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| Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia | 
 enlarge | Author: Ahmed Rashid
Publisher: Viking Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $16.33
You Save: $11.62 (42%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $16.33
Avg. Customer Rating:  (19 reviews)
Sales Rank: 2150
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.7
ISBN: 0670019704
Dewey Decimal Number: 954.053
EAN: 9780670019700
ASIN: 0670019704
Publication Date: June 3, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Author has excellent access...read this after Ghost Wars October 22, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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 point and time. I'm going to bring this over with me because I'm expecting it to serve as an excelent reference for regional people and place names.
 Understanding Chaos October 20, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
The incompetence of the Bush administration will startle you... October 19, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
 Strong narrative, weak analysis October 18, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
Amazing Insight into US Failures in Afghanistan and Pakistan October 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This well researched and well written book provides in depth insights into the turmoil that is Afghanistan and Pakistan. The author, Ahmed Rashid, has written extensively on the history and sociology of this region and his presentation and development, especially of recent history, is unparalleled. As (if) we leave Iraq, the expectation is that we will increase our military presence in this area; therefore, the insights of the author and the information he presents continue to be timely. If the Bush administration had scratched the surface of this information before invading Afghanistan, and heeded President Vladimir Putin's admonitions based on a very painful experience, the approach and outcome most certainly would be much different. As becomes very apparent from Rashid's detailed and clear discussion, we have been pouring money into a pro-Taliban military dictatorship in Pakistan that has consistently impaired our progress, with no change foreseeable. I should note that the history of this region is very complex and not at all consistent with Western paradigms. Consequently, as with many histories, this one can be dry and seemingly overly detailed at times as the author addresses this tension. Push through those moments - you will be deeply enriched.
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