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Books : Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia |
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 954.053
EAN: 9780670019700
ISBN: 0670019704
Label: Viking Adult
Manufacturer: Viking Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 544
Publication Date: June 03, 2008
Publisher: Viking Adult
Sales Rank: 6023
Studio: Viking Adult
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
The #1 New York Times bestselling author provides a shocking analysis of the crisis in Pakistan and the renewed radicalism threatening Afghanistan and the West.
Ahmed Rashid is “Pakistan’s best and bravest reporter” (Christopher Hitchens). His unique knowledge of this vast and complex region allows him a panoramic vision and nuance that no Western writer can emulate.
His book Taliban first introduced American readers to the brutal regime that hijacked Afghanistan and harbored the terrorist group responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Now, Rashid examines the region and the corridors of power in Washington and Europe to see how the promised nation building in these countries has pro-gressed. His conclusions are devastating: An unstable and nuclear-armed Pakistan, a renewed al’ Qaeda profiting from a booming opium trade, and a Taliban resurgence and reconquest. While Iraq continues to attract most of American media and military might, Rashid argues that Pakistan and Afghanistan are where the conflict will finally be played out and that these failing states pose a graver threat to global security than the Middle East.
Benazir Bhutto’s assassination and the crisis in Pakistan are only the beginning. Rashid assesses what her death means for the region and the future. Rashid has unparalleled access to the figures in this global drama, and provides up-to-the-minute analysis better than anyone else. Descent Into Chaos will do for Central Asia what Thomas Rick’s Fiasco did for Iraq — offer a blistering critique of the Bush administration and an impassioned call to correct our failed strategy in the region.
Average Rating: 
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This is the second book from Ahmed Rashid I have read. In the first book, "Taliban", Ahmed Rashid raised the caution about Taliban back in 1998 when few in the world knew much about them. In this recent book, Ahmed Rashid has provided a detailed analysis of how did Taliban take advantage of USA's diverted attention due to its involvement in Iraq. And how did other powers in the region shielded them for their designs.
Much of the book is scholarly treatise, with ample references to reports and quotes. It also mentions inconsistencies in the work by other authors on Taliban.
In some sections, the book goes into minute details which prompts the reader to skip over pages.
In its entirety, however, it is a must-read book for anyone who wishes to explore the root causes of Taliban resurgence and the approaches to contain it.
Rating:  -
I am headed over to Kabul in a couple weeks to work in NATO's security assistance force. I have been reading a ton about the region over the past several months. Ghost Wars stands alone as the best read out there, but its narrative ends abruptly on Sept 10, 2001. For me this book can serve as a worthy sequel since a great deal of it deals with events since 9/11. The author is extremely thorough and detailed, but he also manages to hold the reader's interest by addressing themes instead of providing a straight chronology, which would have been painful given everything he includes here. Be forewarned, the author is very critical of US policy in the region, and seems to frequently overstate the degree to which the US policymakers can drive reform around the world. But I will say he spreads his criticisms fairly to other quarters...such as Karzai's government, and ultimately his opinions are articulated well enough to actually add something to the book. A totally objective, unimpassioned text would have been very dry. The author is a Pakistani journalist with incredible access and sources in that part of the world, and his text includes extensive notation. It should also be said that the incoming commander of Central Command Gen David Patreaus is a fan of this book. He recently brought the author onto his 100-member strategy review team dealing with Central and South Asia. So if you want to quickly become 'well read' on the area, pick up this book. It's extremely relevant at this ... Read More
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Ahmed Rashid is a brilliant Pakistani journalist who has visited much of Afghanistan and understands the relationships between Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. He explains how Pakistan can be both for and against the Taliban, and how the war in Iraq is vitally changed by the tension between Pakistan and India over Kashmir. It's not an easy read, but if you want to understand what's going on in South Asia and the Middle East, his insight is invaluable.
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We are so used to hearing about the failures of the war in Iraq that we seldom pay attention to the progress (or lack thereof) of the war in Afghanistan. However, as Obama points out, the Afghan-Pakistan border area is really the central front in the war on terror. Ahmed Rashid's book is THE guide to the past 7 years in the region. With expert insight and access to the key players (he is a personal friend of Afghan President Hamid Karzai), he provides a complete picture of regional politics and U.S. policy in the area. Some key surprises that should shock even the most hardcore Obama supporters include:
1. Rumsfeld was adamantly opposed to the U.S. addressing the rising opium problem, which funded the Taliban and has undermined our nation-building efforts. This short-term approach has led to a huge missed opportunity to rebuild Afghanistan and prevent it from becoming a terror safe-haven again.
2. U.S. intelligence knew that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence was continuing to help the Taliban, but still allied with Musharraf. After the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance retook Kabul, the U.S. let the ISI evacuate thousands of Taliban soldiers and terrorists to appease Musharraf. Thus, in effect, Bush allowed the biggest rescue operation for terrorists ever.
I can only hope the foreign policy advisors to the new president read this book.
Rating:  -
This is a good read and is full of interesting and enlightening details. However, it suffers from some serioius conceptual flaws. For example:
1) The author does not properly define "neo-conservative." He ends up using it as a catch-all perjorative for all hawks that he doesn't like. As a consequence, it is not always clear how his own hawkish beliefs (he argues that we should have invaded Afghanistan before 9/11) differ from those whose policies have clearly failed.
2) He tends to describe "nation building" as though it were a branch of engineering, i.e. something that definitely can be accomplished if we devote enough resources and experts to the problem. At one point, in a momenty of clarity, he admits that, with the exception of the extraordinary examples of Japan and Germany, no nation-building has ever succeeded in producing a viable nation.
These and other conceptual flaws prevent his arguments from ever getting off the ground. Yet the book is still very much worth reading--a good source of information.
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