From the award-winning co-author of I Am Malala, this book asks just how the might of NATO, with 48 countries and 140,000 troops on the ground, failed to defeat a group of religious students and farmers? How did it go so wrong? Twenty-seven years ago, Christina Lamb left Britain to become a journalist in Pakistan. She crossed the Hindu Kush into Afghanistan with mujaheddin fighting the Russians and fell unequivocally in love with this fierce country of pomegranates and war, a relationship which has dominated her adult life. Since 2001, Lamb has watched with incredulity as the West fought a war with its hands tied, committed too little too late, failed to understand local dynamics and turned a blind eye as their Taliban enemy was helped by their ally Pakistan. Farewell Kabul tells how success was turned into defeat in the longest war fought by the United States in its history and by Britain since the Hundred Years War. It has been a fiasco which has left Afghanistan still one of the poorest nations on earth, the Taliban undefeated, and nuclear armed Pakistan perhaps the most dangerous place on earth. With unparalleled access to all key decision-makers in Afghanistan, Pakistan, London and Washington, from heads of state and generals as well as soldiers on the ground, Farewell Kabul tells how this happened. In Afghanistan, Lamb has travelled far beyond Helmand - from the caves of Tora Bora in the south to the mountainous bad lands of Kunar in the east; from Herat, city of poets and minarets in the west, to the very poorest province of Samangan in the north. She went to Guantanamo, met Taliban in Quetta, visited jihadi camps in Pakistan and saw bin Laden's house just after he was killed. Saddest of all, she met women who had been made role models by the West and had then been shot, raped or forced to flee the country. This deeply personal book not only shows the human cost of political failure but explains how short-sighted encouragement of jihadis to fight the Russians, followed by prosecution of ill-thoughtout wars, has resulted in the spread of terrorism throughout the Islamic world.

A summary of the author's experiences in armored recon with the 89th Medium Tank Battalion (a unit attached to the 25th Infantry Division) during the Korean War. Includes comments about the author's early life, his duty in Japan, and how he met his wife-to-be before the war. Also remarks about young men committed to action with limited training, but with a resilience that enabled them to prevent the North Koreans from taking over South Korea.

"Train Wreckers and Ghost Killers" discusses the contributions the British Marines and the Korean Marines made to the Allied Forces in the Korean War. In praise of the British Royal Marines that had been attached to his command since mid-November 1950, Major General Oliver P. Smith, Commanding General, 1st Marine Division, wrote that their services in the recently concluded Chosin Reservoir campaign made "a significant contribution to the holding of Hagaru, which was vital to the 1st Marine] Division." General Smith's comments reflected the view held by many Marines, both officers and enlisted, of the fighting abilities of both their British cousins and their Republic of Korea Marine Corps allies. During the three years they fought together on the Korean peninsula, the British, Korean, and U.S. Marines forged bonds that still exist today.

The book is part of the Marines in the Korean War Commemorative Series. It depicts the Marine involvement in the events from the Nevada Battles to the Armistice.

Since reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan began in 2001, the U.S. government, the international community, and the Afghan government have made improving Afghanistan's justice system a priority. Key documents have noted the importance of the justice sector, including the U.S. government's Integrated Civilian-Military Campaign Plan for Support to Afghanistan and the Afghan Government's National Priority Programs focus on strengthening Afghan rule of law and Afghan citizens' access to justice. The Department of State (State) has invested in a variety of rule of law programs since 2005, including programs managed by its Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) to train Afghan justice sector personnel. State also serves as the lead coordinator for U.S. justice sector development efforts in Afghanistan, responsible for coordinating the activities of several U.S. agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of Justice. INL has spent approximately $205.5 million on its Justice Sector Support Program (JSSP) to provide training to Afghan justice sector officials, to develop a case management system to track cases throughout Afghanistan's justice system, and to build the capacity and administrative skills of officials within Afghan ministries

This monograph is a preliminary accounting of the role of the U.S. Marine Corps' senior command in the Persian Gulf conflict from 8 August 1990 to 16 April 1991. It is one of a series covering the operations of the 1st Marine Division; the 2d Marine Division; the 3d Marine Aircraft Wing; Combat Service Support Element, comprised of 1st and 2d Force Service Support Groups units; Marines afloat in Desert Shield and Desert Storm; and humanitarian relief operations in northern Iraq and Turkey.

On Sunday, 25 June 1950, Communist North Korea unexpectedly invaded its southern neighbor, the American-backed Republic of Korea (ROK). The poorly equipped ROK Army was no match for the well prepared North Korean People's Army (NKPA) whose armored spearheads quickly thrust across the 38th Parallel. The stunned world helplessly looked on as the out-numbered and outgunned South Koreans were quickly routed. With the fall of the capital city of Seoul imminent, President Harry S. Truman ordered General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief, Far East, in Tokyo, to immediately pull all American nationals in South Korea out of harm's way. During the course of the resultant noncombatant evacuation operations an unmanned American transport plane was destroyed on the ground and a flight of U.S. Air Force aircraft were buzzed by a North Korean Air Force plane over the Yellow Sea without any shots being fired. On 27 July, an American combat air patrol protecting Kimpo Airfield near the South Korean capital actively engaged menacing North Korean planes and promptly downed three of the five Soviet-built Yak fighters. Soon thereafter American military forces operating under the auspices of the United Nations Command (UNC) were committed to thwart a Communist takeover of South Korea. Thus, only four years and nine months after V-J Day marked the end of World War II, the United States was once again involved in a shooting war in Asia.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States launched and led military operations in Afghanistan in order to end the ability of the Taliban regime to provide safe haven to al Qaeda and to put a stop to al Qaeda's use of the territory of Afghanistan as a base of operations for terrorist activities. Many observers argue that in succeeding years, as U.S. and world attention shifted sharply to the war in Iraq, the Afghan war became the "other war" and suffered from neglect. The Obama Administration, however, has made the war in Afghanistan a higher priority, by giving it early attention, regularly conducting strategy reviews, and making significant additional commitments of civilian and military resources. By early 2011, senior leaders, including the Commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), General David Petraeus, were pointing to discrete progress on the ground, though noting that such progress was still "fragile and reversible." In late 2010, NATO and the Afghan government agreed to pursue a key medium-term goal: the transition of lead responsibility for security to Afghans throughout the country by the end of 2014. The U.S. government has stated its intention to begin drawing down some U.S. forces from Afghanistan in July 2011, and also to maintain a long-term strategic partnership with Afghanistan beyond 2014. Strategic vision for Afghanistan is still, many would argue, a work in progress. President Karzai has consistently stressed the theme of "Afghan leadership, Afghan ownership." President Obama has consistently stressed the core goals of the United States: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent their return. Yet for the U.S. government, fundamental issues remain unresolved. These include: determining the minimum essential conditions required for Afghanistan itself to be able to sustain stability with relatively limited international support; defining the appropriate combination of U.S. efforts, together with other international resources, over time, required to achieve those minimum conditions; and balancing U.S. national security interests in Afghanistan and the region against other imperatives, in a constrained fiscal environment. This report, which will be updated as events warrant, describes and analyzes the key players in the war in Afghanistan; the strategic outlooks of the Afghan government, the U.S. government, and NATO; the threats to the security and stability of the Afghan state and its people; the major facets of the current effort: security, governance and anti-corruption, development, reconciliation and reintegration, and transition; mechanisms in place to measure progress; and critical issues that Congress may wish to consider further.

This monograph provides a historical overview of Afghanistan's recent history, reviews the contemporary causes of internal instability, illustrates the international response, and analyses three existing approaches to PRTs: those of the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States. It also identifies and evaluates a number of PRT tactical and operational lessons learned. The monograph concludes by combining the pertinent lessons learned into a recommended PRT "blueprint" to meet the contemporary and evolving challenges of provincial security and reconstruction in Afghanistan.

Disillusioned by movies and naive, the author is determined to enter into the military early and become a war hero."