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Author: Panagiotis Dimitrakis
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 085773377X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326
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Book Description
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in support of a Marxist-Leninist government, and the subsequent nine-year conflict with the indigenous Afghan Mujahedeen was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the Cold War. Key details of the circumstances surrounding the invasion and its ultimate conclusion only months before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 have long remained unclear; it is a confidential narrative of clandestine correspondence, covert operations and failed intelligence. The Secret War in Afghanistan undertakes a full analysis of recently declassified intelligence archives in order to asses Anglo-American secret intelligence and diplomacy relating to the invasion of Afghanistan and unveil the Cold War realities behind the rhetoric. Rooted at every turn in close examination of the primary evidence, it outlines the secret operations of the CIA, MI6 and the KGB, and the full extent of the aid and intelligence from the West which armed and trained the Afghan fighters. Drawing from US, UK and Russian archives, Panagiotis Dimitrakis analyses the Chinese arms deals with the CIA, the multiple recorded intelligence failures of KGB intelligence and secret letters from the office of Margaret Thatcher to Jimmy Carter. In so doing, this study brings a new scholarly perspective to some of the most controversial events of Cold War history. Dimitrakis also outlines the full extent of China's involvement in arming the Mujahedeen, which led to the PRC effectively fighting the Soviet Union by proxy. This will be essential reading for scholars and students of the Cold War, American History and the Modern Middle East.
Author: Panagiotis Dimitrakis
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 085773377X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326
Get Book Here
Book Description
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in support of a Marxist-Leninist government, and the subsequent nine-year conflict with the indigenous Afghan Mujahedeen was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the Cold War. Key details of the circumstances surrounding the invasion and its ultimate conclusion only months before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 have long remained unclear; it is a confidential narrative of clandestine correspondence, covert operations and failed intelligence. The Secret War in Afghanistan undertakes a full analysis of recently declassified intelligence archives in order to asses Anglo-American secret intelligence and diplomacy relating to the invasion of Afghanistan and unveil the Cold War realities behind the rhetoric. Rooted at every turn in close examination of the primary evidence, it outlines the secret operations of the CIA, MI6 and the KGB, and the full extent of the aid and intelligence from the West which armed and trained the Afghan fighters. Drawing from US, UK and Russian archives, Panagiotis Dimitrakis analyses the Chinese arms deals with the CIA, the multiple recorded intelligence failures of KGB intelligence and secret letters from the office of Margaret Thatcher to Jimmy Carter. In so doing, this study brings a new scholarly perspective to some of the most controversial events of Cold War history. Dimitrakis also outlines the full extent of China's involvement in arming the Mujahedeen, which led to the PRC effectively fighting the Soviet Union by proxy. This will be essential reading for scholars and students of the Cold War, American History and the Modern Middle East.
Author: Bruce Riedel
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 081572585X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 211
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Book Description
In February 1989, the CIA's chief in Islamabad famously cabled headquarters a simple message: "We Won." It was an understated coda to the most successful covert intelligence operation in American history. In What We Won, CIA and National Security Council veteran Bruce Riedel tells the story of America's secret war in Afghanistan and the defeat of the Soviet 40th Red Army in the war that proved to be the final battle of the cold war. He seeks to answer one simple question—why did this intelligence operation succeed so brilliantly? Riedel has the vantage point few others can offer: He was ensconced in the CIA's Operations Center when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on Christmas Eve 1979. The invasion took the intelligence community by surprise. But the response, initiated by Jimmy Carter and accelerated by Ronald Reagan, was a masterful intelligence enterprise. Many books have been written about intelligence failures—from Pearl Harbor to 9/11. Much less has been written about how and why intelligence operations succeed. The answer is complex. It involves both the weaknesses and mistakes of America's enemies, as well as good judgment and strengths of the United States. Riedel introduces and explores the complex personalities pitted in the war—the Afghan communists, the Russians, the Afghan mujahedin, the Saudis, and the Pakistanis. And then there are the Americans—in this war, no Americans fought on the battlefield. The CIA did not send officers into Afghanistan to fight or even to train. In 1989, victory for the American side of the cold war seemed complete. Now we can see that a new era was also beginning in the Afghan war in the 1980s, the era of the global jihad. This book examines the lessons we can learn from this intelligence operation for the future and makes some observations on what came next in Afghanistan—and what is likely yet to come.
Author: Tom Carew
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1780577311
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 252
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Book Description
The British have never fought against the Soviet army, right? Wrong. In 1980, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had taken over the leadership of the West and the Soviets has invaded Afghanistan; the most crucial battle of the cold war was about to begin. In the high mountain passes of the north-west Frontier and the Hindu Kush, the CIA and its Western allies saw an opportunity to bring the mighty Soviet to its knees. Their weapon: the Islamic guerrillas of the Afghan Mujahideen. Their agent: Tom Carew, the first Western agent to link up with the Mujahideen, led a series of daring initiatives inside Afghanistan. His account covers in extraordinary and revealing detail combat action against the Soviet Spetsnaz and Afghan mercenaries; reconnaissance missions leading to the installation of the first West-sponsored training camp for the Mujahideen in Pakistan; and Carew’s attempt to hijack an aircraft during a covert arms-buying mission. During these operations, the author was accepted and befriended by the fundamentalist Mujahideen and became as close to them as any European infidel could ever get. In many ways he was a latter-day Lawrence of Arabia. Tom Carew later rejoined his unit. Wry, perceptive and sensitive, Jihad! is a fast-paced account of combat espionage and high adventure, against the backdrop of the last truly wild and lawless country on Earth. It sheds unprecedented light on the sharp edge of the cold war and the conduct of special operations in the modern era.
Author: Steve Coll
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 052555730X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 794
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Book Description
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction • Nominated for the National Book Award for Nonfiction From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars and The Achilles Trap, the epic and enthralling story of America's intelligence, military, and diplomatic efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 9/11 Prior to 9/11, the United States had been carrying out small-scale covert operations in Afghanistan, ostensibly in cooperation, although often in direct opposition, with I.S.I., the Pakistani intelligence agency. While the US was trying to quell extremists, a highly secretive and compartmentalized wing of I.S.I., known as "Directorate S," was covertly training, arming, and seeking to legitimize the Taliban, in order to enlarge Pakistan's sphere of influence. After 9/11, when fifty-nine countries, led by the U. S., deployed troops or provided aid to Afghanistan in an effort to flush out the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the U.S. was set on an invisible slow-motion collision course with Pakistan. Today we know that the war in Afghanistan would falter badly because of military hubris at the highest levels of the Pentagon, the drain on resources and provocation in the Muslim world caused by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and corruption. But more than anything, as Coll makes painfully clear, the war in Afghanistan was doomed because of the failure of the United States to apprehend the motivations and intentions of I.S.I.'s "Directorate S". This was a swirling and shadowy struggle of historic proportions, which endured over a decade and across both the Bush and Obama administrations, involving multiple secret intelligence agencies, a litany of incongruous strategies and tactics, and dozens of players, including some of the most prominent military and political figures. A sprawling American tragedy, the war was an open clash of arms but also a covert melee of ideas, secrets, and subterranean violence. Coll excavates this grand battle, which took place away from the gaze of the American public. With unsurpassed expertise, original research, and attention to detail, he brings to life a narrative at once vast and intricate, local and global, propulsive and painstaking. This is the definitive explanation of how America came to be so badly ensnared in an elaborate, factional, and seemingly interminable conflict in South Asia. Nothing less than a forensic examination of the personal and political forces that shape world history, Directorate S is a complete masterpiece of both investigative and narrative journalism.
Author: Craig Whitlock
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982159014
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384
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Book Description
A Washington Post Best Book of 2021 The #1 New York Times bestselling investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about America’s longest war, foreshadowing the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan, by Washington Post reporter and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Whitlock. Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had near-unanimous public support. At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: defeat al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. Yet soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives. Distracted by the war in Iraq, the US military become mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict in a country it did not understand. But no president wanted to admit failure, especially in a war that began as a just cause. Instead, the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations sent more and more troops to Afghanistan and repeatedly said they were making progress, even though they knew there was no realistic prospect for an outright victory. Just as the Pentagon Papers changed the public’s understanding of Vietnam, The Afghanistan Papers contains “fast-paced and vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) revelation after revelation from people who played a direct role in the war from leaders in the White House and the Pentagon to soldiers and aid workers on the front lines. In unvarnished language, they admit that the US government’s strategies were a mess, that the nation-building project was a colossal failure, and that drugs and corruption gained a stranglehold over their allies in the Afghan government. All told, the account is based on interviews with more than 1,000 people who knew that the US government was presenting a distorted, and sometimes entirely fabricated, version of the facts on the ground. Documents unearthed by The Washington Post reveal that President Bush didn’t know the name of his Afghanistan war commander—and didn’t want to meet with him. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that he had “no visibility into who the bad guys are.” His successor, Robert Gates, said: “We didn’t know jack shit about al-Qaeda.” The Afghanistan Papers is a “searing indictment of the deceit, blunders, and hubris of senior military and civilian officials” (Tom Bowman, NRP Pentagon Correspondent) that will supercharge a long-overdue reckoning over what went wrong and forever change the way the conflict is remembered.
Author: Kurt Lohbeck
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338
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Book Description
Describes the Soviet-Afghan War from the eyes of the Afghans who fought it.
Author: Steve Coll
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141935790
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 736
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Book Description
The news-breaking book that has sent schockwaves through the White House, Ghost Wars is the most accurate and revealing account yet of the CIA's secret involvement in al-Qaeada's evolution. Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll has spent years reporting from the Middle East, accessed previously classified government files and interviewed senior US officials and foreign spymasters. Here he gives the full inside story of the CIA's covert funding of an Islamic jihad against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, explores how this sowed the seeds of bn Laden's rise, traces how he built his global network and brings to life the dramatic battles within the US government over national security. Above all, he lays bare American intelligence's continual failure to grasp the rising threat of terrrorism in the years leading to 9/11 - and its devastating consequences.
Author: Carter Malkasian
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197550797
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 601
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Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book Winner of 2022 Lionel Gelber Prize The first authoritative history of American'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.
Author: Phillip Bonosky
Publisher: Capital Books
ISBN: 9780717807321
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
This book on Afghanistan is the result of two visits there in 1981 and close attention to developments since. His firsthand experience left an unforgettable impression on him as to just how the struggle for real freedom was developing.
Author: George Friedman
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0767917855
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 381
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Book Description
George Friedman delivers the geopolitical story that the mainstream media has been unable to uncover — the startling truth behind America’s foreign policy and war effort in Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond. Friedman, founder of Stratfor, one of the world’s most respected private global intelligence firms, and Geopolitical Futures, has an unmatched ability to provide clear perspective on the current geopolitical map. In America's Secret War, George Friedman identifies the United States’ most dangerous enemies, delves into presidential strategies of the last quarter century, and reveals the real reasons behind the attack of 9/11—and the Bush administration’s motivation for the war in Iraq. It describes in eye-opening detail America’s covert and overt efforts in the global war against terrorism: Not only are U.S. armies in combat on every continent, but since 9/11 the intelligence services of dozens of nations have been operating in close partnership with the CIA. Drawing on his vast information-gathering network, Friedman presents an insightful picture of today’s world that goes far beyond what is reported on television and in other news media. Al Qaeda’s war plans and how they led to 9/11 The threat of a suitcase nuclear bomb in New York and how that changed the course of the war. The deal the U.S. made with Russia and Iran which made the invasion of Afghanistan possible – and how those deals affect the United States today. How fear and suspicion of the Saudis after 9-11 tore apart the Bush-Saudi relationship and why Saudi Arabia’s closest friends in the administration became the Saudi’s worst enemies. The real reasons behind George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq and how WMD became the cover for a much deeper game. How the CIA miscalculated about Saddam Hussein’s and Iran’s real plans, leaving the U.S. bogged down in the war. How the war in Iraq began with a ruse, pretending that a “target of opportunity” attack on Saddam Hussein had presented itself. The real story about why the U.S. raises and lowers its alert status and why the United States can’t find and destroy al Qaeda. The strategic successes that are slowly leading the United States to victory America's Secret War is an unprecedented look at the new world war being waged behind-the-scenes today. It is sure to stir debate and capture headlines around the world.
