Having learned their trade on the subsonic MiG-17, pilots of the Vietnamese People's Air Force (VPAF) received their first examples of the legendary MiG-21 supersonic fighter in 1966. Soon thrown into combat over North Vietnam, the guided-missile equipped MiG-21 proved a deadly opponent for the US Air Force, US Navy and US Marine Corps crews striking at targets deep in communist territory. Although the communist pilots initially struggled to come to terms with the fighter's air-search radar and weapons systems, the ceaseless cycle of combat operations quickly honed their skills. Indeed, by the time the last US aircraft (a B-52) was claimed by the VPAF on 28 December 1972, no fewer than 13 pilots had become aces flying the MiG-21. Fully illustrated with wartime photographs and detailed colour artwork plates, and including enthralling combat reports, this book examines the many variants of the MiG-21 that fought in the conflict, the schemes they wore and the pilots that flew them.

The "Silent Majority" Speech treats Richard Nixon's address of November 3, 1969, as a lens through which to examine the latter years of the Vietnam War and their significance to U.S. global power and American domestic life. The book uses Nixon's speech - which introduced the policy of "Vietnamization" and cited the so-called bloodbath theory as a justification for continued U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia - as a fascinating moment around which to build an analysis of the last years of the war. For Nixon's strategy to be successful, he requested the support of what he called the "great silent majority," a term that continues to resonate in American political culture. Scott Laderman moves beyond the war's final years to address the administration's hypocritical exploitation of moral rhetoric and its stoking of social divisiveness to achieve policy aims. Laderman explores the antiwar and pro-war movements, the shattering of the liberal consensus, and the stirrings of the right-wing resurgence that would come to define American politics. Supplemental primary sources make this book an ideal tool for introducing students to historical research. The "Silent Majority" Speech is critical reading for those studying American political history and U.S.-Asian/Southeast Asian relations.

This book identifies some of the main lessons for civil-military interactions that can be derived from the experiences of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Afghanistan.

A key underlying theme of the book is simply that the ways in which civil and military actors interact in theatres of operations such as Afghanistan "matter" for both those categories of actors, and for the ordinary people who their interactions serve. But a second, equally important, theme is that these interactions are invariably complex. A third, which arises specifically from the PRT experience in Afghanistan, is that such teams vary significantly in their roles, resourcing, and operational environments, so that if one is seeking to appraise the value of the PRT experience, it is necessary to unpack with some care the experiences of different PRTs, which the use of case studies allows one to do.

The volume comprises an introduction, identifying some key questions to which the PRT experience gives rise, and case studies of the experiences of the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada, The Netherlands, Australia, Germany and France; chapters dealing with the roles played by NGOs and the UN system; a discussion from an Afghan perspective of the implications of civilian casualties; and a conclusion. It is the combination of the diverse cases discussed in this book with a focus on the broad challenges of optimising civil-military interactions that makes this book distinctive.

This book will be of much interest to students of the Afghan War, civil-military relations, statebuilding, Central Asian politics and IR in general."

America's second war against Iraq differed notably from its first. Operation Desert Storm was a limited effort by coalition forces to drive out those Iraqi troops who had seized Kuwait six months before. In contrast, the major combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 was a more ambitious undertaking aimed at decisively ending Saddam Hussein's rule.

After several days of intense air strikes against fixed enemy targets, allied air operations began concentrating on Iraqi ground troops. The intended effect was to destroy Iraqi resistance and allow coalition land forces to maneuver without pausing in response to enemy actions. Iraqi tank concentrations were struck with consistently lethal effect, paving the way for an allied entrance into Baghdad that was largely unopposed. Hussein's regime finally collapsed on April 9. Viewed in hindsight, it was the combination of allied air power as an indispensable enabler and the unexpected rapidity of the allied ground advance that allowed coalition forces to overrun Baghdad before Iraq could mount a coherent defense.

In achieving this unprecedented level of performance, allied air power was indispensable in setting the conditions for the campaign's end. Freedom from attack and freedom to attack prevailed for allied ground forces. The intended effect of allied air operations was to facilitate the quickest capture of Baghdad without the occurrence of any major head-to-head battles on the ground.

This impressive short-term achievement, however, was soon overshadowed by the ensuing insurgency that continued for four years thereafter in Iraq. The mounting costs of that turmoil tended, for a time, to render the campaign's initial successes all but forgotten. Only more recently did the war begin showing signs of reaching an agreeable end when the coalition's commander put into effect a new counterinsurgency strategy in 2007 aimed at providing genuine security for Iraqi citizens.

The toppling of Hussein's regime ended the iron rule of an odious dictator who had brutalized his people for more than 30 years. Yet the inadequate resourcing with which that goal was pursued showed that any effective plan for a regime takedown must include due hedging against the campaign's likely aftermath in addition to simply seeing to the needs of major combat. That said, despite the failure of the campaign's planners to underwrite the first need adequately, those who conducted the three-week offensive in pursuit of regime change performed all but flawlessly, thanks in considerable part to the mostly unobserved but crucial enabling contributions of allied air power.

In late March 1975, as the Vietnam War raged, an Australian voluntary aid worker named Rosemary Taylor approached the Australian Embassy seeking assistance to fly 600 orphans out of Saigon to safety. Rosemary and Margaret Moses, two former nuns from Adelaide, had spent eight years in Vietnam during the war, building up a complex of nurseries to house war orphans and street waifs as the organisation that built up around them facilitated international adoptions for the children. As the North Vietnamese forces closed in on their nurseries, they needed a plan to evacuate the children, or all their work might count for little ... Based on extensive archival and historical research, and interviews of some of those directly involved in the events described, Operation Babylift details the last month of the Vietnam War from the perspective of the most vulnerable victims of that war: the orphans it created. Through the story of the attempt to save 600 children, we see how a small group of determined women refused to play political games as they tried to remake the lives of a forgotten generation, one child at a time.

"Matterhorn" author Karl Marlantes' nonfiction debut is a powerful book about the experience of combat and how inadequately we prepare our young men and women for the psychological and spiritual stresses of war. One of the most important and highly-praised books of 2011, Karl Marlantes' "What It Is Like to Go to War" is set to become just as much of a classic as his epic novel "Matterhorn". In 1968, at the age of twenty-two, Karl Marlantes was dropped into the highland jungle of Vietnam, an inexperienced lieutenant in command of a platoon of forty Marines who would live or die by his decisions. In his thirteen-month tour he saw intense combat. He killed the enemy and he watched friends die. Marlantes survived, but like many of his brothers in arms, he has spent the last forty years dealing with his experiences. In "What It Is Like to Go to War", Marlantes takes a deeply personal and candid look at the experience and ordeal of combat, critically examining how we might better prepare our young soldiers for war. War is as old as humankind, but in the past, warriors were prepared for battle by ritual, religion, and literature - which also helped bring them home. In a compelling narrative, Marlantes weaves riveting accounts of his combat experiences with thoughtful analysis, self-examination, and his readings - from Homer to the Mahabharata to Jung. He tells frankly about how he is haunted by the face of the young North Vietnamese soldier he killed at close quarters and explains how he finally found a way to make peace with his past. He makes it clear just how poorly prepared our nineteen-year-old warriors - mainly men but increasingly women - are for the psychological and spiritual aspects of their journey.

The follow-up to the internationally acclaimed The President's Gardens "Al-Ramli is a remarkable storyteller, and in Daughter of the Tigris he creates a dynamic, intricately plotted narrative, brimming with stories and a host of memorable characters" Susannah Tarbush, Banipal On the sixth day of Ramadan, in a land without bananas, Qisma leaves for Baghdad with her husband-to-be to find the body of her father. But in the bloodiest year of a bloody war, how will she find one body among thousands? For Tariq, this is more than just a marriage of convenience: the beautiful, urbane Qisma must be his, body and soul. But can a sheikh steeped in genteel tradition share a tranquil bed with a modern Iraqi woman? The President has been deposed, and the garden of Iraq is full of presidents who will stop at nothing to take his place. Qisma is afraid - afraid for her son, afraid that it is only a matter of time before her father's murderers come for her. The only way to survive is to take a slice of Iraq for herself. But ambition is the most dangerous drug of all, and it could just seal Qisma's fate. Translated from the Arabic by Luke Leafgren REVIEWS FOR THE PRESIDENT'S GARDENS 'Though firmly rooted in its context, The President's Gardens' concerns are universal. It is a profoundly moving investigation of love, death and injustice, and an affirmation of the importance of dignity, friendship and meaning amid oppression. Its light touch and persistent humour make it an enormous pleasure to read' Robin Yassin-Kassab, Guardian. The President's Gardens evokes the fantastical, small town feel of One Hundred Years of Solitude Tom Gordon, Financial Times 'No author is better placed than Muhsin Al-Ramli, already a star in the Arabic literary scene, to tell this story. I read it in one sitting' Hassan Blasim, winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

When Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, triggering the First Gulf War, a coalition of thirty-five countries led by the United States responded with Operation Desert Storm, which culminated in a onehundred- hour coordinated air strike and ground assault that repelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Though largely forgotten in descriptions of the war, an eight-day barrage of artillery fire made this seemingly rapid offensive possible. At the forefront of this offensive were the brave field artillerymen known as "redlegs." In Desert Redleg: Artillery Warfare in the First Gulf War, veteran and former redleg of the First Infantry Division Artillery (otherwise known as the "Big Red One") Col. L. Scott Lingamfelter recounts the logistical and strategic decisions that led to a coalition victory. Drawing on original battle maps, official reports, and his and his comrades' personal journals, Lingamfelter describes the experience of the First Gulf War through a soldier's eyes and attempts to answer the question of whether the United States "got the job done" in its first sustained Middle Eastern conflict. Part military history, part personal memoir, this book provides a boots-on-theground perspective on the largest US artillery bombardment since World War II.

Korea used to be the 'forgotten war.' Now, however, experts widely view it as a pivotal moment in the history of the Cold War, while its legacy still scars contemporary East Asian politics. The sixtieth anniversary of the Korean War is a fitting time both to assess the current state of historiography on the conflict and to showcase new research on its different dimensions. This book contains six essays by leading experts in the field. These essays explore all aspects of the war, from collective security and alliance relations, to home front politics and historical memory. They are also international in scope, focusing not just on the familiar Western belligerents but also on the actions of the two Koreas, China and the Soviet Union. These stimulating essays shed new light on various aspects of the Korean War experience, as well as examining why the war remains so important to the politics of the region. This book was originally published as a special issue of Journal of Strategic Studies.

Sergeant Andy McNab recounts the story of the top secret mission that would reveal the secrets of the SAS to the world for the first time. Their location: Iraq Their mission: to sever a vital enemy underground communication link, to find and destroy mobile Scud launchers Their call sign: Bravo Two Zero When eight members of the elite SAS regiment embark on a highly covert operation, they are each laden with 15 stones of equipment, needing to tab 20km across the desert to reach their objective. But within days, their location is compromised. They engage in a fierce battle. They escape on foot to the Syrian border. Three men die. One escapes. But four men are captured. For them, the worst is yet to come. Delivered to Baghdad, they are tortured with a savagery for which not even their intensive SAS training has prepared them... This is a story of superhuman courage, strength, endurance and dark humour in the face of overwhelming odds. It shows just how much it takes to be a member of the SAS. _____________________________________________ 'The best account yet of the SAS in action' Sunday Times 'One of the best books to emerge from the first Gulf War ... Magnificent' Independent on Sunday

'The Legacy of Iraq' critically reflects on the abject failure of the 2003 intervention to turn Iraq into a liberal democracy, underpinned by free-market capitalism, its citizens free to live in peace and prosperity. It argues that mistakes made by the coalition and the Iraqi political elite set a sequence of events in motion that have had devastating consequences for Iraq, the Middle East and for the rest of the world. Today, as the nation faces perhaps its greatest challenge in the wake of the devastating advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and another US-led coalition undertakes renewed military action in Iraq, understanding the complex and difficult legacies of the 2003 war could not be more urgent. Ignoring the legacies of the Iraq war and denying their connection to contemporary events could mean that vital lessons are ignored and the same mistakes made again.

The Vietnam War tends to conjure up images of American soldiers battling an elusive enemy in thick jungle, the thudding of helicopters overhead. But there were in fact several Vietnam wars - an anticolonial war with France, a cold war turned hot with the United States, a civil war between North and South Vietnam and among the southern Vietnamese, a revolutionary war of ideas over what should guide Vietnamese society into its postcolonial future, and finally a war of memories after the official end of hostilities with the fall of Saigon in 1975. This book looks at how the Vietnamese themselves experienced all of these conflicts, showing how the wars for Vietnam were rooted in fundamentally conflicting visions of what an independent Vietnam should mean that in many ways remain unresolved to this day. Drawing upon twenty years of research, Mark Philip Bradley examines the thinking and the behaviour of the key wartime decisionmakers in Hanoi and Saigon, while at the same time exploring how ordinary Vietnamese people, northerners and southerners, soldiers and civilians, urban elites and rural peasants, radicals and conservatives, came to understand the thirty years of bloody warfare that unfolded around them-and how they made sense of its aftermath.

In King of Spies, prize-winning journalist and bestselling author of Escape From Camp 14, Blaine Harden, reveals one of the most astonishing – and previously untold – spy stories of the twentieth century.

Donald Nichols was 'a one man war', according to his US Air Force commanding general. He won the Distinguished Service Cross, along with a chest full of medals for valor and initiative in the Korean War. His commanders described Nichols as the bravest, most resourceful and effective spymaster of that forgotten war. But there is far more to Donald Nichols' story than first meets the eye . . .

Based on long-classified government records, unsealed court records, and interviews in Korea and the U.S., King of Spies tells the story of the reign of an intelligence commander who lost touch with morality, legality, and even sanity, if military psychiatrists are to be believed. Donald Nichols was America's Kurtz. A seventh-grade dropout, he created his own black-ops empire, commanding a small army of hand-selected spies, deploying his own makeshift navy, and ruling over it as a clandestine king, with absolute power over life and death. He claimed a – 'legal license to murder' – and inhabited a world of mass executions and beheadings, as previously unpublished photographs in the book document.

Finally, after eleven years, the U.S. military decided to end Nichols's reign. He was secretly sacked and forced to endure months of electroshock in a military hospital in Florida. Nichols told relatives the American government was trying to destroy his memory.

King of Spies looks to answer the question of how an uneducated, non-trained, non-experienced man could end up as the number-one US spymaster in South Korea and why his US commanders let him get away with it for so long . . .

'Fiercely immersive. Truly heroic.' Tom Marcus, bestselling author of Soldier Spy.

'Vivid and brilliantly written: a pulsating account of the battle for Musa Qala, the Rorke's Drift of our times.’ Martin Bell, OBE, war reporter.

In Helmand province in July 2006, Major Adam Jowett was given command of Easy Company, a hastily assembled and under-strength unit of Paras and Royal Irish rangers. Their mission was to hold the District Centre of Musa Qala at any cost. Easy Company found themselves in a ramshackle compound, cut off and heavily outnumbered by the Taliban in the town.

In No Way Out, Adam evokes the heat and chaos of battle as the Taliban hit Easy Company with wave after wave of brutal attack. He describes what it was like to have responsibility for the lives of his men as they fought back heroically over twenty-one days and nights of relentless, nerve-shredding combat. Finally, as they came down to their last rounds and death stared Easy Company in the face, the siege took an extraordinary turn . . .

Powerful, highly-charged and moving, No Way Out is Adam’s tribute to the men of Easy Company who paid a heavy price for serving their country.

Nine men. 2,000 enemies. No back-up. No air support. No rescue. No chance... First in - the official motto of one of the British Army's smallest and most secretive units, 16 Air Assault Brigade's Pathfinder Platoon. Unofficially, they are the bastard son of the SAS. And, like their counterparts in Hereford, the job of the Pathfinders is to operate unseen and undetected deep behind enemy lines. When British forces were deployed to Iraq in 2003, Captain David Blakeley was given command of a reconnaissance mission of such critical importance that it could change the course of the war. It's the story of nine men, operating alone and unsupported, 50 miles ahead of a US Recon Marine advance and heading straight into a hornets' nest, teeming with thousands of heavily armed enemy forces. This is the first account of that extraordinary mission - abandoned by coalition command, left with no option but to fight their way out of the enemy's backyard. And it provides a gripping insight into the Pathfinders themselves, a shadowy unit, just 45 men strong, that plies its trade from the skies. Trained to parachute into enemy territory far beyond the forward edge of battle - freefalling from high altitude breathing bottled oxygen and employing the latest skydiving technology - the PF are unique. Because of new rules introduced since the publication of BRAVO TWO ZERO, there have been no first-hand accounts of British Special Forces waging modern-day warfare for nearly a decade. And no member of the Pathfinders has ever told their story before. Until now. PATHFINDER is the only first-hand account of a UKSF mission to emerge for nearly a generation. And it could be the last.

Following the success of his recent book on Navy SEALs in Iraq, The Sheriff of Ramadi, bestselling author and combat veteran Dick Couch now examines the importance of battlefield ethics in effectively combating terrorists without losing the battle for the hearts of the local population. A former SEAL who led one of the only successful POW rescue operations in Vietnam, Couch warns that the mistakes made in Vietnam forty years ago are being repeated in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that the stakes are even higher now. His book takes a critical look at the battlefield conduct of U.S. ground-combat units fighting insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the prize of the fight on the modern battlefield is the people, he warns every death has a consequence. Every killing has both strategic and moral significance for U.S. warriors.
From his unique and qualified perspective, Couch examines the sources and issues that can lead to wrong conduct on the battlefield, and explains how it comes about and what can be done to correct it. He considers the roles of command intent and the official rules of engagement, but his primary focus is on ethical conduct at the squad and platoon level. Tactical ethics, according to the author's definition, is the moral and ethical armor that should accompany every American warrior into battle, and these standards apply to the engaged unit as well as to the individual. A harsh critic of immoral combat tactics, Couch offers realistic measures to correct these potentially devastating errors. He argues that as a nation, we must do all we can to protect our soldiers' humanity, for their sake, so they can return from service with honor, and for our sake as a people and for our standing in the world.

Despite French President Charles de Gaulle's persistent efforts to constructively share French experience and use his resources to help engineer an American exit from Vietnam, the Kennedy administration responded to de Gaulle's peace initiatives with bitter silence and inaction. The administration's response ignited a series of events that dealt a massive blow to American prestige across the globe, resulting in the deaths of over fifty-eight thousand American soldiers and turning hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese citizens into refugees. This history of Franco-American relations during the Kennedy presidency explores how and why France and the US disagreed over the proper western strategy for the Vietnam War. France clearly had more direct political experience in Vietnam, but France's postwar decolonization cemented Kennedy's perception that the French were characterized by a toxic mixture of short-sightedness, stubbornness, and indifference to the collective interests of the West. At no point did the Kennedy administration give serious consideration to de Gaulle's proposals or entertain the notion of using his services as an honest broker in order to disengage from a situation that was rapidly spiraling out of control. Kennedy's Francophobia, the roots of which appear in a selection of private writings from Kennedy's undergraduate years at Harvard, biased his decision-making. The course of action Kennedy chose in 1963, a rejection of the French peace program, all but handcuffed Lyndon Johnson into formally entering a war he knew the United States had little chance of winning.

"Body Counts: The Vietnam War and Militarized Refuge(es)" examines how the Vietnam War has continued to serve as a stage for the shoring up of American imperialist adventure and for the (re)production of American and Vietnamese American identities. Focusing on the politics of war memory and commemoration, this book retheorizes the connections among history, memory, and power and refashions the fields of American studies, Asian American studies, and refugee studies not around the narratives of American exceptionalism, immigration, and transnationalism but around the crucial issues of war, race, and violence--and the history and memories that are forged in the aftermath of war. At the same time, the book moves decisively away from the "damage-centered" approach that pathologizes loss and trauma by detailing how first- and second-generation Vietnamese have created alternative memories and epistemologies that challenge the established public narratives of the Vietnam War and Vietnamese people. Explicitly interdisciplinary, "Body Counts" moves between the humanities and social sciences, drawing on historical, ethnographic, cultural, and virtual evidence in order to illuminate the places where Vietnamese refugees have managed to conjure up social, public, and collective remembering.

Through the Valley is the captivating memoir of the last U.S. Army soldier taken prisoner during the Vietnam War. A narrative of courage, hope, and survival, Through the Valley is more than just a war story. It also portrays the thrill and horror of combat, the fear and anxiety of captivity, and the stories of friendships forged and friends lost In 1971 William Reeder was a senior captain on his second tour in Vietnam. He had flown armed, fixed-wing OV-1 Mohawks on secret missions deep into enemy territory in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam on his first tour. He returned as a helicopter pilot eager to experience a whole new perspective as a Cobra gunship pilot. Believing that Nixon's Vietnamization would soon end the war, Reeder was anxious to see combat action. To him, it appeared that the Americans had prevailed, beaten the Viet Cong, and were passing everything over to the South Vietnamese Army so that Americans could leave.

On 25 June 1950 the invasion of South Korea by the Communist North launched one of the bloodiest conflicts of the last century. The seemingly limitless power of the Chinese-backed North was thrown against the ferocious firepower of the UN-backed South in a war that can be seen today as the stark prelude to Vietnam.

Max Hastings drew on first-hand accounts of those who fought on both sides to produce this vivid and incisive reassessment of the Korean War, bringing the military and human dimensions into sharp focus. Critically acclaimed on publication, with a brand new introduction, The Korean War remains the best narrative history of this conflict.

The book assesses the strains within the 'Special Relationship' between London and Washington and offers a new perspective on the limits and successes of British influence. The interaction between the main personalities on the British side - Attlee, Bevan, Morrison, Churchill and Eden - and their American counterparts - Truman, Acheson, Eisenhower and Dulles - are chronicled. By the end of the war the British were concerned that it was the Americans, rather than the Soviets, who were the greater threat to world peace. British fears concerning the Korean War were not limited to the diplomatic and military fronts - these extended to the 'Manchurian Candidate' threat posed by returning prisoners of war who had been exposed to communist indoctrination. The book is essential reading for those interested in British and US foreign policy and military strategy during the Cold War. -- .

Exploring Korean history from its ancient roots to the present day, A Brief History of Korea is the story of a people with a rich and united culture that has become two Koreas in modern times--one isolated and secretive and the other among the world's most successful economies. Korean culture developed on a 600-mile-long peninsula, bordered on the north by mountains and three sides by the sea, set apart from the Asian mainland. Korea was one of the last countries in Asia to be visited by Westerners and its borders have remained largely unchanged since it was unified in the seventh century. Though it is one of the world's oldest and most ethnically homogeneous states, Korea was not born in a vacuum. Geographically isolated, the country was heavily influenced by powerful China and was often used as a bridge to the mainland by Japan. Calling themselves as "a shrimp among whales," Koreans borrowed elements of government, culture and religion all the while fiercely fighting to maintain independence from powerful neighbors. This fascinating book tells the story of Korean domestic dynasties, empires and states, as well as foreign conquest, occupation and division. Today, the two Koreas are starkly different--North Korea a nation closed to the world and South Korea an economic powerhouse and center of Asian democracy. Chronicling significant events right up through 2018's Singapore Summit, author Michael J. Seth presents a relevant, interesting and important history of Korea within a larger global context. Korea's history is a turbulent one, but ultimately the story of a resistant and resourceful people in search of lasting peace.

One of our foremost authorities on modern Afghanistan, Barnett R. Rubin has dedicated much of his career to the study of this remote mountain country. He served as a special advisor to the late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke during his final mission to the region and still serves the Obama administration under Holbrooke's successor, Ambassador Marc Grossman. Now Rubin distills his unmatched knowledge of Afghanistan in this invaluable book. He shows how the Taliban arose in resistance to warlords some of whom who were raping and plundering with impunity in the vacuum of authority left by the collapse of the Afghan state after the Soviet withdrawal. The Taliban built on a centuries-old tradition of local leadership by students and teachers at independent, rural madrasas-networks that had been marginalized by the state-building royal regime that was itself destroyed by the Soviets and radicalized by the resistance to the invasion. He examines the arrival of Arab Islamists, the missed opportunities after the American-led intervention, the role of Pakistan, and the challenges of reconstruction. Rubin provides first-hand accounts of the bargaining at both the Bonn Talks of 2001 and the Afghan Constitutional Loya Jirga of 2003-2004, in both of which he participated as a UN advisor. Throughout, he discusses the significance of ethnic rivalries, the drug trade, human rights, state-building, US strategic choices, and international organizations, analyzing the missteps in these areas taken by the international community since 2001. The book covers events till the start of the Obama administration, and the final chapters provide an inside look at some of the thinking that is shaping today's policy debates inside the administration. Authoritative, nuanced, and sweeping in scope, Afghanistan in the Post-Cold War Era provides deep insight into the greatest foreign policy challenge facing America today.

Through their dramatic stories, Gopal shows that the Afghan war, so often regarded as a hopeless quagmire, could in fact have gone very differently. Top Taliban leaders actually tried to surrender within months of the US invasion, renouncing all political activity and submitting to the new government. Effectively, the Taliban ceased to exist - yet the Americans were unwilling to accept such a turnaround. Instead, driven by false intelligence from their allies and an unyielding mandate to fight terrorism, American forces continued to press the conflict, resurrecting the insurgency that persists to this day. With its intimate accounts of life in war-torn Afghanistan, Gopal's thoroughly original reporting lays bare the workings of America's longest war and the truth behind its prolonged agony.