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The Inside Story of America and Afghanistan Since 9/11
by David Loyn
Just as U. S. soldiers and diplomats pulled out of Afghanistan, supposedly concluding their role and responsibility in the two-decade conflict, the country fell to the Taliban. In The Long War, award-winning BBC foreign correspondent David Loyn uncovers the political and military strategies - and failures - that prolonged America's longest war.
Three American presidents tried to defeat the Taliban―sending 150,000 international troops at the war's peak with a trillion-dollar price tag. But early policy mistakes that allowed Osama bin Laden to escape made the task far more difficult. Deceived by easy victories, they backed ruthless corrupt local allies and misspent aid.
The story of The Long War is told by the generals who led it through the hardest years of combat as surges of international troops tried to turn the tide. Generals, which include David Petraeus, Stanley McChrystal, Joe Dunford and John Allen, were tested in battle as never before. With the reputation of a "warrior monk," McChrystal was considered one of the most gifted military leaders of his generation. He was one of two generals to be fired in this most public of commands.
Holding together the coalition of countries who joined America's fight in Afghanistan was just one part of the multi-dimensional puzzle faced by the generals, as they fought an elusive and determined enemy while responsible for thousands of young American and allied lives. The Long War goes behind the scenes of their command and of the Afghan government.
The fourth president to take on the war, Joe Biden ordered troops to withdraw in 2021, twenty years after 9/11, just as the Taliban achieved victory, leaving behind an unstable nation and an unforeseeable future.
"Former BBC journalist Loyn turns a gimlet eye on the war in Afghanistan, the longest in the history of the U.S...Loyn's pages are steeped in tragic misinterpretation and always with a sympathy for ordinary people who deserved much better. A well-executed and dispiriting study of imperial overreach and cultural collision." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[D]eeply reported...Distinguished by its granular detail and insider access, this is an authoritative study of where things went wrong." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"This retrospective (offered rather early for historical perspective, but in time for policy debates) provides valuable insight on the longest conflict in U.S. history." - Library Journal
This information about The Long War was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
David Loyn was an award-winning foreign correspondent for thirty years for the BBC. He is an authority on Afghanistan, a country he has visited every year since 1994. In 2017, he worked for a year as an adviser in the office of the Afghan president Ashraf Ghani. His book Frontline: The True Story of the British Mavericks Who Changed the Face of War Reporting was shortlisted for the 2006 Orwell Prize. He lives in London.
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