Afghanistan War History

Written by one of the Department of the Army's leading intelligence and military analysts on the Taliban, this book covers the group's complete history, including its formation, ideology, and political power, as well as the origins of its current conflict with the United States. The work carefully analyzes the agenda, capabilities, and support base of the Taliban; forecasts the group's likely course of action to retake Afghanistan; and details the Coalition forces' probable counterinsurgency responses.

The key to understanding the calamitous Afghan war is the complex, ultimately failed relationship between the powerful, duplicitous Karzai family and the United States, brilliantly portrayed here by the former Kabul bureau chief for The Washington Post.

The British East India Company dominated the Indian subcontinent, yet they were not secure in their position. Holding unjustified fears that Russia threatened India's north-western border, the Company decided to make a pre-emptive strike and ensure that this menace would be stopped by a strong pro-British Afghanistan. The proud and ruthless warriors of Afghanistan were unwilling to submit themselves to British control and within three years they had risen up against their oppressors in one of the bloodiest revolts in history.

J. Kael Weston spent seven years on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan working for the US State Department in some of the most dangerous frontline locations. Upon his return home, while traveling the country to pay respect to the dead and wounded, he asked himself: When will these wars end? How will they be remembered and memorialized? What lessons can we learn from them?

Entre 1979 y 1989 un millón de tropas soviéticas combatieron en una guerra devastadora en Afganistán que provocó más de 50.000 bajas y acabó con la juventud y la humanidad de varias decenas de miles de soldados más. Los muertos soviéticos volvían a casa en ataúdes de zinc sellados mientras el estado no reconocía ni la mera existencia del conflicto. Svetlana Alexievich expone la verdad de la guerra afgano-soviética: la belleza del país y los abusos del ejército, las muertes y las mutilaciones, la profusión de productos occidentales, las vidas destrozadas de los veteranos.

Based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning story, Jim Sheeler's unprecedented look at the way our country honors its dead; Final Salute is a stunning tribute to the brave troops who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan and to the families who continue to mourn them.

Based on previously unavailable documents and interviews with more than 100 key players, including General David Petraeus, The Insurgents unfolds against the backdrop of two wars waged against insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the main insurgency is the one led at home by a new generation of officers - including Petraeus, John Nagl, David Kilcullen, and H. R. McMaster - who were seized with an idea on how to fight these kinds of "small wars" and who adapted their enemies' techniques to overhaul their own army.

Rafe Stoner is a gun for hire, a former Navy SEAL whose skills are in constant demand in his adopted home of Afghanistan. His legitimate business is selling surplus machinery, or so his tax return states. His real work is less prosaic, and makes him a good living from a grateful client base. The removal of inconvenient rivals is a way of life in the violent and war-torn nation.

As the American government began a disastrous mass evacuation of its Afghan allies, a group of American veterans saw the writing on the wall—the people who had supported them on the ground over the past two decades were going to be left behind. Instead of watching on the sideline, they sprang into action. The effort became known nationally as #DigitalDunkirk, in reference to the civilian aspect of the evacuation of soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940.

They marched under the heat with 40-pound rucksacks on their backs. They fired weapons out of the windows of military vehicles, defending their units in deadly battles. And they did things their male counterparts could never do—gather intelligence on the Taliban from the women of Afghanistan. Beyond the Call follows the groundbreaking journeys of three women as they first fight military brass and culture and then enemy fire and tradition. And like the men with whom they served, their battles were not over when they returned home.

Captain Benjamin Tupper spent a year in Afghanistan in an Embedded Training Team, tasked with training, leading in combat, and mentoring the Afghan Army to victory against the brutal Taliban. Writing and recording from a remote outpost, Tupper's dispatches were posted on the blog The Sandbox and broadcast on NPR, bringing vivid snapshots of America's longest ongoing war to a wide audience back home.

In 2014, H was back in Afghanistan, providing security for the Japanese Embassy in Kabul. In 2021, when the chaotic evacuation of the Afghan capital began, it was a tough call for the Japanese government to leave behind their significant investment in Afghanistan’s future. When H finally got the go-ahead to extract the embassy’s diplomats and staff, he was leading the only security team remaining in a city rapidly filling with Taliban fighters.

On 11 September 2001 19 al-Qaeda-inspired jihadists hijacked four aircraft and mounted the deadliest terrorist attack in history. The outrage triggered a chain of events that saw British forces drawn into a lengthy military campaign against a fierce insurgency in Afghanistan. Sergio Miller served in Defence Intelligence in Whitehall throughout the campaign, and Pride and Fall answers the many questions surrounding the conflict. Based on abundant open-source material generated by the war and first-hand testimonies, this is the story of the men and women who served.

Snipers work in pairs so relationship and trust are all important. Snipers are elite soldiers and clearly the author is among the best of the best. A Sniper's Conflict is a superb account of professional soldiering at the sharp end....

Surviving Son is a compelling true story that provides the listener with insight into the life of a combat infantryman who fought in Afghanistan at the same time as his younger brother, Steven, who was killed in action just miles away. Scott takes the listener on a journey through his childhood to his call to service after 9/11.

From Afghanistan's Hindu Kush peaks and sunbaked Helmand Valley to Baghdad, Mosul and Ramadi in Iraq, American snipers have braved heart-pounding situations to hit their human targets dead-on. Few military feats stir the imagination like the image of a pair of riflemen waiting quietly in a building, a bomb crater, or a mountain pass for a Taliban or Al Qaeda fighter to walk into their crosshairs. Sniper presents real-life tales from the military's frontline snipers---their hits and their misses, the anguish of loss, and the anxiety of the first kill.

Marine Sgt. John Peck survived an IED during the War on Terror that left him with a traumatic brain injury, amnesia, and cost him his marriage. He survived another three years later, one that left him with three and a half limbs missing. He’s one of only two living people to survive the flesh-eating fungus he contracted in recovery at Walter Reed, one that left him as a quadruple amputee. And that’s only the beginning of his story. What followed was a recovery nothing short of miraculous.

In the summer of 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts organized a series of writing workshops, led by prominent authors, to encourage U.S. troops and their families to record their experiences and reflections on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The result is this extraordinary volume of first-hand letters, poems, journals, memoirs, and e-mails from the men and women directly involved in battle and their families back home.

The first rule of warfare is to know one's enemy. The second is to know thyself. More than 15 years and three quarters of a trillion dollars after the US invasion of Afghanistan, it's clear that the United States followed neither rule well. America's goals in Afghanistan were lofty to begin with: dismantle al Qaeda, remove the Taliban from power, and remake the country into a democracy.

From the high-ranking officer who wrote the still-classified British military analysis of the war in Iraq comes the authoritative history of two conflicts which have overshadowed the beginning of the 21st century. Inextricably linked to the ongoing ‘War on Terror’, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dominated more than a decade of international politics and their influence is felt to this day.