The Ledger by David Kilcullen

The Ledger by David Kilcullen

'These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world,' said Charlie Wilson, of America's role backing the anti-Soviet mujahideen. 'And then we fucked up the endgame.' With no support for Afghanistan after that war, the vacuum was filled by the Taliban and bin Laden. 'The Ledger' assesses the West's similarly failed approach to Afghanistan after 9/11--in military, diplomatic, political and developmental terms. Dr David Kilcullen and Dr Greg Mills are uniquely placed to reflect backwards and forwards on the Afghan conflict: they worked with the international mission both as advisers and within the Arg, and they have considerable experience of counterinsurgency and stabilisation operations elsewhere in the world. Here these two experts show that there is plenty of blame to go around when explaining the failure to bring peace to Afghanistan after 9/11. The signs of collapse were conveniently ignored, in favour of political narratives of progress and success. Yet for Afghans, the war and its geopolitical effects are not over because NATO is gone--Afghanistan remains globally connected through digital communications and networks. This vital book explains why and where failings in Afghanistan happened, warning against exceptionalist approaches to future peacebuilding missions around the globe.

'[The Ledger] is a clear-eyed analysis made with the surgical precision of two insiders who saw, firsthand, the legion of small ways that the war was lost when it could have been won'

-- The Sunday Times

‘A failure to understand the ties that bind Afghanistan and its people underpins the west’s 20-year struggle there, a history whose first draft is masterfully captured in The Ledger.’

-- Financial Times

'The Ledger is not a book of dread and sensationalism. It is a cool and forensic dissection of what a disaster the search for Al-Qaeda following the attack on their Afghan hosts, the Taliban, was to become. […] More than a mere polemic, this is a fine book.'

-- The Scotsman

'[Written] by authors with deep knowledge and great expertise in their subjects, The Ledger [is] very useful in understanding how we got where we are.'

-- The Independent

David Kilcullen is an author, unconventional warfare expert, and former soldier and diplomat. He was a senior counterinsurgency adviser during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Greg Mills, Director of the Brenthurst Foundation, has advised African governments, and served in Afghanistan with COMISAF. His books with Hurst include 'Why States Recover'.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781787386952
ISBN 10	1787386953
Title	The Ledger
Author	David Kilcullen
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
Year published	2021-12-09
Number of pages	368
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable