Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Six weeks before 9/11, an old Afghan friend of mine came to spend the day with me at my home in Lahore..." (more)
Key Phrases: loya jirga, special operations forces, accelerated success, United States, Central Asia, Mullah Omar (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Long overshadowed by the Iraq War, the ongoing turmoil in Afghanistan and Central Asia finally receives a searching retrospective as Rashid (Taliban) surveys the region to reveal a thicket of ominous threats and lost opportunities—in Pakistan, a rickety dictatorship colludes with militants, and Afghanistan's weak government is besieged by warlords, an exploding drug economy and a powerful Taliban insurgency. The author blames the unwillingness of American policymakers to shoulder the burden of nation building. According to Rashid, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and subsequently refused to commit the forces and money needed to rebuild it; instead the U.S. government made corrupt alliances with warlords to impose a superficial calm, while continuing to ignore the Pakistani government's support of the Taliban and the other Islamic extremists who have virtually taken over Pakistan's western provinces. With his unparalleled access to sources—I constantly berated [Afghan President] Karzai for his failure to understand the usefulness of political parties—Rashid is an authoritative guide to the region's politics and his is an insightful, at times explosive, indictment of the U.S. government's hand in the region's degeneration. (June)
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From Booklist

Pakistani journalist Rashid presciently warned about the problem of Islamic extremism in Taliban (2000), and in this work, he reviews the efforts since to defeat the fanatics. Sympathetic to the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, he proves to be highly critical of American-led strategy since and of the role in events of Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf. Personally acquainted with many involved in the attempted reconstruction of Afghanistan, such as its president, Hamid Karzai, Rashid covers years of international military, diplomatic, financial, and civil-affairs endeavors; in fact, the imposing quantity of information he presents makes his point: nothing tried so far has rescued Afghanistan from being a failed state. Afflicted by warlords, opium cultivation, ethnic divisions, and a resurgent Taliban, Afghanistan prompts pessimistic analysis from Rashid. He describes the support and haven that extremists in the mountainous tribal areas on the Afghan-Pakistani frontier have received from Pakistani intelligence. He then suggests that reform in Pakistan may improve matters in Afghanistan, which is indicative of the political difficulties dealt with by this well-informed current-affairs observer. --Gilbert Taylor

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (June 3, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670019704
• ISBN-13: 978-0670019700
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #53,909 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

81 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A deeply troubling book, July 11, 2008

By	Ralph Blumenau (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Ahmed Rashid has long been a leading expert on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Muslim states of Central Asia that were once part of the Soviet Union. In 2000, the year before 9/11, he published 'Taliban', a book which politicians rushed to read after the attack on the Twin Towers; and if Central Asia catches fire, they will doubtlessly rush to his following book, 'Jihad', first published in 2002, which is an equally authoritative account of the dangers lurking in that area.

After a brilliant introduction of 21 pages, the first three chapters of the present book give the story of American involvement in Afghanistan before 9/11. The characteristic unreliability of American policy is brought out: help given to the Islamic forces and to Pakistan while the Soviets were in Afghanistan; then a total lack of interest in the period after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, when Afghanistan was first torn apart by competing war-lords and was then overrun by the Taliban.

No longer in need of Pakistan, the USA then imposed sanctions on that country because it, like India, had carried out tests of nuclear weapons.

The next 15 chapters are essentially a sequel to the author's Taliban, and chronicles in great and sometimes in dense detail, right up to early 2008, the story of Afghanistan and Pakistan after the expulsion of the Taliban at the end of 2001 and the installation of Hamid Karzai as interim President. The victory had been not only been swift (it took two months), but had also been cheap for the Americans. They had fought the campaign from the air, leaving the land fighting to the war-lords of the Northern Alliance. The Americans lost just one man killed. Karzai was installed as interim president. This easy victory led the Americans to believe that it could be copied in Iraq, an attack on which the neo-cons had planned even before the Afghan war. Once the Iraq war began, the Americans concentrated on that and paid much less attention to Afghanistan, on which they wanted to spend as little money as possible. Rumsfeld was explicitly not interested in `nation building': helping Afghanistan to develop a healthy infrastructure..

From this all sorts of mistakes arose:

1. It seemed easier to use the armies of the war-lords than to build and train an Afghan National Army.

2. Karzai, a Pashtun, had no control over the Tajik and Uzbek war-lords. They refused to disarm or to let their men be integrated into a national army. Occasionally they fought each other; they collected tolls which they refused to hand over to the government; and they alienated the Pashtun majority. For a long time Karzai dared not confront them. When eventually he managed to form a new government without them in 2004, he proved indecisive in implementing a programme of reform.

3. He was unwilling to stamp out the cultivation of opium and the drug-lords, one of whom was his own brother. Drug dealing corrupted the entire administration and the police. The Allies did not provide money for planting alternative crops and would not allow their armies to interdict the drug trade for fear of alienating the tens of thousands of farmers who depended on it.

4. The worst problem is Pakistan. Osama bin Laden and the Al-Queda forces, as well as the fleeing Taliban found sanctuary in the tribal areas of Pakistan. These were already home to what would become the Pakistani Taliban, who helped them to rebuild their forces and joined them in incursions back into Afghanistan.

For a long time the Americans were not interested in the Taliban and did not take it seriously; but they did want Al-Qaeda people handed over, and for this they needed Musharraf's help. Musharraf did this (if he could find them!), and in return sanctions on Pakistan were lifted. For a long time the Americans did not realize the close connections that had been built up between Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. But Musharraf, the Pakistani Army and the ISI (the intelligence service) protected the Taliban and gave it much covert help and even direction. This was largely because they saw Karzai as a potential ally of India. Karzai pleaded with the Americans and the British to pressurize Pakistan to give up supporting the Taliban; but these found the alliance with Pakistan too important, and pretended to believe Musharraf's denials, aided, as these were, by the ISI very occasionally giving them information about the whereabouts of Taliban leaders.

But while this was just enough to appease the Allies, it was also enough to enrage the more extreme sections of the Taliban, who in any case were egged on by their al-Qaeda allies to attack Musharraf and his police as American lackeys. Musharraf emerges from this book as being as devious as he is foolish.

5. When the Americans focussed on Iraq, NATO took over as the Western instrument in Afghanistan. But each of the 37 countries which provided troops drew up its own rules about what these troops could - or more importantly: could not - do. Some confined them to reconstruction and humanitarian work; some were specifically prohibited for fighting the Taliban; some were not to interfere with poppy growing; those stationed in the more peaceful north were prevented from helping the hard-pressed - and always insufficiently numerous - troops in the south. Of the 45,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan in 2006, only 15,000 were available for fighting. In the absence of a unified command, it is not surprising that the Taliban began to reestablish itself in large areas of the East and South from 2003 onwards and have been gaining in strength ever since.

There is much more in this troubling book - for example a comparatively brief account of the danger of al-Qaeda and other Islamic organizations establishing themselves in Uzbekistan and the other secular Central Asian republics, where tyrannical and corrupt governments are propped up by the Americans simply because these, too, suppress Islamic (along with all other) groups.

40 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very important work, June 7, 2008

By	Seth J. Frantzman (Jerusalem, Israel) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This timely and critical book gives and experts overview of the current situation in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan and should serve as a wake uo call for policy makers interested in the region and people interested in the threat that instability and renewed Islamism pose. Here we are walked through the current unending war in Afghanistan and given a tour of the history of the American relationship with Pakistan before the author plunges into the nitty gritty of what is taking place. The book examines both the opium crop in Afghanistan and the renewel of the Taliban and their offensives against coalition and government troops. We are given an account of the rise of Islamism and the endurance of Al Quiada in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan and the coming apart of the Musharreff consensus in the wake of the death of Bhutto.

As a last vignette we are taken to Uzbekistan where the author asks 'who lost this country?' In fact this last part is where 'central asia' comes into play but it should have been beefed up. Instead of one chapter detaling the problems in Uzbekistan the book should have included discussions of the rest of 'Central Asia' which appears in the subtitle. What of Kyrgizistan and Turkmenistan and Tajikistan and the threats that might emerge from them?

The other subtitle is the question of 'nation-building' and here we are asked to consider the 'failure' of American arms, diplomacy and money. In Pakistan it is not a question so much of failure but rather of the inability of the U.S to invade the parts of that country which have been taken over by Al Quaida. In fact Pakistan is failing not only in the NWFP tribal areas but also in Baluchistan. Afghanistan, once a success, is being overun and the opium crop is funding the thugs turned drug barons turned Islamists. A short chapter on the nuclear issue also details some of the threats from increased instability or the fall of Pakistan.

An important and well written work.

Seth J. Frantzman

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Failure to Nation-Build Undermining Afghanistan and Pakistan!, June 24, 2008

By	Loyd E. Eskildson "Pragmatist" (Phoenix, AZ.) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Rashid tells us that in the first few years after the U.S. went into Afghanistan, 905 of the population welcomed foreign troops and aid workers. We failed to take advantage of it, however. Meanwhile, in Pakistan a major political crisis has arisen along with a spread of Islamic fundamentalism, dictatorships rule the five independent states of Central Asia (the "stans") since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, and an Islamic extremism thrives underground in those nations. Anti-Americanism (created by our 2007 support of Musharraf) is undermining Pakistani's reaction to democracy, modernization, and the struggle against extremism, and the U.S. attack on Iraq helped convince Musharraf that the U.S. was not serious about stabilizing the area - hence it was safer for Pakistan to clandestinely give refuge to the Taliban.

Rashid asserts that the U.S. made the same mistakes in Iraq that it had in Afghanistan - not enough troops, no postwar planning to resuscitate the areas, and no coherent strategy (reviving the warlords in Afghanistan, dismantling the army and bureaucracy in Iraq). Most experts believed rebuilding Afghanistan would cost $4-5 billion/year for ten years - cheap, compared to Iraq.

Part of the U.S. problem is that we don't work well with others. We have never taken part in U.N. peacekeeping operations (though have funded and otherwise supported many) - out of 15 in 2007 involving over 100,000, only ten U.S. soldiers were involved. (Pakistan provided 10,000.) Another part is that we're spread too thin - over 250,000 troops on 725 bases in 38 countries BEFORE 9/11.

General Franks refused to put any U.S. troops on the ground in an attempt to accept a major Taliban surrender, leading to the deaths of thousands at the hands of the Northern Alliance and the escape of their top leaders; several weeks later similar reticence allowed Osama to escape at Tora Bora. (The U.S. actually flew every Pakistani and many Taliban leaders out of Afghanistan in the first instance.)

The real factor in the U.S. victory in Afghanistan was $100 million in bribes given to local warlords. Conversely, at Tora Bora, 600-800 Arabs were escorted into Pakistan for an average bribe of $1,200.
After installing Karzai the U.S. continued to pay off the warlords as an easy means of keeping the peace; this also undermined central government authority and recreated conditions for another Taliban resurgence. Warlord power was further boosted by giving them contracts for providing U.S. operations with fuel and rebuilding materials, allowing them to grow heroin, and their collection of about $500 billion in customs fees - of which only about $80 million went to Kabul. Pakastani elections put Islamic extremists in charge of the NWFP. U.S. presence in the "stans" to support Afghanistan operations made both Russia and China nervous regarding the threat of permanent bases on their borders.

Afghanistan had been devastated primarily by internal strife. International aid provided oafter the Taliban rout was largely humanitarian relief, not reconstruction. Successes included launching a new currency, restarting education and opening it to girls (Afghanistan has a 54% illiteracy rate, and the U.S.' $100 million spread over 5 years was unable to counteract the 12,000 madrassas), and reopening and expanding media. U.S. projects were very heavy in overhead, and lacked knowledge of the Afghan situation. In any case, U.S. funding was cut back again after the '04 Presidential election.

The Pakistani army repeatedly supported border-crossing Taliban and their training, as well as their training. Meanwhile, the U.S. angered locals with prisoner abuses - just as in Iraq. Putting a higher priority on torturing prisoners and keeping access to a new base drove Uzbekistan back into Russia's arms.

NATO, originally riled by Rumsfeld's arrogant ignoring their offers of help in Afghanistan, and further angered by U.S. withdrawing troops in Afghanistan to add in Iraq and failure to address Pakistan's duplicitous Taliban support, became increasingly reluctant to help in Afghanistan - both in numbers of troops and in the restrictions placed upon the use of those troops (eg. no fighting, after-dark activities, involvement in disputes between warlods, etc.).

Bottom Line: Afghtnistan and Pakistan have slipped into greater Taliban control because of U.S. failure to nation-build; the failure continues.