Bøger af Carter Malkasian

Over the past 6 years, provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) have played a growing role in the U.S. counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan. PRTs are one of several organizations working on reconstruction there, along with civilian development agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, numerous nongovernmental organizations, and the Afghan government's National Solidarity Program. Perhaps unsurprisingly, something of a debate has emerged over whether PRTs are needed. The authors argue that civilian reconstruction agencies cannot do the same job as the PRTs. While these agencies remain essential for long-term economic and political development, the PRTs conduct reconstruction in ways that help create stability in the short term. Absent the PRTs, the "build" in clear-hold-build efforts deemed essential to effective counterinsurgency would fall flat. Based on over 2 months of field research in 2007 and 2 months in 2008 by a CNA team with 4 different PRTs-Khost, Kunar, Ghazni, and Nuristan-plus interviews with the leadership of 10 others, the authors recommend that the United States give the PRTs the lead role in reconstruction activities that accompany any surge of military forces into Afghanistan.

In The American War in Afghanistan, Carter Malkasian provides the first authoritative history of the entire conflict. He moves through its multiple phases: the 2001 invasion and after; the light American footprint during the 2003 Iraq invasion; the resurgence of the Taliban in 2006, the Obama-era surge, and the various resets in strategy and force allocations that occurred from 2011 onward, culminating in the US exit from Afghanistan in 2021. This new paperback edition ends with a detailed chapter on the final defeat of the government and the dramatic American evacuation. Wise and all-encompassing, this book-updated to cover the end of the conflict-will stand as the most significant account of America's longest war for years to come.

In this fully illustrated introduction, Dr Carter Malkasian provides a concise overview of the so-called "Forgotten War" in Korea.From 1950 to 1953, the most powerful countries in the world engaged in a major conventional war on the Korean peninsula. Yet ironically this conflict has come to be known as the USA's "Forgotten War." Korean War historian Dr Carter Malkasian explains how this conflict in a small peninsula in East Asia had a tremendous impact on the entire international system and the balance of power between the two superpowers, America and Russia. In this illustrated history, he examines how the West demonstrated its resolve to thwart Communist aggression and the armed forces of China, the Soviet Union and the United States came into direct combat for the only time during the Cold War. Updated and revised for the new edition, with specially commissioned color maps and new images throughout, this is a detailed introduction to a significant turning point in the Cold War.

War Comes to Garmser offers a fresh, original perspective on the war in Afghanistan, one that will redefine how we look at Afghanistan and at modern war in general. The author, who spent nearly two years in Garmser, a community in war-torn Helmand province, tells the story of this one small place through the jihad, the rise and fall of Taliban regimes, and American and British surge. Based on his conversations with hundreds of Afghans, including government officials, tribal leaders, religious leaders, and over forty Taliban, and drawing on extensive primary source material, Malkasian takes readers into the world of the Afghans.

A micro-history of one small district in Afghanistan and the vicissitudes of its people in America's longest foreign war.

A war of attrition is usually conceptualized as a bloody slogging match, epitomized by imagery of futile frontal assaults on the Western Front of the First World War. As such, many academics, politicians, and military officers currently consider attrition to be a wholly undesirable method of warfare. This first book-length study of wars of attrition challenges this viewpoint. A historical analysis of the strategic thought behind attrition demonstrates that it was often implemented to conserve casualties, not to engage in a bloody senseless assault. Moreover, attrition frequently proved an effective means of attaining a state's political aims in warfare, particularly in serving as a preliminary to decisive warfare, reducing risk of escalation, and coercing an opponent in negotiations.Malkasian analyzes the thought of commanders who implemented policies of attrition from 1789 to the present. His study includes figures central to the study of war, such as the Duke of Wellington, Carl von Clausewitz, B. H. Liddell Hart, General William Slim, General Douglas MacArthur, General Matthew Ridgeway, and General William Westmoreland. While special attention is devoted to the Second World War in the Pacific and the Korean War, this study notes the utility of attrition during the Cold War, as the risk of a Third World War rendered more aggressive strategies unattractive. Increasingly, the United States finds itself facing conflicts that are not amenable to a decisive military solution in which opponents seek prolonged war that will inflict as many casualties as possible on American forces.