Decoding The New Taliban

While the 'New Taliban' looms large in the global media, little is known about how it functions as an organisation. How united is it? Are its structures relatively strong, or surprisingly brittle? Are personal relations and networking based on traditional ties of kin and ethnicity the sum total of its organisational capabilities, or are efforts underway to build more institutionalised chains of command? How united is the New Taliban, and how does it maintain whatever degree of unity it has, given the attrition it has suffered in the field? And to what extent is its leadership able to impose switches in strategy among the rank-andfile, given Afghanistan's difficult geography and poor communications? These are among the questions answered in this book by a renowned cast of practitioners, journalists and academics, all of whom have long field experience of the latest phase of the New Taliban's insurgency in Afghanistan. Decoding the New Taliban includes a number of detailed studies of specific regions or provinces, which for different reasons are especially significant for the Taliban and for understanding their expansion. Alongside these regional studies, the volume includes thematic analyses of negotiating with the Taliban, the Taliban's propaganda effort and its strategic vision

This book is the first full length political history of the Afghan Army, and as such is unparalleled in the range and depth of its analysis of this vitally important institution. Giustozzi locates the Army's development within the wider context of state-building in Afghanistan. His volume includes a brief survey of the period to 1953, but focuses mainly on subsequent developments, over the last four decades, as the officer corps began to be politicised and later factionalised, especially during the Russian-backed regime of the Communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), which ruled the country from 1978 to 1992. Despite the stress on the politics of praetorianism, the volume describes the Afghan Army's performance on the battlefield in detail, highlighting the potential contradiction between military effectiveness and political loyalty to the ruling elite. The volume covers developments to the end of 2013 and is the result of extensive interviews conducted with both Afghan Army officers and their advisers and mentors.

Warlords are charismatic leaders who exploit weak authorities to gain control of subnational areas. Nevertheless, warlords do in fact participate in state formation, and this book considers the dynamics of warlordism within the context of such debates. Antonio Giustozzi begins with aspects of the Afghan environment that are conducive to the fragmentation of central authority and the emergence of warlords. He then accounts for the phenomenon from the 1980s to today, considering Afghanistan's two foremost warlords, Ismail Khan and Abdul Rashid Dostum, along with their political, economic, and military systems of rule. Despite the intervention of Allied forces in 2001, both of these leaders continue to wield considerable power. Giustozzi studies the similarities and differences between their administrations and compares them against the ascendance of a third warlord, Ahmad Shah Massoud, who incorporates similar elements of rule. Giustozzi identifies prevalent themes in the emergence of warlordism, particularly the role of local military leaders and their gradual acquisition of "class consciousness." He then tracks the evolution of this strategy into a more sophisticated state-like, or political-party-like, structure.

Afghanistan and its people, whether in Afghanistan or in its global diaspora, have generated substantial interest and the desire to understand more about the country is widely felt. This title contains chapters on a wide range of issues, which contribute to our understandings of modern Afghanistan.

What norms and principles guide the Afghan Taliban in their conduct of hostilities? The author focuses on the Layeha, a Code of Conduct issued by the highest Taliban authority. Interviews with Taliban members were conducted to understand their perception of the Layeha, which is modeled as a 'one-way mirror.'

Today, most Westerners still see the war in Afghanistan as a contest between democracy and Islamist fanaticism. That war is real; but it sits atop an older struggle, between Kabul and the countryside, between order and chaos, between a modernist impulse to join the world and the pull of an older Afghanistan: a tribal universe of village republics permeated by Islam. Now, Tamim Ansary draws on his Afghan background, Muslim roots, and Western and Afghan sources to explain history from the inside out, and to illuminate the long, internal struggle that the outside world has never fully understood. It is the story of a nation struggling to take form, a nation undermined by its own demons while, every 40 to 60 years, a great power crashes in and disrupts whatever progress has been made. Told in conversational, storytelling style, and focusing on key events and personalities, Games without Rules provides revelatory insight into a country at the center of political debate.

Essays by experts exploring the intersection of geography, religion, foreign policy, and terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The use of drone warfare has become a controversial foreign policy weapon to keep the United States safe from further terrorist attacks. This book is an assessment of American targeted killing practices through drone warfare in the Middle East and Africa, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.