Yale University Press
How to Lose a War: The Story of America's Intervention in Afghanistan
Key Metrics
- Amin Saikal
- Yale University Press
- Hardcover
- 9780300266245
- -
- -
- History > Military - Afghan War (2001-)
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
In 1958, Richard Nixon described Afghanistan as unconquerable. On 15th August 2021, he was proven right. After twenty years of intervention, US and NATO forces retreated, enabling the Taliban to return to power. Tens of thousands were killed in the long, unwinnable war, and millions more were displaced--leaving the future of Afghanistan hanging in the balance.
Leading expert Amin Saikal traces the full story of America's intervention, from 9/11 to the present crisis. After an initial swift military strike, the US became embroiled in a drawn-out struggle to change Afghanistan but failed to achieve its aims. Saikal shows how this failure was underlined by protracted attempts to capture Osama bin Laden, an inability to secure a viable government via democracy promotion efforts, and lack of wider strategy in the war on terror.
How to Lose a War offers an insightful account of one of the US's most significant foreign policy failures--and considers its dire consequences for the people of Afghanistan.
Author Bio
Amin Saikal is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (the Middle East and Central Asia) at the Australian National University. Professor Saikal has been a visiting fellow at Princeton University, Cambridge University, and the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, as well as a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow in International Relations (1983-1988). He was awarded the Order of Australia (AM) in January 2006 for his services to international community and education as well as an advisor and author.
He is the author of numerous works on the Middle East, Central Asia, and Russia. His latest publications include Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival, London: I.B. Tauris, 2012; The Rise and Fall of the Shah: Iran from Autocracy to Religious Rule, Princeton: Princeton University Press 2009; Islam and the West: Conflict or Cooperation?, London: Palgrave, 2003. (Co-editor) American Democracy Promotion in the Middle East: From Bush to Obama, London: Routledge, 2012; ‘Islamism, the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan’, The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
He has also published numerous scholarly articles in International Journals, and chapters in edited volumes. Further, he has published many Op-Ed pieces in a number of national and international dailies, including The International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Guardian, and is a frequent commentator on issues related to the Middle East and Central Asia on radio and television.
Source: Middle East Institute Washington, D.C.
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