2006.
40. Coalition Provisional Authority and Interim Ministry of Interior, Talking Points: Drug-Trafficking Trends and Forecast for Iraq, Prepared for Ambassador L. Paul Bremer (Baghdad: Coalition Provisional Authority and Interim Ministry of Interior, July 17, 2003), p. 1.
41. Statement of Karen P. Tandy, Administrator, U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, Testimony Before the House Armed Services Committee, Washington, DC, June 28, 2006.
42. Author interview with intelligence officer, 82nd Airborne Division, Bagram, Afghanistan, March 7, 2008.
43. Author interview with Doug Wankel, January 11, 2007. Statement of Karen P. Tandy, Administrator, U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, Testimony Before the House Armed Services Committee, Washington, DC, June 28, 2006.
44. Thomas H. Johnson, “Financing Afghan Terrorism: Thugs, Drugs, and Creative Movement of Money,” in Jeanne K. Giraldo and Harold A. Trinkunas, Terrorism Financing and State Responses: A Comparative Perspective (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), p. 98.
45. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 118.
46. Author interview with Ambassador Said Jawad, August 24, 2007.
47. “U.S. Military Links Karzai Brother to Drugs,” ABC World News Tonight, June 22, 2006. Also see, for example, Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai, “A Harvest of Treachery,” Newsweek, January 9, 2006, p. 32.
48. James Risen, “Reports Link Karzai’s Brother to Afghanistan Heroin Trade,” New York Times , October 4, 2008, p. A1.
49. Author interview with two U.S. intelligence operatives, March 3, 2009.
50. Anthony Loyd, “Corruption, Bribes and Trafficking: A Cancer That Is Engulfing Afghanistan,” The Times (London), November 24, 2007, p. 55. On other accusations of corruption in the Afghan government, see, for example, Philip Smucker, “Afghan Opium Crop Booms: More People Doing Illicit Trade, Corruption Cited,” Washington Times, March 16, 2007, p. Ai 7.
51. Sakayi, “Hidden Hands for Damaging the Government,” Daily Afghanistan, February 25, 2007. It was reprinted in English by the BBC. See “Afghan Daily Says Government Under Attack from Within,” BBC Monitoring South Asia, February 26, 2007.
52. Author interview with Michelle Parker, August 15, 2007.
53. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan: Opium Survey 2005 (Kabul and Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2005), p. 29.
54. Author interview with Doug Wankel, November 23, 2005; Afghanistan: Opium Survey 2005, p. iii.
55. Afghanistan: Opium Survey 2005, pp. iii-iv.
56. World Bank, Governance Matters 2008: Worldwide Governance Indicators, 1996–2007 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008).
57. Author interview with Deputy Minister of Justice Muhammad Qasim Hashimzai, June 26, 2004. Rama Mani, Ending Impunity and Building Justice in Afghanistan (Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, 2003), p. 2.
58. Amrullah Saleh, Strategy of Insurgents and Terrorists in Afghanistan (Kabul, Afghanistan: National Directorate of Security, 2006), p. 15.
59. Asia Foundation, Afghanistan in 2006, pp. 14–16.
60. Stephen Weber et al., Afghan Public Opinion Amidst Rising Violence (College Park, MD: Program on International Policy Attitudes, University of Maryland, December 2006), p. 6.
61. U.S. Department of State, In Their Own Words, slides 11 and 12.
62. Presidential Office of National Security, National Threat Assessment 2004 (Kabul: Presidential Office of National Security, April 2004), p. 3.
63. Presidential Office of National Security, National Threat Assessment 2005 (Kabul: Presidential Office of National Security, April 2005), p. 5.
64. European Union and UNAMA, Discussion of Taliban and Insurgency (Kabul: European Union and UNAMA, April 30, 2007), p. 3.
65. Saleh, Strategy of Insurgents and Terrorists in Afghanistan , p.
66. Joint Paper by the Government of Afghanistan, UNAMA, CFC-A, ISAF, Canada, Netherlands, UK, and U.S. Governments, Assessment of Factors Contributing to Insecurity in Afghanistan (Kabul: Government of Afghanistan, 2006), p. 2.
67. Author interview with Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, September 14, 2007.
68. Author interview with Ambassador James Dobbins, May 7, 2008.
69. Loyd, “Corruption, Bribes and Trafficking,” p. 55.
70. Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, September 7, 2007.
71. Author interview with senior NDS officials, Kabul, Afghanistan, September 22, 2007. The purpose of the interview was to review NDS conclusions on support for the Taliban and other insurgent groups. We reviewed NDS conclusions based on detainee interviews and intelligence reports.
72. Somini Sengupta, “For Afghans, Voting May Be a Life-and-Death Decision,” New York Times, September 16, 2005, p. A10.
73. World Bank, Afghanistan: State Building, Sustaining Growth, and Reducing Poverty, 2004, p. 105.
74. European Union and UNAMA, Discussion of Taliban and Insurgency, p. 4.
Chapter Twelve
1. Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, April 16, 2008.
2. Author interview with Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, October 27, 2007.
3. Author interview with Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, September 14, 2007.
4. Rowan Scarborough, “NATO Shrugs Off Afghan Violence,” Washington Times, March 7, 2006, p. A6.
5. General James L. Jones, USMC (Retired) and Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, Co-Chairs, Afghanistan Study Group Report: Revitalizing Our Efforts, Rethinking Our Strategies (Washington, DC: The Center for the Study of the Presidency, January 2008), p. 7.
6. General Tommy Franks with Malcolm McConnell, American Soldier (New York: Regan Books, 2004), p. 277.
7. World Bank, Afghanistan At a Glance (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007), p. 1.
8. International Monetary Fund, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan: Second Review Under the Three-Year Arrangement Under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility—Staff Report (Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, July 2007), p. 26.
9. World Bank, Afghanistan: Rehabilitating the Telecom Sector (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006).
10. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Statement to the House Armed Services Committee, December 11, 2007.
11. Author interview with Abdul Salam Rocketi, September 4, 2006.
12. Pamela Constable, “Gates Visits Kabul, Cites Rise in Cross-Border Attacks,” Washington Post , January 17, 2007, p. A10.
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