Download or read book Afghanistan From Cold War to Gold War written by Asim Yousafzai and published by . This book was released on 2014-01-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a long list of books available on the Afghan crisis but each highlights a specific issue. There is no comprehensive book which summarizes the events leading to the Afghan war of 2001 and beyond. This book has been written to fill in that void. This book provides an overview of the Afghan conflict and explains why it has become a 'Graveyard of Empires'. The book describes the present and future of Afghanistan in the backdrop of US/NATO troops withdrawal in 2014. The book also explains Afghanistan's transition from a Cold War era to one where mineral wealth could be the next target for the World Powers. The book can prove to be a great resource for anyone currently working in Afghanistan or who intend to work there in the near future. Military personnel can especially benefit from the contents as they are concise and summarize the major events in the past and present. It can also prove to be a good starting point for geoscience professionals and those who are working on the natural resources in general. The book should be used as a general reference only as nothing has been described in detail. It is intended for general readers; even the scientific topics are written with the interest of a general reader in mind. The unique feature of the book is that history and international politics have been combined with natural resources for the first time under one title. Original pictures from the scene aid in understanding the conundrum. Most of the material in this book came directly from the author's interaction with ordinary Afghans, government officials and most importantly US and NATO military personnel working in Afghanistan. More emphasis has been placed on the southern part of the country where the Taliban insurgency is strong and where the civilian infrastructure is non-existent. Over the course of his research for this book, Dr. Yousafzai was starkly reminded of the fact that most military and civilian personnel have no idea why the Afghans behave the way they do. Ironically, most military officials also have no clue why they are there in the first place! Regardless of their knowledge of the Afghan quagmire, he salutes their dedication to the invaluable service they have been providing since the war began in late 2001.The book is divided into three parts detailing the history of the Afghan war; the present scenario and whether the country's future can be predicted by looking at its bloody history. What kind of lessons the US/NATO officials learned from the Afghan adventure have been detailed throughout the book. As a native Pashtun, Dr. Yousafzai grew up in Peshawar and witnessed the rise and fall of military dictatorships, religious extremism and the plight of ordinary Pashtuns across the Durand Line. The first part of the book describes some of those experiences which are a direct result of his 20 years of working experience in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. The second part of the book summarizes the untapped mineral wealth of Afghanistan and the efforts to control its natural resources. Situation on the ground is discussed in some detail in the third part of the book along with a roadmap towards the uncertain future.
Download or read book Afghanistan from the Cold War Through the War on Terror written by Barnett R. Rubin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-25 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of articles written from 1989 to 2009, updated for this volume.
Download or read book Out of Afghanistan written by Diego Cordovez and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1995-06-29 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Soviet Union pulled its forces out of Afghanistan, the American media had a simple explanation: Soviet troops had been hounded out of the mountains by U.S.-armed guerrillas--the skies cleared of Soviet aircraft by Stinger missiles--until the Kremlin was forced to cry uncle. But Diego Cordovez and Selig S. Harrison shatter this image. Out of Afghanistan shows that the Red Army was securely entrenched when the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw: American weaponry and Afghan bravery raised the costs for Moscow, but it was six years of skillful diplomacy that gave the Russians a way out. Cordovez and Harrison provide the definitive account of the Soviet blunders that led up to the invasion and the bitter struggles over the withdrawal that raged in the Soviet and Afghan Communist parties and the Reagan Administration. The authors are particularly well-suited to their task: Cordovez was the United Nations mediator who negotiated the Soviet pullout, and Harrison is a leading South Asia expert with four decades of experience in covering Afghanistan. Their story of the U.N. negotiations is interwoven with a gripping chronicle of the war years, complete with palace shootouts in Kabul, turf warfare between rival Soviet intelligence agencies, and the CIA role in building up Islamic fundamentalist guerrilla leaders at the expense of Afghan moderates. Cordovez opens up his diaries to take us behind the scenes in his negotiations, and Harrison draws on interviews with Mikhail Gorbachev, former Secretary of State George Shultz, and other key actors. The result is a book full of surprises. For example, the authors demonstrate that the Soviets intervened not out of a desire to drive to the Indian Ocean, but out of a fear of a U.S.-supported Afghan Tito. Rebuffs by hardline "bleeders" in the Reagan Administration undermined efforts by Yuri Andropov to secure a settlement before his death in 1983. Even more startling, Gorbachev resumed the search for a negotiated withdrawal more than a year before the first American-supplied Stinger missiles were deployed in the war. The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was one of the pivotal events of recent history. Out of Afghanistan destroys many of the myths surrounding the Afghan war and will have a profound impact on the emerging debate over how and why the Cold War ended.
Download or read book Afghanistan in the Post Cold War Era written by Barnett R. Rubin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-09 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of articles written from 1989 to 2009, updated for this volume.
Download or read book War Without Winners written by Rasul Bux Rais and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1994 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The situation created by Soviet intervention in Afghanistan attracted scholarly attention worldwide. But though much was written on Afghanistan, little effort was made to understand the domestic roots of the confrontation, nor was any effort made to explain the linkage between internal strife and external invasion. In this first work of its kind Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais analyses all the factors that led to the Afghan tragedy. He examines the nature of the Afghan state and society, the dynamics of the regional and global power structure, the externalization of the civil strife and the resultant fragmentation of political power, thereby adding a fresh perspective to the debate on the politics and security of Afghanistan.
Download or read book The Soviet Afghan War written by Russia (Federation). Generalʹnyĭ shtab and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a candid view of a war that played a significant role in the ultimate demise of the Soviet Union. Presents analysis absolutely vital to Western policymakers, as well as to political, diplomatic, and military historians and anyone interested in Russian and Soviet history. Provides insights regarding current and future Russian struggles in ethnic conflicts both at and within their borders, struggles that could potentially destroy the Russian Federation.
Download or read book Afghanistan s Endless War written by Larry P. Goodson and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Going beyond the stereotypes of Kalashnikov-wielding Afghan mujahideen and black-turbaned Taliban fundamentalists, Larry Goodson explains in this concise analysis of the Afghan war what has really been happening in Afghanistan in the last twenty years. Beginning with the reasons behind Afghanistan’s inability to forge a strong state -- its myriad cleavages along ethnic, religious, social, and geographical fault lines -- Goodson then examines the devastating course of the war itself. He charts its utter destruction of the country, from the deaths of more than 2 million Afghans and the dispersal of some six million others as refugees to the complete collapse of its economy, which today has been replaced by monoagriculture in opium poppies and heroin production. The Taliban, some of whose leaders Goodson interviewed as recently as 1997, have controlled roughly 80 percent of the country but themselves have shown increasing discord along ethnic and political lines.
Download or read book The Secret War in Afghanistan written by Panagiotis Dimitrakis and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-06-30 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Afghan War and Its Geopolitical Implications for India written by Salman Haidar and published by Manohar Publishers. This book was released on 2004 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few Countries Have Been More Affected By The Us-Led War Against Afghanistan Than India. There Was Initial Hope That The War Would Stamp Out The Terrorism Plaguing India But This Was Soon Belied, And The Afghan Situation Remains Highly Unpredictable. By Now, American`S Interest Has Shifted Elsewhere, Yet The Military Presence It Has Established All Around Afghanistan Profoundly Affects The Geopolitical Picture In The Heart Of Asia. The Powerful Lure Of Oil And Gas Has Begun To Open Up A Region Once Off Limits To The West, And New Commercial And Political Rivalries Are Taking Shape.
Download or read book Afghanistan written by Tim Bird and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines why the West has failed to achieve its objectives in Afghanistan, discussing the country's drug trade, political corruption, troubled relations with Pakistan, and harsh terrain, and the lessons about nation building that can be learned from the experience.
Download or read book Afghanistan written by and published by Prestel Publishing. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Noted documentary photographer Robert Nickelsberg's photographs help bring into focus the day-to-day consequences of war, poverty, oppression, and political turmoil in Afghanistan. Since the attack on the World Trade Center, Afghanistan has evolved from a country few people thought twice about to a place that evokes our deepest emotions. TIME magazine photographer Robert Nickelsberg has been publishing his images of this distant yet all too familiar country since 1998, when he accompanied a group of Mujahideen across the border from Pakistan. This remarkable volume of photographs is accompanied by insightful texts from experts on Afghanistan and the Taliban. The images themselves are captioned with places, dates, and Nickelsberg's own extensive commentary. Timely and important, the book serves as a reminder that Afghanistan and the rest of the world remain inextricably linked, no matter how much we long to distance ourselves from its painful realities.
Download or read book Superpowers Defeated written by Douglas A. Borer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Cold War, military conflicts in Vietnam and Afghanistan validated the importanct of war in global power dynamics. But military intervention proved not to be politically sustainable for the USA and the USSR. This study investigates the parallels and differences in the two conflicts.
Download or read book No Good Men Among the Living written by Anand Gopal and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-04-29 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Told through the lives of three Afghans, the stunning tale of how the United States had triumph in sight in Afghanistan--and then brought the Taliban back from the dead In a breathtaking chronicle, acclaimed journalist Anand Gopal traces in vivid detail the lives of three Afghans caught in America's war on terror. He follows a Taliban commander, who rises from scrawny teenager to leading insurgent; a US-backed warlord, who uses the American military to gain personal wealth and power; and a village housewife trapped between the two sides, who discovers the devastating cost of neutrality. 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. A heartbreaking story of mistakes and misdeeds, No Good Men Among the Living challenges our usual perceptions of the Afghan conflict, its victims, and its supposed winners.
Download or read book Afghanistan written by Barnett R. Rubin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Afghanistan, a landlocked country in Central Asia, has improbably been at the center of international geopolitics for four decades. After the Soviet Union invaded in 1980, Afghanistan descended into an unending conflict that featured at various points most of the world's major powers. In the mid-1990s, the country entered a new phase, when the Taliban took power and imposed order based on a harsh, repressive version of Islamic law. Infamously, the sheltered Osama bin Laden, whose attack on 9/11 Towers ushered in the Global War on Terror, drew tens of thousands of American troops to the country, where they remain today. In Afghanistan: What Everyone Needs to Know®, leading scholar Barnett R. Rubin provides an overview of this complicated nation. After providing a concise history of Afghanistan, he explores the various peoples and cultures of the country and its relations with neighbors like Pakistan and Iran. He also provides an authoritative overview of the conflicts that have plagued the country since the Soviet invasion. Both wide-ranging and pithy, this book explains why Afghanistan matters and what its possible future might look like.
Download or read book Humanitarian Invasion written by Timothy Nunan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humanitarian Invasion provides a history of international development and humanitarianism in Cold War Afghanistan.
Download or read book US Politics Propaganda and the Afghan Mujahedeen Domestic Politics and the Afghan War written by Jacqueline Fitzgibbon and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-04-02 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Influential fundraising groups and senators in the US made enormous efforts in the First Afghan War to present the Mujahedeen as 'freedom fighters' – even while the CIA secretly armed them with surface to air missiles and other weapons. A mass propaganda effort was launched, aimed at portraying parts of Afghanistan as victims of communist aggression. As we know now, many of those groups that were armed became the seedbeds for organisations like Al-Qaeda. Dr Jacqueline Fitzgibbon, through a forensic investigation of the American PR of the period, argues that this militarised and fractured Afghan society for a generation – partly resulting in the mess today. This book will look specifically at the American efforts to suppress any reports which showed these forces as anti-western or anti 'American values', and instead to portray the arming of partisan groups, often an extremely dangerous course of action, as an example of American values in action.
Download or read book Breeding Ground written by Deepak Tripathi and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2011 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with the Communist Saur Revolution of 1978 and continuing through Gen. David Petraeus’s 2010 appointment replacing Stanley McChrystal as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, this book is an inside account of one of the most vicious conflicts fought between the two Cold War superpowers: the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979-89). Analyzing the behind-the-scenes decisions made in Moscow, Washington, and Kabul, former BBC correspondent Deepak Tripathi shows how that conflict transformed Afghanistan into a sanctuary for terrorism. Explaining how Afghanistan descended into a civil war from which the Taliban emerged, Tripathi explores the ways in which the country ultimately became a grotesque mirror image of the anticommunist alliance of U.S. forces and radical Islamists in the Cold War’s final phase. Calling for a departure from the current pursuit of military strong-arm tactics, he advocates an approach that is centered on development, internal reconciliation, and societal reconstruction in Afghanistan.
