The American War in Afghanistan: A History 1st Edition

by Carter Malkasian

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 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 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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, War, Politics, Military History, Middle East, Military Fiction

Audible Audio

First published July 1, 2021

About the author

Dr. Carter Malkasian leads the Stability and Development Program at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA). In late 2007 and again in early 2008, he led a team that advised Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) in eastern Afghanistan. Previously assigned to the I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) as an advisor on counterinsurgency, he deployed for the war in Iraq from February to May 2003, February 2004 to February 2005, and February 2006 to August 2006. Most of that time was spent in Al Anbar province. Dr. Malkasian’s most recent publication is a co-edited book (with Daniel Marston of Royal Military Academy Sandhurst), Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare. His other books include: A History of Modern Wars of Attrition (2002) and The Korean War, 1950-1953 (2001). His journal publications include: “Did the Coalition Need More Forces in Iraq? Evidence from Al Anbar,” Joint Force Quarterly; “A Thin Blue Line in the Sand,” Democracy: A Journal of Ideas; “Signaling Resolve, Democratization, and the First Battle of Fallujah,” Journal of Strategic Studies; “The Role of Perceptions and Political Reform in Counterinsurgency,” Small Wars & Insurgencies; and “Toward a Better Understanding of Attrition,” Journal of Military History. Dr. Malkasian holds a doctorate in the history of war from Oxford University.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

“From 2001 to 2021, Americans passed through the countryside and its villages. Patrolling in green or tan camouflage, loaded with body armor, a helmet, ammunition, and water, with an M-4 or M-16 assault rifle or maybe a belt-fed machine gun cradled in their arms, they wound their way through fields and around the villages. Sometimes they staked a post out of brown dirt-filled HESCO barriers and squatted for a year or two. Sometimes with glowing green night vision they burst in during the small hours on a raid, and then disappeared. And sometimes rifles hammered, explosions cracked, and a brother was carried away. Jang peh atraf kay die, say the Afghans. ‘War is in the countryside…’”
- Carter Malkasian, The American War in Afghanistan: A History

America’s war in Afghanistan is the nation’s longest conflict. It began in 2001, in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks that had been hatched within Afghanistan’s borders. It ended twenty years later, with a chaotic, Saigon-like departure in August 2021. When America left, the Taliban was in charge, as they had been in the beginning.

For all its length, however, the American-Afghan War never loomed large in the consciousness of the American public. Casualties among U.S. servicemembers were relatively light, and borne entirely by a professional, all-volunteer military. There was never any sustained, widespread peace movement. There were no riots in the streets. No president refused to run for reelection due to his mistakes. There was no draft or tax hikes to fuel domestic opposition. The war just kind of lingered in the background, like a television left on in an empty room.

When it began, President George W. Bush’s invasion was popular. Even years later, many Americans thought of it as “the good war,” in opposition to the unnecessary invasion of Iraq. Mostly, though, Americans ignored it, even though it directly impacted millions of people every single day.

In The American War in Afghanistan, Carter Malkasian provides a near-comprehensive history of a violent, confusing, ultimately futile endeavor. It is a complex tale, with few outright heroes or villains, and a whole bunch of “what if” moments. In the end, though, even if all the errors were righted, even if one could go back with complete hindsight, it’s likely nothing would have changed in the outcome. It is a war, Malkasian argues, that should not have been fought.

***

At the outset, it’s worth noting that while The American War in Afghanistan came out in 2021, it did so before the completion of the U.S. withdrawal. As such, the final ignominious moments of America’s long involvement are not captured here. Still, while it would have been nice to have had that included – at least from a storytelling standpoint – it has no bearing on the substance of the book. By the time we reach the final pages, covering the peace talks with the Taliban, it is very clear where things are heading.

***

Some historical events follow tidy arcs, with clear beginnings, clear ends, and a smooth timeline where reactions follow logically from actions. The Second World War comes to mind. It’s really, really easy to follow the flow of things.

The American-Afghan War is not like that.

This is a war with bursts of action, and then long interims of false peace. It is not full of pitched battles between uniformed armies, but comprised of hundreds of small unit actions pitting U.S. and coalition forces against irregular fighters. Strategic locations changed hands numerous times. One province might be doing fine, while the next one over went to hell.

One of Malkasian’s great accomplishments is to provide a measure of coherence. To do so, he takes an approach that is both chronological and geographical, instead of skipping from place to place according to the passage of time. He is also really good at starting each chapter with a preview of what is to come, and ending each chapter with a summation of what just happened. This sounds pedantic, but is actually super helpful, because there are a lot of things going on all at once, all the time.

In this way, Malkasian guides the reader through the dizzying heights and spectacular lows that punctuated the American experience in Afghanistan. This includes the initial, small footprint invasion that toppled the Taliban and sent Osama Bin Laden fleeing; the resurgence of the Taliban in 2006; the half-hearted surge by President Barack Obama; and the final drawdown of U.S. troops.

***

As the title suggests, this is an American-centered book. Nevertheless, you still get the Afghan perspective. Or rather, the Afghan perspectives. Indeed, it’s split roughly fifty-fifty in favor of the Americans on the one hand, and the Afghan government forces and Taliban insurgents on the other. The most fascinating, lively characterizations in The American War in Afghanistan are actually – and probably rightly – Afghanis. This includes well known figures, such as Hamid Karzai – who is given a layered presentation – as well as lesser-known players such as controversial Kandahar police chief Abdul Raziq, who embodied so many of the inherent and insurmountable contradictions of the war.

Beyond that, Malkasian – who can speak Pashtun – has an obvious affinity for Afghanistan and its cultures. The first three chapters are given over to building out the context of the war, and the setting in which it occurred. He discusses the different ethnic groups, describes the harsh, determinative geography, and explains the allure of the Taliban. There is a popular conception of Afghanistan – to which I’ve fallen prey – that it has been war-torn throughout its history. But that’s not really the case. Though poor, it is only within the last forty or so years, beginning with the Soviet invasion, that it has been embroiled in persistent violence, a victim of both the Cold War and the War on Terror.

***

Malkasian is not a professional author or historian. He served in the State Department, which deployed him to Afghanistan a number of times. As he acknowledges, he draws on a lot of secondary sources. However, he is also able to add his personal experiences and observations, and has met many of the people about whom he writes.

In terms of style, The American War in Afghanistan is clearly written, though not always fully engaging. There are points where he really shows himself able to craft a sentence or a scene. His evocations of the land are especially effective. But there are also sections that can get a bit tedious and distant, and this would have benefited from a few more set pieces.

***

The American-Afghan War occurred during four different presidential administrations. None of those four men handled the situation perfectly, if such a thing were even possible. To Malkasian, President Bush bears the onus of responsibility, which seems a consensus judgment.

Following September 11, the United States was going to go after al-Qaeda, one way or another. That said, some in the Administration championed a so-called “lawn mowing” strategy, in which America went in, rooted out the training camps, and then left, returning periodically to make sure they hadn’t returned. President Bush decided to go a different direction, overthrowing the Taliban – which for all its cruelties, provided stability – and installing a democracy. Then he got distracted by Iraq, wasting time that could otherwise have been spent in creating a stronger Afghan government. Subsequent presidents dithered over whether to stay or leave, with two of the three essentially splitting the difference, leaving enough troops to prop up the government, but too few to push the Taliban back.

More fundamentally, Malkasian argues that the American enterprise was destined for failure because America and its allies were foreigners. Not everyone liked the Taliban, but they had a far better claim to legitimacy for a variety of reasons, including religion. For Malkasian, the Taliban’s unity of purpose – even more than Pakistan’s double game – made a U.S. victory impossible. In addition, as Malkasian notes, the U.S. “exposed Afghans to prolonged harm in order to defend Americans from another terrorist attack,” and “resuscitated a state of civil war so that we could sleep a little sounder at home.”

Of course, at the highest level of foreign policy, every decision has a stark moral component. Invading Afghanistan to build a new regime had consequences that killed people. Yet, if President Bush intervened only to wipe out al-Qaeda, there still would have been consequences that killed people. And if he had done nothing at all, and let al-Qaeda remain, there would have been consequences, and people would have died. This is one of the realities of a world filled with humans.

***

Afghanistan has often been called “the Graveyard of Empires,” a statement that has always been more clever than true. It is a phrase that also misses an important and obvious point: throughout Afghanistan’s wars, whether it be against the British, the Soviet Union, the United States, or itself, the brunt of the casualties have always been Afghans. Time and again, they have thrown occupiers out, but those victories have come with great cost, and little reward.

[James Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

America's involvement in Afghanistan has been a long one. We covertly supported the mujahedin's resistance to Soviet invasion in the 1980s. During the 1990s we uneasily watched the embers of that war and the resulting civil war while the Taliban brought a harsh stability to the country. Our own direct involvement, of course, followed 9/11. Because George Bush decided on a course of nation-building after the Taliban were defeated we were required to become occupiers and participate in another civil war.

Carter Malkasian's excellent The American War in Afghanistan details the history of our 20-year entanglement in the military and political affairs there. We've been following Afghanistan's news since before 9/11, our awareness of successes and failures sharpened by each day's news cycle. However closely you've followed the news and remained informed of developments in the country, you'll be surprised by many of the perspectives Malkasian will show you. His insider viewpoint and insightful analysis gained by many years in-country will fascinate you.

Though immediate, this isn't journalism but carefully considered and interpreted history. It's more than military history. If America never truly understood Afghanistan, Malkasian seems to. He understands the impact deeply-felt Islamic traditions--even laws--and Afghan tribal politics had on the conduct of the war. He describes the major military campaigns. He discusses tactics and weapons systems and leadership qualities. But he spends more time explaining how these fundamental components of war were uniquely affected by Afghanistan's strongly-held Islamic faith, by the competition between tribes, by wildfire corruption. Every aspect of Afghan society, from farming to education to women's rights, becomes part of Malkasian's narrative history. The policy decisions of 4 American presidential administrations are itemized. Afghan politics and its impact on U. S. policy is cited. Your opinion of every Afghan and American politician will be nudged in another direction by what you read.

Was it a failure? Yes is his final judgment. The reasons are many. His conclusions fill many pages, but it boils down to the fact that America's attempt to build a democratic nation out of the shattered Taliban state couldn't overcome the power of Taliban/Afghan unity held together by their desire to live under an Islamic rule which resisted occupation by a western power generally despised throughout the country. Any Afghan government aligned with the American occupier had a weaker claim to Islamic values than the Taliban who were inspired by Islam and represented it. That elemental outlook hung in the atmosphere of Afghanistan and impacted every level of politics and the military until both became ineffective. Islamic identity and values inspired more than the tenets of democracy and national service we were trying to instil. That's the essence of it. Malkasian expands this core thinking across 461 pages like blowing up a balloon.

The book is comprehensive. It lays blame, Afghan or American, where it needs to yet is generous in praise while covering a war confounding 4 presidents. It's almost complete, too. About the time the book his the shelves in late summer Biden was finally doing what the 3 previous presidents had wanted to do, withdrawing all U. S. forces. The book expresses it as going to zero. This is good, timely history. It'll be the history of the war we reference for many years.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're looking for an informative and comprehensive account of the war that provides mainstream criticisms of the US's "mistakes", then Malkasian's book is for you. If you're like me though and view this country's aggression against Afghanistan through the lens of American Empire, then you'll be constantly frustrated with this read. Malkasian's account implicitly accepts that the US occupation serves some "greater good" despite its "unfortunate" "missed opportunities" for peace while punting the most damning implications of US actions to the hopelessly morally gray arena of "it's complicated." The careful reader should note that whereas the Taliban may be "brutal" and "oppressive", the western-backed warlords are merely "heavy-handed". And you'll read paragraphs-long passages about the cruelty of Taliban commanders like Dadullah Lang but when a US gunship obliterates a Doctors without Borders hospital killing dozens, all we get is a quick comment about how much it weighed on US soldiers and officials. Finally, while the book is informative, the conclusions Malkasian draws are often superficial where things are explained by a lack of "grit" or by American overconfidence and hubris. Overall, the book's a rich source of information but the analysis is generally lacking.

[Mohit · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was released as soon as the American troops withdraw from Afghanistan. The book is an attempt to give the Americans a clean cheat. No other country would survive a political massacre, other than the Americans, by being in this war. Imagine, china being militarily involved in a region for 20 years, causing thousands of civilian casualty?

The book takes into account three actors: the American civilian leadership (politicians and diplomats), the American military leadership (generals and pentagon) and the Afghan politicians. It revolves around the fact that one or the other party among these actors did not do the job. This is in a way stretched to give all the three a clean chit.

I dream that when a book is written in 2031, titled, "10 years after the American war in Afghanistan", I hope we see Afghanistan as a prosperous country. The Americans have both an interest and a responsibility in seeing that Afghans prosper. The Americans and their allies must pledge 200Bn USD re-development program for Afghanistan for the next 10 years. This could be through soft loans, aid and investment. The Americans have much to answer, otherwise, a rise of extremism against America, from the Afghan soil is inevitable.

[Igor Zurimendi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I devoured the book in three days and very much enjoyed reading it. But while Malkasian displays a deep knowledge of Afghanistan and its people, and makes a serious attempt to explain American defeat, when I finished the book I was left disappointed. Perhaps we need more time to pass before Malkasian can write the history I feel he can write.

Part of my disappointment is because Malkasian is writing a history of American Warfighting in Afghanistan - that is to say, a history of how individual American commanders and soldiers fought a war in Afghanistan, under the constraints imposed by politicians and officials. But with his skill as a writer and his expertise he could have written something much greater. Malkasian could have written a real history of the American War in Afghanistan - the conflict that started when American forces entered Afghanistan and ended within weeks of the Americans leaving. But he hasn't really - the book isn't very interested in warfighting after 2014, maybe because Malkasian's own responsibilities take him away from Afghanistan. Nor has he written a full history of the conflict from an American perspective: his engagement with domestic US politics, US international relations, or even US military equipment is quite shallow. There's a lot missing here.

The other reason I was disappointed was that although Malkasian was candid in his criticism at times, in some cases he either fails to join the dots or pulls back the punches. The clear example for me is on the rotation of commanders, which he never explicitly criticises. But Malkasian does mentions that on arriving in 2013 Gen. Dunford was "the twelfth commander of US forces and the seventh commander of ISAF". He notes that when "Gen. Nicolson's tour concluded in September 2018" he had "outlasted every US commander" by staying two and half years. The contrast with the continuity of command among the Taliban is obvious - so why doesn't Malkasian make the obvious point that constantly rotating generals in and out was a problem? Whatever the reason is, it is an example of how this book could have been much more than it is.

[Chad Loves Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this senior year of college a year after the disastrous exit from Afghanistan in August 2021. Apparently the most detailed chronological account of that war. Learned far more than the news told me.

Afghanistan, in its entire history, has never been fully colonized or imperialized. American presence was therefore always an affront to their independence. Most striking to me was a deep-dive of The Taliban. Malkasian states that The Taliban found success in Afghanistan because of their deep religious, cultural, and social connections, and a strong love for the country, its culture, and its traditions. Prior to Taliban control, small gangs tyrannized everyday citizens for years, which prompted The Taliban to form, and many everyday civilians to support them. The American mind seeking to impose democracy there was foolish and unrealistic:

There were two real options 1) allow terrorizing mob rule by miscellaneous and unpredictable gangs of pirates to continue or 2) authoritarian rule by the Taliban, rooted in Islam, which you subscribe to and therefore mostly know the rules. I see parallels to American outsiders making strong statements about Bukele's leadership in El Salvador.

"There cannot be an American solution to every world problem." - John F. Kennedy

[S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know if we're living in the "post-Kabul age" or not, but clearly there was a yawning need for this book. maybe history is accelerating; certainly it's very timely this book comes out just as we finish the evacuation of Kabul.

Malkasian's skill as a historian is evident. this is a welcome addition to the bookshelf of military history. overall there was a nice balance between politics and battle scenes. 4/5 on the nose.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary book about the American War in Afghanistan. The author is an excellent writer who presents his information clearly and in a manner that captures the reader. Most interesting to me is the rose of ISIS and it’s effects on the Taliban and bringing Russia and Iran into the country to dampen terrorism.

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

An informative, thoughtful and mostly well-written work. Malkasian begins with President Carter’s decision to support the mujahideen and ends with Biden’s decision to withdraw. Like many books on this war, it’s painful to read if you lived through it.

A lot of the book deals with Helmand province, where Malkasian served as an adviser, and much of the book also deals with Obama’s 2009 troop surge. Much of the book deals with the question of why “victory” was so elusive. The narrative of the battles is solid, as is the coverage and analysis of the American military, the governments in Kabul, the Taliban movements in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and ISI. He ably covers the bad planning, cultural gaps, and political context of decisions. The portraits of the main players are balanced and human. One of his main arguments about Taliban success is that the movement able to portray themselves as true defenders of Islam and resistors to foreign occupation, and that this image had much more credibility among Afghans than anything the Americans or the governments in Kabul tried to do. Other factors he cites are bad governance and the competing interests of Afghan warlords and the officers of the Afghan army and police.

The narrative is nuanced. Sometimes the writing is a bit choppy, and some may find the level of detail overwhelming. One of the common criticisms of American conduct is the optimistic portraits of the war’s progress by American generals (ex. “turning a corner”), but the book doesn’t touch on this much. At one point Malkasian writes that “legend has it special forces were beloved by President John F. Kennedy” (is that really a legend?) Somewhere else he writes that “other officers, right-wing commentators, and veterans accused McChrystal of hanging young Americans out to die.” Surely he means “dry”? At some points he randomly reverts to writing in first person for short periods. Some readers may wish for more coverage of special operations and civil affairs troops. His statements about “Afghan culture” seem overly sweeping at times; he often writes about Pashtuns, then applies observations about them to Afghans in general.

A clear, comprehensive and well-researched work.

[Connor Weyant · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoroughly detailed broad overview of the War in Afghanistan. Although I would have liked some of the biggest events of the war (ex. the raid and death of Osama bin-Laden) to be covered more in depth, Carter Malkasian’s account of the conflict was fueled by personal experience and expertly tackled the question of why exactly the United States lost.

[Christopher Solomon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The American War in Afghanistan by Carter Malkasian

Twenty years is a long time. The US military involvement in Afghanistan lasted nearly my entire adult life. From age 18 in 2001 to 38 in 2021, my understanding of the world, international security, diplomacy, and American politics somehow included the fact that the United States had a sizable military presence in the impoverished and landlocked Central Asian country of Afghanistan.

Carter Malkasian, a PhD who speaks Pashto and served as a military advisor, spent time in the country during the long US-led campaign to build a stable government in Kabul. He provides us with an excellent history of the entire war from the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States to the ending stages of the war. Afghanistan, now ruled by the resurrected Taliban regime, is quickly fading from the American collective consciousness and into history. Malkasian’s book is a must-read for anyone who wants a comprehensive history of the last twenty years of international affairs and the United States’ current place in today’s world.

For this review, I’ll divide the book into four sections, organized by the four White House administrations that presided over the war.

The Bush years

Malkasian deftly guides us through the collective mindset of the Bush Administration in the months following 9/11. The administration's approach to Afghanistan was driven by two main trends: first, they were amazed at how swiftly the US military — with the help of the Northern Alliance militias — toppled the Taliban regime. Second, they viewed the Taliban as evil-doers who oppressed Afghan women, leading to the belief that there could be no reconciliation with them in Afghanistan's future. This perspective conflated Al Qaeda and the Taliban as one entity.

These trends led to two significant failures in the first two years after the US military intervention in Afghanistan: the failure to build a cohesive Afghan army and missed opportunities for peace talks with the Taliban. Malkasian explores how some Taliban figures could have potentially been persuaded to break off and participate in the early efforts to form a new government in Kabul. He notes that within the Taliban, there were varying views on peace, and it wasn’t certain that the entire group was committed to insurgency. Additionally, the Taliban were considerably weakened after the initial US military assault, presenting a key moment when negotiations might have been possible. Malkasian provides examples of Taliban leaders who were willing to retire. From 2002-2005, Afghanistan was relatively peaceful. However, the Bush administration's missed opportunities allowed the Taliban to regroup in Pakistan.

The Bush White House, heavily focused on counterterrorism (CT), sometimes relied on faulty intelligence, with anti-Taliban sources deliberately feeding misinformation to US special operators. This, compounded by tribal rivalries, led to raids targeting the wrong people. Yet, the White House continued to demand CT actions, driven by a deep-seated need to avenge 9/11, a sentiment that was pervasive across all levels of the US military.

In forming a new Afghan army, pro-government militias were demobilized—a good idea, but poorly timed, as the Taliban were preparing for their 2006 offensive. The Afghan army was unprepared, woefully underfunded (The late former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld rightfully receives Malkasian's ire for this funding failure), and large rural areas were left with few police to defend them. In addition, the 2003 invasion of Iraq further diverted American focus and resources away from Afghanistan.

By 2006, the NATO mission was established to support US forces in the country, with the British military deploying to Helmand Province. While Western leaders saw past British interventions in Afghanistan as distant history, for Afghans, the British were back to avenge their earlier defeats and were widely despised. Their arrival came just as the Taliban launched their first major offensive.

Malkasian’s descriptions of the battles during the 2006 Taliban offensive are gripping and detailed. Here is a section on the British army’s arrival in Sangin in June 2006:

“Butler left 90 paratroopers with 20 of the remaining police to defend the compound. A delegation of local elders, suspicious of the British, asked them to leave. That night, the Taliban hiding in shops and alleys of the bazaar shot at the British in the compound with mortars, assault rifles, and RPGs. Skirmishes continued over the next week. On July 1, 30 or so fighters attempted a two-pronged assault supported by indirect rocket fire. The paratroopers’ heavy machine guns mowed down the attackers and Apache gunships and A-10 attack aircraft shot them up as they fell back. The British suffered eight casualties, which could not be evacuated until nightfall because of the danger to helicopters from ground fire.”

Ultimately, the 2006 Taliban offensive was one of the key turning points in the war. Malkasian wrote:

“The era of hope and opportunity relapsed into civil war, the new definition of Afghanistan. In spite of America’s best efforts, the verdict of 2006 would not be repealed.”

The Obama Years

Obama came into office fresh off his campaign that criticized Bush’s policies on Iraq. The economy and desire to focus on American jobs at home were at odds with Obama's views on US military operations abroad. However, he still retained a conventional approach to US foreign policy in terms of international security and viewed the Afghan conflict as the “good war.”

There was a shift in terms of how the US military carried out air strikes and conducted CT operations in Afghanistan, with an emphasis on protecting the civilian population. Obama oversaw the expansion of drone strikes inside Pakistan, which saw a number of civilian casualties. Under the new WH administration, Pakistan would come much more into focus as a part of the problem but still not quite ever reach a consensus on how to handle it.

Obama surged the number of troops to a total of 21,000 with the aim of training and advising the Afghan military plus dismantling Al Qaeda in the Afghan-Pakistan border region. Iraq came back into play in other ways too. The 2007 surge that helped decrease violence showed that US troops and effective CT strategies could make a difference. Obama turned to Gen. McChrystal to implement the plans that had more or less worked under General Petraeus in Iraq. Simultaneously, the level of US aid to Pakistan increased dramatically, but the Pakistani security establishment still opted to maintain a relatively close relationship with the Afghan Taliban due to their own fears of India’s influence in Kabul.

It is important to note how much the war had shaped the US military in terms of technological innovation and intelligence just through the years of experience. Malkasian writes:

“On the security front, counterterrorism operations intensified. Years of innovation, technological advances, and increased funding had improved effectiveness. Drones were more lethal. Intelligence was more refined. Tempo was higher.”

On the diplomatic level, the relationship between the Obama administration and Karzai also deteriorated. The fraudulent Afghan elections and distrust between both sides significantly reduced American enthusiasm for the war. Tensions also increased between the White House and the Pentagon. Obama was sensitive to being “boxed in” by the US military establishment and faced political challenges as a young Democrat in the national security debates that dominated in DC.

The security debate eventually led to a further surge of almost 100,000 troops to Afghanistan. However, Obama did not want an open ended commitment and kept the surge timeline to 2011. Ultimately, Obama wanted Afghans to take the lead on ensuring their own security. 2014 ultimately ended up being the Obama administration's goal to hand off security responsibilities to the Afghan military. However, it was not to be.

Renewed Taliban offensives in 2015 and 2016 intensified the violence, which Malkasian documents and covers in detail. He carefully tracks the changes in Taliban guerrilla tactics and how the group organized itself as an insurgency and shifted away from direct confrontation with US military forces. All in the background, Malkasian weaves in the first inklings of peace talks that begin in the distant diplomatic background but never really take off. These data points are a sign of things to come for the next administration.

The Trump Years

Trump entered office with a deep skepticism of foreign interventions. He voiced his belief that the United States should get out and was talked down by his military advisers on multiple occasions to ward off a quick withdrawal.

Trump initiated peace talks with the Taliban and even envisioned having them come to Camp David for a signing ceremony. The former Afghan-American diplomat from the Bush team, Zalmay Khalilzad, was selected to lead the talks with the Taliban putting forward Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. The Taliban had an office in Qatar and talks continued on and off during the Trump years.

The US military was also given an opening to ease the restrictions on air strikes that had been put in place by the Obama administration and there was an intense air campaign to degrade the Taliban’s strength in order to gain the upper hand during the peace talks. There were also two instances of high profile ceasefires that were widely celebrated by the Afghans. The Afghan public was tired of war and were open to talks that would include the Taliban in some type of power sharing government.

Trump, however, undermine the US negotiating position by making public his intentions about a total withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. The Taliban knew this and therefore continued to negotiate from a position of strength. Malkasian highlights the peace talks during this period of the war and it was interesting to see how the war had progressed towards an end game that involved talking to the enemy, which the Bush administration had shunned in the early years of the war.

In addition, the Taliban were also locked in a fight with ISIS, which was a smaller group but also more hardline and brutal than even the Taliban could tolerate. In some instances, the US acted as an Air Force for the Taliban to help them in some battles against ISIS. Even for Trump, the omnipresent specter of terrorism lurked in the background. Malkasian writes:

"Trump was no oblivious to the terrorist threat. Frequently he said he wanted out. Sometimes he wanted a long-term counterterrorism presence. On June 20, roughly a week before the seventh round of negotiations in Doha, Trump mused in an interview with Time magazine that the United States was 'doing fine' in Afghanistan and troops would be soon down from 14,000 to 8,000, in effect telling the Taliban that they did not need to concede to halve US troop presence."

Malkasian then notes that Trump contradicted himself by saying the United States would maintain an intelligence presence since Afghanistan was the "Harvard for terrorists." It was clear that Trump knew the terrorism dilemma could pose a political threat to him - just as it has for the previous presidents. With the signing of the Doha agreement in February 2020, Trump sets up the situation for a troop withdrawal that President Joe Biden is subsequently unable and unwilling to pull back from in the spring and summer of 2021.

Biden's Withdrawal and Conclusion

Biden’s withdrawal and the final days of the war are not covered. As other reviews have noted, it would be a more complete work if Malkasian had been able to include this final chapter in the war, with the Taliban offensives, the fall of Kabul, and the evacuation from the airport. Likely, Malkasian was met with a publication deadline under contract but it would have been great for documentation purposes to have the final days of the war included here. Perhaps a future edition could include this as an epilogue.

My other very mild criticism includes the fact that Malkasian does not shy away from details on Afghanistan’s tribal dynamics and some readers may find these sections hard to follow. However, the tribal background does help explain why the Afghans faced so many internal divisions and why the Taliban offered something different in terms of national unity. Religion is a powerful force that helped vanquish the foreign powers but also shaped Afghan society, which made the hardline group’s version of Islam very appealing to many Afghans.

I especially liked how much the author brought the Afghans into the narrative and included their various viewpoints on different aspects of the war over the twenty years of the conflict. In conclusion, Malkasian's book is an important study of how America conducted a major military campaign in a faraway, conservative Islamic country. Twenty years of war stretched across both American political parties, military leadership, and millions of American military personnel. Malkasian aptly noted:

"Leaving was more politically dangerous than staying. The possibility that a terrorist threat to the United States could be revived, especially if the Kabul government fell, always turned out to be too much of a risk. It was one thing to look years out and coldly promise the United States would leave. It was another to peer over the brink as time drew nigh, see the uncertainties, and weigh the political fallout of a terrorist attack, and jump. Such was the tragedy of America's Afghan War. The United States had few chances to succeed and few chances to get out."

I highly recommend The American War in Afghanistan for any students or anyone interested in US military and diplomatic history.

[Scriptor Ignotus · Rating 4 out of 5]

The American war in Afghanistan began as the nation’s most fervently supported military endeavor since the Second World War. Following the devastating terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, NATO invoked the mutual-defense provision of its charter, and a total of fifty-one (!) countries ended up aiding the military mission in Afghanistan in some fashion during the proceeding twenty years. When the intervention began in October 2001, as Green Berets and CIA operatives embedded with the ethnically Tajik and Uzbek warlords of the Northern Alliance assaulted the predominantly Pashtun Taliban emirate of the south with close air support, President George W. Bush’s approval rating soared above 90 percent in some polls. Iran and Russia, traditional American rivals but no friends of the Taliban, cooperated with the United States in an unprecedented manner. The intervention seemed initially to have been a brilliant and unmitigated success. After 2001, the Taliban was in tatters, licking its wounds across the border in Pakistan, while a remarkably peaceful Afghanistan was led by the interim government of Hamid Karzai, a Kandahari khan who had led his Popalzai in an intra-Pashtun uprising within the Taliban’s southern power base.

Yet the war ended, at the end of August 2021, with a spectacularly disastrous American and allied withdrawal from an Afghanistan in which the government had collapsed and almost all of the nation’s territory was in Taliban hands. How did a mission with such an unprecedented level of military, diplomatic, financial, and sentimental support come to such an ignominious end?

Carter Malkasian provides a number of overlapping suggestions. First, the United States made critical strategic blunders in the early phases of the war, at the precise moment when the military and political situation was most favorable to it. After the fall of the first Taliban emirate, the Bush Administration treated the Taliban as a vanquished enemy and refused to allow the new Afghan government to negotiate or share power with it. Given the broad support the Taliban had enjoyed in the Kandahar and Helmand provinces, and the alienation many of the tribes therein experienced under the Karzai government, this uncompromising stance provided tinder for a renewed civil war that materialized with the Taliban offensive of 2006, in which it reclaimed most of southern Afghanistan while the United States was preoccupied with the brewing civil war in Iraq.

Furthermore, the administration was halfhearted and ineffectual in its efforts to build up the Afghan military and police forces. Donald Rumsfeld, in particular, was highly averse to spending substantial amounts of time and money on training and supplying the Afghan army because he feared this would embroil the United States in a long-term nation-building mission; which, of course, ended up being exactly what happened, in part because the weakness of the Afghan military and police allowed the Taliban to reestablish themselves, necessitating a prolonged American military commitment to sustain its initial strategic goal of denying Afghanistan as a safe haven for terrorist organizations like al-Qa’eda. Even after the American “surge” of 2009-2012, the Taliban was never in a weaker position than it had been in between 2001 and 2005.

There was also the hard geostrategic problem of Pakistan, which had been using the Taliban as its proxies since the 1990s in the interests of gaining “strategic depth” for its confrontation with India and providing, in Afghanistan, a release valve for its internal specters of militant Islamism and Pashtun nationalism. The Pakistani government officially broke ties with the Taliban after 2001, but it did so only under American coercion—and the ISI continued to provide the Taliban with clandestine support—because it was never in Pakistan’s strategic interest to countenance an Afghan government that received aid and investment from its Indian archrival, nor to make enemies of a militant movement with a large Pakistani membership base. Malkasian records one Pakistani army officer exclaiming, “We are being ordered to launch a Pakistani civil war for the sake of America. Why on earth should we? Why should we commit suicide for you?” No amount of American cajoling could override this basic geopolitical reality, and the fundamental strategic rift between Pakistan and the ISAF allies became all the more salient after 2011, when the United States launched a covert mission that killed Osama bin Laden in a compound near the Pakistani national defense university and the Pakistani government responded with shrieks of outrage at the violation of its national sovereignty.

Perhaps most importantly, the Taliban provided an ideological draw for Afghans that the Karzai and Ghani governments could never quite match. In a country fragmented along tribal and ethnic lines, Islam was the only cultural force that tended toward unity and cohesion, and the Taliban’s religiously-fervorous character both inspired recruitment and allowed the movement to present a united front against an Afghan regime that was always drifting toward decentralization and corruption. By opposing the US-backed government just as the mujahideen had opposed the Soviet-backed regime in the 1980s, the Taliban also tapped into the spirit of Afghan nationalism, which embraced a long and storied tradition of resistance to occupying foreign powers: Macedonians, Mongols, Mughals, Safavids, Britons, Russians, and Americans. No matter how many Taliban were killed by the United States or the Afghan National Army, the movement could never be dislodged from its identification with what it means to be Afghan, and this was always the primary source of its strength.

[Nick Lloyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book was a somewhat cathartic experience. As someone who served in Afghanistan and later worked on Afghan evac efforts after the Taliban takeover, I was fairly well informed on this topic going in, but I'm not sure I could have given you a succinct answer as to why the Afghan Army failed so horrendously. On paper, they had everything they needed: Western weapons and training (the same weapons and training, it should be noted, we provided to Ukraine prior to Russia's 2022 invasion), more troops, more money, an Air Force. They should have been able to hold off the Taliban almost indefinitely, and yet they collapsed completely in a matter of weeks in the summer of 2021. This book, in examining the long history of the war from 2001 to 2021, notes some important problems that flew below most people's radar. The endemic corruption of the state, the poor administration of the military, the lack of political instincts of President Ghani in dealing with various tribal interests, all played a role in promoting the Taliban and sapping the credibility of the government. We often look at things like the one-sided peace deal signed by the Trump administration at Doha in 2020, or the lack of continued contactor support to keep the Air Force flying during the summer of 2021, but one key reason for Afghanistan's fall was the extraordinarily high death toll the military suffered from 2014-2018. Not only did they lose key leaders like the Kandahar police chief who maintained order during the Surge, General Abdul Raziq, but the Army lost large numbers of troops to both injury and desertion. The public had simply become exhausted of war, and wanted the US out at any cost. Ghani was certainly the wrong leader for the country at this time, but I'm not so sure that, had he been a Churchill or Zelenskyy-type, he could have held the country together much longer than he did.

An excellent book on a long and complicated topic of great frustration to those who served there.

[Joel Trono-Doerksen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did enjoy reading this book and how it analyzed all of the American failures. I did like that the author acknowledged that their puppet government was always hamstrung by the fact that by supporting said government they went against what it meant to be Afghan. I did find it odd that the author did not address the rampant pedophilia in the police services as a cause for the government's failure and didn't even mention the Afghanistan Papers at all. The book has to be read knowing that the author worked for the American general in charge of the operation from 2015 to 2019, so there will be very little in the book condemning American imperialism. Overall a good read but best supplemented with other books.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very thorough, enlightening and enjoyable-reading history of the US-Afghanistan war. Objective in its appraisal of why we fought for 20 years, whether we should have stayed or pulled out much earlier and the effect on the Afghan people.

Sometimes too much detail on the battles themselves, but for those who really wanted to know what happened this is it!

[Kanako Okiron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only noticed towards the end that Malkasian had deliberately titled the book “the American War in Afghanistan” rather than “the Afghan War” or “the War in Afghanistan” which is why I gave the book another star. This was very much America’s fight and if we can learn anything from this dreadful decade of pain mostly inflicted on ourselves, is that there’s always time for compromise.

[Sanjay Banerjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-researched and probably the first (that I have read) comprehensive book on the entire history of USA’s Afghanistan War which ran for almost 20 years (2001-2021) and is probably the longest war that the nation fought in its entire history spanning 4 Presidents.

[Alfonso Oramas · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Definitive Book

[Jarno Mehtiö · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hieno kirja. Luin elokuussa lomalla sattuneista syistä. Nousi mieleen, kun kuuntelin Uutisraportin vuosikatsausta.

Biden nousi valtaan ja sai syliinsä Trumpin solmiman sopimuksen. USA oli jo tässä vaiheessa vetänyt joukkonsa minimiin, Ghan oli edeltäjäänsä epäsuositumpi, Taliban oli vahvoilla ja merkkejä saavutettujen etujen pienentymisestä oli jo ilmassa. Yhdysvaltojen puolustukselliset katseet hakeutuivat myös terrorismin vastaisia operaatioita isompiin konflikteihin.

Samalla Bidenin sylissään makasi koronakriisi. Koronan keskellä ihmisiä kuoli päivittäin enemmän kuin syyskuun terrori-iskuissa. Talous uhkasi vajota pahimpaan kriisiin sitten 1930-luvun, pahempaan kuin 2008.

Mitä siis tehdä Afganistanilla ja miten tähän sotkuun oli päädytty. Ja kyse tosiaan oli siis siitä, mitä jenkit tekevät. Heidän tekonsa määräsivät Afganistanin suunnan, haluttiin tai ei.

Viimeistään Obaman kaudella sodassa oli jo siirrytty rajallisempiin tavoitteisiin ja Yhdysvallat vetäytyi yleisemmin isolationistisempaan politiikkaan (siellä se punainen viiva on edelleen kaasun alla Syyriassa). Sota yleisesti nähtiin Yhdysvalloissa jo vuodesta 2011 hävittynä (lost cause), jolla ei saavutettaisi tavoitteita. Mutta sota ei näkynyt ihmisten arjessa. Se ei aiheuttanut Vietnamin tapaista vastarintaa.

Amerikan sodan voi nähdä jatkumona, jossa Afganistan on ollut vallankumouksellisessa tilassa vuodesta 1978. Koko tämän ajan maassa on ollut epävakaata. Neuvostoliiton sota oli itse asiassa tuhoisampi kuin Yhdysvaltojen sota. Maa ei ole koskaan ole nauttinut sellaisesta rauhasta, johon me olemme länsimaissa tottuneet. Jopa tietyt vapaudet ennen 1970-lukua olivat osin erittäin autoritäärisen johdon sanelemia eivätkä maaseudun heimoyhteiskunta liiemmälti piitannut kaupunkien näkemyksistä.

Kirjassa kuitenkin keskitytään Yhdysvaltojen sotaan. Miksi moinen, täydellinen epäonnistuminen, jonka saavutuksetkin oli rakennettu omilla jaloilla kestämättömäksi?

Afganistanin demokratiasta tehtiin liian keskusjohtoista. Kilpailevat näkemykset ja keskittymät eivät saaneet sanaansa kuuluviin. Taliban pysyi vahvana maaseudulla, jossa sen arvot, organisaatio ja oikeuskäsitys saivat tukea. Kirjoittaja huomauttaa, että afgaanit ovat pääosin konservatiivisia, taliban oli konservatiivinen sekä ääriliike.

Hallitus ja sotaherrat kohtelivat kansalaisia huonosti, varastivat rahat sekä kävivät keskenäistä kamppailuaan. Pakistanin tuki Talibanille tarjosi järjestölle pakopaikan, jonne jenkit eivät päässeet tuhoamaan järjestöä. Vuodesta 2006 alkanut Talibanin paluu lähti nimenomaan Pakistanista, sieltä rekrytoitiin toimijat järjestölle. Eikä Pakistanin toimintaa saanut muutettua, koska se kytkeytyi Pakistanin elintärkeäksi mieltämään kamppailuunsa Intian kanssa.

Afganistanin armeija epäonnistui. Sillä ei ollut yhtenäisyyttä, he taistelivat erillään ja poliisi sekä armeija olivat jopa keskenään vastakkain. Heimoyhteiskunta ja sen arvot ylittivät yhtenäisyyden, jota puolustus vaatii.

Kirjoittaja näkee myös, että Taliban onnistui, koska se edusti Afganistania ja afganistanilaisuutta paremmin. Se edusti islamia ja miehityksen vastustamista, jotka kuuluivat kulttuuriin merkittävämmin kuin vapaat vaalit ja naisten oikeudet. Talibaanit uskoivat taistelunsa oikeuteen ja olivat valmiit käymään ylivoimaista vihollista vastaan, jopa itsemurhaiskuin. Valtion edustajat eivät samassa määrin uskoneet asiaansa. Ja näin paperilla ylivoimaiset joukot lyötiin taistelu taistelulta, elleivät yhdysvaltaiset olleet auttamassa. Poikkeuksia oli toki myös, mutta he olivatkin poikkeuksia. Poikkeuksilla ei voiteta sotaa.

Edellä mainitusta huolimatta afgaanit tukivat kyllä hallitusta enemmän kuin Talibania, mutta useampi oli valmis kuolemaan talibanien puolesta.

Olisiko sotilaallisesti voinut käydä toisin? Alussa, 2001-2005, tuki hallitukselle oli korkea ja Taliban paossa. Silloin olisi ollut aikaikkuna – jota ei avattu. Bushin hallinto kieltäytyi neuvottelemasta Talibanin kanssa. Bushin hallinto rakensi liian hitaasti maan omia puolustus- ja poliisivoimia. Vuoden 2006 vastaiskun alkaessa maassa oli koulutettu vain 26 000 sotilasta. Myös Yhdysvaltojen iskut sekä varaukseton tuki Karzaille ja sotaherroille suututti paikalliset, samalla kun kaiken Yhdysvaltojen huomion vei Irak.

Vuoden 2006 jälkeen mahdollisuudet kävivät huonommiksi. Talibanien vastaisku eskaloi konfliktia ja tappiot laskivat moraalia. Tämän jälkeen oli vaikea nähdä Yhdysvaltojen voittoa realistisena mahdollisuutena. Jäljellä oli enää tappioiden minimointi ja häviön siirtäminen hamaan tulevaisuuteen.

Keinoja vähemmän huonon lopputuloksen saavuttamiseksi olisi ollut. Obaman aloittama sysäys (suomennokseni surgesta) olisi tullut tehdä pienempänä, koska sillä ei saavutettu mitään.

2014, kun vastuuta siirrettiin maan omille joukoille, nopeasti tulleet tappiot ruokkivat tappiomielialaa. Näitä tappioita olisi voitu vähentää, mikäli Yhdysvallat olisivat antaneet vapaammin ilmatukea. Mutta koska niistä oli huonoja kokemuksia, niitä pidäteltiin. Ja hallinto menetti isoja maakuntia Talibanille.

Lopulta 2019 rauhanneuvottelutkin olisivat voineet päättyä paremmin. Mullah Omarin kuolema ja seuraaja olivat tiedossa. Obaman muine kiireineen oli väistynyt. Mutta Trump ei osannut tehdä hyvää diiliä. Hän halusi vetäytyä melkein hinnalla millä tahansa, joten neuvotteluissa ei saatu puristettua Talibanilta myönnytyksiä.

Miksi näin huonoja päätöksiä? Johtajat eivät osanneet miettiä valintojen vaikutusta tulevaisuuteen eivätkä kyseenalaistaneet valintojaan. Liian helposti väitteitä tukevat tiedot hyväksyttiin ja vastaiset hylättiin. Kenraalit eivät tarjonneet riittävästi vaihtoehtoja (ensin halusivat voittaa ja sen jälkeen välttää häviämästä, kun olisi tullut etsiä kokonaan erilaisia ratkaisuja). Siviilit eivät miettineet, mitä kävisi, jos valittu linja ei toimisi. Ensin mainitun ymmärrän, koska se on sotilaiden tehtävä. Presidentin tehtävä on määrätä heidät sitten miettimään muita keinoja, jos vaihtoehdot eivät miellytä. Toista selitystä en ymmärrä. Sen pitäisi olla lähtökohta.

Miksi jenkit olivat maassa sitten näin kauan, jos tosiasiat olivat jo tiedossa? Kaikkien parjaama puolustusministeri Rumsfeld itse asiassa oli nopean toiminnan kannalla: hän halusi jenkkien iskevän ja häipyvän, ei jäävän rakentamaan tai häsläämään maan asioita. Presidenteillä kuitenkin terrorismin pelko, kotimaan politiikka, halu auttaa sekä tappion myöntämisen yleinen vaikeus olivat tärkeämpiä kuin aiheutuvat ongelmat.

Terrorismi nähtiin isona ongelmana, ja vaikka se väheni, iskun pelko ja sen (poliittiset) seuraukset vaikeuttivat toimintaa. Ja kun pelko alkoi vähentymään, ISIS nousi. Trumpkaan ei saanut päätettyä sotaa vaan teki vain epämääräisen diilin, joka takasi lopputuloksen mutta ei sen päivämäärää.

Ehkä myös sodan suurempi näkyvyys yhteiskunnassa olisi pakottanut jenkit myöntämään tappionsa. Koska ei tullut Vietnamin sodan vastaista rintamaa eikä sodasta puhuttu, se sai jäädä päättäjien puuhasteluksi, sotilaiden sodittavaksi ja afgaanien kärsittäväksi.

Tämän jälkeen voikin kysyä, onko interventio oikeutettua? Oliko afgaanien altistaminen jatkuvalle vaaralle ja tuholle yhdysvaltalaisten turvallisuuden arvoista. (No, kaikki suurvallat tai edes riittävästi valtaa omaavat tietävät vastauksen). Yhdysvallat otaksuivat, että elämä demokratiassa olisi parempaa, mutta interventio ei tuonut demokratiaa. Se paransi tilapäisesti naisten oikeuksia, koulutusta ja sananvapautta, mutta se tuli suurin inhimillisin uhrein ja edut saattavat jäädä kovin lyhytaikaiseksi.

Kävikö niin kuin kylmän sodan aikana useasti, että interventio saattaa maan lähes jatkuvaan sisällissotaan? Taliban oli onnistunut luomaan maahan vakautta, toki julmalla tavalla. (Sinällään en ymmärrä, miksi Taliban ei saisi luotua samanlaista vakautta myös nyt. Talous on kyllä kuralla, se saa ehkä vähemmän tukea arabimailta ja jenkkien pakotteet ovat kovempia kuin 90-luvulla. Mutta jos näitä helpotettaisiin, kävisikö Talibanin valta länsimaille ja voisimme jättää maan huomiotta kuten aikaisemmin.)

Huomion arvoista on, että kirjoittaja puhuu koko ajan 2006 vuodesta. Sota on siis ollut huonossa jamassa 15 vuotta. Se ei ole voinut tulla kenellekään yllätyksenä, ei afgaaneille, jenkeille, länsimaille tai avustusjärjestöille. Ja silti kävi näin. Ei minulle jonkin verran tapahtumia seuraavana ole tästä tullut näin toivotonta kuvaa aikaisemmin. Toki konflikti on näyttäytynyt ikuisena tai lähes jäätyneenä kuin monet muut tragediat, mutta näissä muissa tragedioissa harvemmin on runsaasti länsimaiden joukkoja paikalla. Ei keskustelua ole herättänyt kysymys, missä näkisit Afganistanin konfliktin viiden vuoden kuluessa. Ja jatkossa tämä kysymys herättää keskustelua vielä vähemmän.

[Greg Peterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe 2.5 stars? I don't know. This was a very helpful book for me but not sure how useful for people who are more knowledgeable on Afghanistan.
Malkasian is a really interesting narrator. He is more honest in his reflections about Afghanistan than anything I have read by the architects of the war. I think his main argument is less important than what else the book has to say. I THINK he believes that if different strategic choices were made, the war and Afghanistan could be in a much better place than it is now. However, he seems fairly open to call almost everything into question, even asking if Afghanistan would be better off if the United States never invaded.
The timeframe is very much focused on America’s intervention in Afghanistan with only about a chapter dedicated to background and previous interventions in the country. The focus itself is also very much on the military and military strategy. His main argument is that the Taliban did a much better job than the Afghan government in embodying what it means to be Afghan and Islamic, and those values allowed the movement to be incredibly successful in terms of garnering local support and more determined soldiers. Malkasian also argues that fighting occupation is a value that has a pattern in Afghan history and itself can be portrayed as Islamic. He cautions us by saying that he is in no way saying that Islam or Afghans are inherently violent. I guess what is interesting is that he seems to connect the dots of unrest in Afghanistan, support for the Taliban, and insurgency to the US occupation. A link that the Bush and Obama administration didn’t seem to identify at all.
For me, what was so stunning about the book is how the large strategic decisions by the US in the war were rarely good choices. I’m not talking moral choices. I’m referring to the ability to make choices with the US military and the construction of the Afghan military. I have been reading a lot about other 20th century American wars and it shouldn’t surprise me, but it is stunning how the majority of these decisions are driven by domestic policy at home, midterm elections, budget constraints, how the war will be perceived, personal issues between individuals, and personal vanity. The US military seemed only efficient at building roads in Afghanistan. In the last chapter, Malkasian says that for America it wasn’t important if we won or lost the War and that the War in Afghanistan wasn’t important to America. Most of us (myself included) know very little about America’s longest war. It became this accepted issue we just had to trudge through. For me this is what sticks out the most. Part of me likes to think that wars are conducted for specific strategic purposes to address real threats. Afghanistan seems more like a sideshow where the United States acted out all sorts of other “things” besides military plans to efficiently defeat an enemy and build an army. However, this unimportant sideshow for American politics was set in a country that was absolutely brutalized and destroyed.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book, probably the best I've read on the Afghan War. There's lots of great work out there, but this is the first book that lets the reader see the full scope of the conflict, as well as the Afghan side(s). Malkasian is clear, concise writer who advances a compelling argument. He also signposts regularly, stopping in the midst of the narration to discuss where each chapter fits into the larger scope of the conflict. This is really important for understanding a long, drawn-out conflict like the Afghan War. I occasionally got a little lost in the military operations chapters, but this book helped me grasp the basic contours of the war, its major turning points, and why it went down the way it did. One caveat is that I think Malkasian finished this book right before the Taliban victory and chaotic U.S. intervention, so that stuff isn't in here (although I assume a later edition might include that?).

Malkasian argues that the Afghan War was an ambiguous and possibly unnecessary conflict, at least unnecessary as a 20-year war. He addresses a few big questions that I'd like to take in order:

Were there chances for peace earlier on, and why were they missed? Malk particularly faults the US for not pursuing peace talks of some kind with Taliban remnants in 2001-2005, before the Taliban made their comeback. There were signs that Taliban leaders could have been brought into political negotiations with the new gov't, and it's a generally good maxim that an optimal time to negotiate with your enemy is when he's at his weakest. The US was too angry and triumphant post-911 to entertain such talks, and they actually scuttled them a few times. I am a little skeptical that the Taliban would ever accept anything less than total control of Afghanistan, and they never did cut themselves off from AQ, whom they saw as fellow brothers in radical Islam. But an early peace deal would have possibly enabled the US to leave completely with the exception of some counterterrorism missions, which would have been a better outcome for us (although one wonders whether any president would have left before getting Osama).

Why did the US and AF forces struggle so much to defeat the Taliban (and why did they eventually lose the war)?

Malk surveys the usual explanations of this point: gov't corruption and mistreatment of the people, ethnic divisions in the gov't and society, the PK safe haven and PK support for the Taliban, etc. However, he adds a fascinating factor that really resonated with me: the Taliban had greater claim to what it meant to be Afghan and Muslim than the gov't did. The Taliban was not widely reviled in AF, nor widely loved, but they benefitted from a certain legitimacy in being home-grown and resisting outside involvement in a society that had all too much of that since the 1970s. The gov't not only was corrupt and rigged elections, they were seen as having been put in place and maintained by the US, which many Afghans believed was trying to dominate or Christianize Afghanistan. US night raids and bombing/drone strikes that often killed civilians and/or dishonored Afghans, creating a cultural/religious need to strike back. These problems made the Taliban seem to many like righteous resistors, and they used the resistance to outsiders theme in their propaganda. There is maddening poll data that showed that Afghans cared way more if Americans killed civilians than if the Taliban did it, even though the Americans made way more of an effort to reduce civ casualties. Even Karzai didn't really hate the Taliban that much, and there was often a lack of urgency about the Taliban threat in the Afghan gov't.

This is an interesting structural/cultural argument for why the Taliban consistently fought well and doggedly. In so many cases, Afghan police with better arms/equipment, in defensive positions, and with greater numbers fought poorly or not at all . Tbh, this argument (coupled with rising green on blue attacks in the mid-2010s) made me wish we had left completely after Obama's surge, especially after the killing of OBL. I just don't think this was a country worth fighting for in terms of the US national interest, nor in terms of its chances of becoming a democracy. Obviously our presence helped millions of Afghans in many ways (especially women), but I don't think these improvements were sustainable given that we were working in an extremely traditional and patriarchal culture that lacked key foundations of modern liberal societies (religious tolerance, state capacity, a meaningful national identity, a history of constitutional rule, an educated middle class).

Why did it take so long to leave?

Obama's surge took the Afghan War to its peak, at least for the US, btw 2009-11. We killed OBL in 2011. After that, the US presence dragged on for 10 years, in large part because the Afghan Civil War continued to rage and because the US didn't want to lose its investments there (think sunk costs) and wanted to maintain counterterrorism operations. The rise of the Islamic State and ISIS-K in AF added to this commitment. Obama and Trump both engaged in negotiations with the Taliban, but both refused to use the leverage of keeping US troops in Afghanistan to force more concessions from the Taliban. Of course, any deal with the Taliban (like our peace deal with the North Vietnamese in 73) might not have been worth the paper it was written on (and the Taliban did not cease violence for a second after the 2020 deal), but that doesn't mean either president did a good job exiting the country. Biden may have botched the departure, but at least he didn't mess around and keep more US troops in the country and in harms way.

I leave this book with a feeling of tragedy. There is no way, as Malk argues, that US interests in Afghanistan justified a 20 year war and over 2k American deaths. This book, however, makes you eschew simple answers. When, for example, was the right time to jump off? Maybe Rumsfeld was right that hitting the Taliban and AQ hard in 2001 and then basically peacing out would have been better in the end? Maybe Obama should have just trusted his gut and not surged in 2009 in order to maintain a more sustainable presence? Maybe it would have been better if Trump had trusted his gut fully and left completely? However, there was always something pulling us back in: fear of terrorist safe havens and the political fallout of getting struck from Afghanistan again, fear of what the Taliban would do (especially to women) if the US left, anxiety about looking weak, sunk costs, and good old American can-do-ism. Thus we had the rational madness of presidents prolonging a war they thought was a bad idea. Malkasian wrestles honestly and compellingly with all of these questions, and his personal experiences in Afghanistan make this book a perfect blend of historical work and personal reflection.

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Malkasian did a phenomenal job detailing the events of the Afghan War and highlighting many areas where America failed in its policy and strategy; overall this was a great book to learn the “what happened” in this conflict. To learn “why these things happened,” however, Malkasian is extremely dismissive and painstakingly oblique when it comes to explaining away why these bad decisions were made. I quickly grew tired of him saying things like “that point is a counter-factual” when trying to determine if a certain tribe joined the Taliban because America killed that tribal leader and several civilians within the tribe during a raid, or that “it was not naturally apparent, at the time,” when policy makers made the decision time and time again to remain in Afghanistan for fear of spurning further terrorist attacks in the face of an American withdrawal, despite the lack of any concrete evidence indicating these fears were tangible. The book was largely one account after another of failed American politics, strategy, and counter-insurgency tactics, followed by an unconvincing and dodgy justification by Malkasian for each instance. I’m not sure who’s face he was trying to save, other than his own.

Although these explanations give us insight into what policy makers were thinking at the time, I don’t see any of it as a true justification for much of the conduct of the war.

[Ernst · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written after the 2020 election by an author with a Ph D from Oxford and multiple deployments into the country and four years experience as special assistant for strategy to the Joint Chiefs of staff. Author leans toward believing that great risks for peace were worth taking as early as 2002, though he mentions that making deals with the Taliban is an uncertain process -- there may be no deal, and if there is a deal they may not keep it. Although the book was published before things unraveled completely, the author concludes that Obama's surge did not good.
Striking that Americans or the elected Afghan government took twice as many troops to control a city or area once taken -- once the Taliban took over an area they were not being attacked by improvised explosive devices or other terrorist assaults, so an area held by the Afghans was still at war and an area held by the Taliban, outside the surge and occasional other campaigns, was basically at peace. Folks could walk around unarmed and have much more of their normal lives.
Book is weaker on corruption in the Afghan army -- there are references to it, but not much about where the money and equipment went, the motivations of the people doing it, or how they got away with it.

[Nicolas Berryman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Growing up I felt like my family talked more about the Iraqi war but having family members who served in the military they never really liked to talk about what was going on in Afghanistan. It’s shocking hearing how much of a failure this war was in comparison to Vietnam. Vietnam might have been our biggest failure due to how much life was lost and the counterculture it created but the worst part about the war in Afghanistan is the simple fact that no one even cares about it and the fact most people don’t even know why we were in that war in the first place and I doubt a lot of adults back then know to this day either! What is shocking is how history will look back at this war, like we are probably going to blame Biden for the sloppy exit that he inherited from Trump but at least Biden was honest as he said “We went to Afghanistan because of an horrific attack that happened 20 years ago. That cannot explain why we should remain.” What’s funny is how Trump mocks Biden, when all that Biden did is follow through on the deal he made with the Taliban for troops to leave May 1st 2021 without having the Taliban take all bets off the table. From the sound of it, if Trump would have won, he would have led our troops to possibly the worst bloodshed of all the war cause the Talibans deal would be off and they pretty much took over Afghanistan over the course of his presidency after Trump told the world on Twitter his plan that we were leaving. It’s wild that if we would have killed Osama at the battle of Tora Bora the war would have been over in December of 2001. Rumsfeld is a name I heard growing up too and oh my god, he is the worst Secretary of Defense in history. My mom said that he probably liked the idea of chasing Osama more than the idea of catching Osama. We subjected a country to civil war, drone strikes, night raids, kill teams, imprisonment and random atrocities for $2.3 trillion just so that we could sleep better at night but at the same time let our problems at home boil over to the point the our country couldn’t focus on staying the number one superpower or prevent mass shootings and covid-19. At least we have left there country and they can let themselves decide there own future without us killing anymore women and children.

[Bob Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was the war in Afghanistan a mistake? Could we have done something different? How did we get to where we are now? These questions and more are addressed by Carter Malkasian in his magisterial The American War in Afghanistan: a History.

Malkasian deals with the entire war from the beginning of President Bush’s decision to go to war to President Biden’s decision to abide by the decision to withdrawal troops. In the midst of that, Malkasian introduces the reader to the people and events of the Afghanistan war and the analysis of the decisions made as well as the reasons why certain events happened.

The war in Afghanistan is extremely complex. There are no clear ‘sides’ or objectives. Afghan culture is extremely complex and the influences of Islam, Al-Quadra, the Taliban, tribal and ethnic history as well as the political history of the last century all create a cadre of stories that no single narrative can unpack. However Malkasian does his best to explain all of these different areas and to simplify the narrative as much as possible. Even after reading this, I couldn’t explain all the different sides and narratives, but at least I have a better understanding of the war.

Malkasian does his best to keep the narrative flowing and the technical jargon to a minimum. He keeps the reader engaged and tries to keep the bias down to a minimum.

Even though we are at least 30 years away from a more objective understanding of the war, this book represents a least a good beginning that those future books will engage with.

I highly encourage this to anyone who is interested in military history, American history, American politics.

Grade: A

[Marc Laderman · Rating 5 out of 5]

a good historical perspective

Mr Malkasian provides a good history and takes note of the decisive points in the 20 year long conflict. His premise, Afghans were more drawn to the Taliban because they represented the local culture better is defendable but I do not agree with it.
I also spent a few years in Afghanistan. I didn’t see as much or understand as much as Mr Malkasian. I am however conflicted by the poor attempts at nation building in Afghanistan. After all, Afghanistan was no worse off than Greece when the Marshall Plan attempted to build a viable government there with mixed results. I would cite the failure to follow through with nation building as a primary reason for American failure there. Nation building is the delivery of government services. Yes, it includes security and policing but must also be expanded to include courts, land title, clean water, electricity, roads and education. Democratic institutions might also be on this list but that is debatable. Afghanistan changed tremendously over the 20 years of American involvement. The biggest change was population growth and urbanization. Why didn’t we choose a strategy to make the Taliban irrelevant to defeat them?

[Stephen Morrissey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Afghanistan War has been largely invisible to Americans: a small, volunteer force has fought it; consumers haven't been forced to sacrifice anything for it; and the objectives have been as clear as mud. In the muddling through two decades of war, Carter Malkasian brings both a detailed military and political history of the war, as well as a very simple but powerful conclusion to why America didn't win: nationalism and Islam.

Americans dumped billions of dollars and thousands of lives into the Afghan quagmire, and little to show fort it as of 2021. The force opposing any "progress" was something deeply rooted and powerfully inspiring: adherence to Islam and an Afghan national identity. No matter what America accomplished since 2001, US troops were always invaders to native citizens, not unlike the Soviets, the British, and even Alexander the Great's ancient army. Moreover, the Taliban, using a fundamentalist form of Islam, was able to awaken hearts and minds to a duty to repel the invaders not simply for country, but for God.

The US, as Malkasian points out, won tactically at certain points in the war. What failed the US was strategy and an understanding of how much American troops could shape a country in the hinterlands of Central Asia.

[Tegan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spoiler alert: It doesn’t turn out well for anyone involved.

“Such was the tragedy of America’s Afghan War. The United States had few chances to succeed and few chances to get out.”

4.5 ⭐️ Highly Recommended. Well researched and comprehensive summary of the country’s longest running war from an American perspective. Having lived it, there were no surprises. Helpful insight looking back in hindsight considering other perspectives. I will likely pick this up again many times in the future for a re-read.

I really was hoping that this book would address the nature of our sudden withdrawal from Afghanistan although we had existing plans on the shelf to do just that since deploying troops and equipment two decades prior. The author addresses this topic up front by mentioning: “The final denouement four months later, the collapse of Afghan democracy and the chaotic withdrawal, is still fresh, too close for reasonable perspective. But the events leading up to it can be understood and reflected upon.”

It would be great to follow this up with books written by Afghan men and women authors especially those who were political representatives, police/military members, family members of fallen Afghan citizens, Taliban supporters, NGO volunteers, etc..

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A chronicle of the American side in the much-too-long War in Afghanistan, abundant in content and detailed in its expositions. Malkasian takes the reader through a helicopter ride of the war's chronology, while enough historical and cultural context to flesh out his discussions.

A slight pitfall in his writing is that often he will end up in dull and monotonous accounts of smaller events that happen during chapters, such as enumerating how many soldiers died, how many airstrikes happened, and etc. However, that may be a consequence of his narrative method of giving a wider, bird's-eye-view of things. The biggest issue, however, is while this helicopter ride provides an ample overview of the war, there is hardly enough time put in analysis or insight. His conclusions at the end may or may not even be agreeable.

That aside, Malkasian's work is thorough enough to provide the reader with sufficient knowledge of how the war played out from America's perspective, why American nation-building failed, and how the Taliban eventually achieved victory in the end. It's lengthy but comprehensive.

[Jim Pomeroy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very solid book that will likely be the benchmark for future treatments of the subject. The author’s professional history makes for a good base of sources with interviews, conversations, anecdotes sprinkled throughout. However, the author is a bit too fond of General Dunford and President Obama at times. In describing these individuals, some of Malkasian’s bias shines through. I think this book also does not dive deep on several important aspects of the war (domestic politics in America for example). Also, the 2012-2021 chapters FLY by. Seems like there could have been more said about these years.

The concluding chapter is good, but it is both damning and conciliatory at the same time. Perhaps this is on purpose. But there doesn’t seem to be a final verdict on Afghanistan: “It was necessary that it happened and inevitable that it lasted so long, but it inflicted a tragedy on the Afghan people.” So which is it? This is a 3.5/5 type book. Good but not great. Hoping that this opens the door for better/fuller treatments in the future.