War and State-Building in Afghanistan

Studies of contemporary conflict in Afghanistan can lack historical perspective or be popularised to an unhelpful degree. The broad historical sweep of this volume from the Mughals to the current NATO deployment places the Afghanistan situation in its proper historical context as well as pointing to its potential future in the context of Afghan (as opposed to Western) military history. * Ian Beckett, Professor of Military History, University of Kent, UK * At the beginning of this innovative analysis of conflict in Afghanistan, Scott Gates and Kaushik Roy ask why another book on Afghanistan? The answer is self-evident: Afghanistan remains poorly understood, and the character of conflict in Afghanistan also remains poorly understood. In this wide-ranging analysis of some six hundred years of conflict in Afghanistan, Gates and Roy, along with a host of experts in Afghan military history, examine why repeated efforts – from the Muhgals to Western forces in the form of ISAF – have failed to subdue the country. In so doing, they explore conflict in new ways, in terms that will be familiar to practitioners, but rarely explained in such an engaging form. They do so by deploying a resource frequently overlooked by practitioners and political analysts alike: the diverse and bloody history of one of the world’s most fought over lands. This is history at its most relevant. * Huw Davies, Senior Lecturer in Defence Studies, King’s College London, UK * This is a timely and wide-ranging collection which offers varied, and valuable, perspectives on the relationship between war and the state in modern Afghan history. While confirming the long heritage of Afghan resistance, the essays also suggest some of the limits which have constrained thinking about insurgency, conflict and state-building in the country. Drawing on a variety of disciplinary approaches, this volume may usefully be read by those concerned with Afghanistan’s past, present and future, as well as by those with interests in the evolution of strategic and operational doctrine. * Gavin Rand, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Greenwich, UK *