Published: 6 October 2011
Hardback, Royal HB
156x234mm, 448 pages
ISBN: 9781846274305
£25.00
Ghosts of Afghanistan
The Haunted Battleground
Other Editions
Paperback
Published: 4 July 2012
Paperback, B Format
129x198mm, 448 pages
ISBN: 9781846274312
£9.99
Ebook Available
Overview
Yes, there are dozens of books on the Afghan wars. Most of them are all about firefights and heroics. But this is the first to take the events of the war Bush and Blair started and put them in the context of the Soviet war and even the British imperial wars that preceded them, and draw the lessons out, and make a sharp summary of what should happen next.
This is extremely well-written modern history -- clear, coherent, with real explanatory power. It's a synthetic work, drawing on Steele's deep experience of the Soviet-Afghan War of 1979-1988 during which period he was the Guardian's man in Moscow, and using that to illuminate the course of war since the post-9/11 invasion. As Steele makes plain in reporting the views of all sides on the ground, almost all Afghans simply want all foreigners off their soil whether they be jihadist Arabs or ignorant Texans, and will fight until that happens. No war is ever won against the Afghans. The only option is to give up, but the military never want to give up. The politicians eventually resume control, but Obama has not overruled his generals yet. Read Steele to see how the Russians coped; how Gorbachev ended the wasteful war, and see how Obama might.
Ghosts of Afghanistan stands out for the combination of its calm clarity and comprehensibility, the firmness of its arguments, Steele's stature as an analyst of the region of 30 years standing, his position as the one UK journalist who had first access to the WikiLeaks cache on Afghanistan, and his interpretation of what he found there.
About the author
Jonathan Steele was educated at Cambridge and Yale. He was Washington Bureau Chief, Moscow Bureau Chief, and Chief Foreign Correspondent for the Guardian. He is currently a columnist on international affairs. His previous book Defeat: Why America and Britain Lost Iraq was published in 2008. He has also written books on Russia, Germany and South Africa. His coverage of the Soviet Union's Afghan war led to his International Reporter of the Year title in the British Press Awards for 1981, and his reporting on the US and British occupation of Helmand to the One World Media Press Award in 2011.More about the author
Reviews
‘A fine modern history by Steele, who demolishes some Western myths about Afghanistan that betray short memories and government spin.’ Economist
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Reviews
‘a sparely written, fast paced indictment of the follies of Afghan's foreign occupiers’ MARK MALLOCH BROWN, former UN Deputy Secretary-General
‘Drawing on more than three decades of reporting from and on Afghanistan, Jonathan Steele offers the best account yet of why, in ignoring the lessons of the Soviet intervention, the Americans are condemned to make many of the same mistakes.He explodes the key myths about the Russians' record. He shows, quietly, how the only sane solution is the one Gorbachev adopted almost from the moment he took power: involve all the internal parties, including the insurgents, and the regional powers in brokering peace. A brilliant and disturbing book by one of the most acute and best informed contemporary observers of Afghanistan.’ SHERARD COWPER-COLES, British Ambassador to Kabul 2007-2009 and Foreign Secretary's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan 2009-2011
‘In this original look at the West's obsession with Afghanistan the ghosts include, of course,the inevitable innocents who fall in war but also the public myths, official lies and inconvenient truths that lie behind so much of the bloodshed there. In a riveting chapter, Steele also puts to rest the notion that America had no choice but to go to war after Osama bin Laden's orchestration of the 9/11 attacks.’ Seymour Hersh, of the New Yorker
‘Jonathan Steele has covered the sweep of 30 years of history in Afghanistan and chronicled the lessons of first the Russian, and then the American-led occupations. They are lessons President Obama and his allies have still not fully grasped. This excellent book is a painfully honest account of successive unwinnable wars. It is the book Mr Obama and others will need if Afghanistan is ever to be left to find its own peace and prosperity.’ Jon Snow, C4 News
‘This is essential reading at a time when the West is pondering the legacy of its intervention and trying to find a way forward.’ Lyse Doucet, BBC News
‘With a 30-year experience of reporting in Afghanistan, no-one has studied this extraordinary country more closely than Jonathan Steele, nor charted so meticulously how outside intervention has worsened internal discord. His is a sobering essay on the empire of folly.’ Simon Jenkins
Events
04/03/2012, 5pm
Jonathan Steele discusses 'Ghosts of Afghanistan' at the Words by the Water Festival, Keswick
Jonathan Steele was engaged in numerous reporting assignments in Kabul during both the Soviet-led and US and British interventions, which makes him well placed to evaluate and examine their differing approaches in Afghanistan. Comparing the Soviet and US strategies, he will argue that President Obama is wrong to rely so heavily on the search for military victory rather than follow Mikhail Gorbachev's strategy of asking his allies in Kabul to negotiate with the insurgents in order to create a government of national unity and to enable foreign forces to completely withdraw.
Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, Cumbria
www.wayswithwords.co.uk
