The Ledger

'These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world,' said Charlie Wilson of America's role in supporting the mujahideen against the Soviet Union. 'And then we fucked up the endgame.' The scandal-prone US Congressman lamented the absence of support for Afghanistan after that war, a vacuum which the Taliban and Osama bin Laden would fill.

The Ledger identifies and assesses the failures of the West's approach to Afghanistan after 9/11 - military, diplomatic, political and developmental. For Afghans, the war is not over because the West has declared it so, and neither will its geo-political effects simply disappear along with the last of NATO forces. Afghanistan remains connected to the world through communications and the networks of the last twenty years.

The Ledger also considers these lessons for the benefit of future, similar peacebuilding missions in Africa and elsewhere. Dr David Kilcullen and Dr Greg Mills are uniquely placed to reflect backwards and forwards on the Afghan conflict, having worked with the international mission as advisers and within the Arg. Both have considerable experience of counter-insurgency and stability operations elsewhere, in Latin America, Asia and across Africa. There is plenty of blame to go around, as this book shows, in the attempts to bring peace to Afghanistan after 9/11. The signs of the collapse had been there for a long-time, mostly conveniently ignored as they were ill-suited to the political narrative of 'we're making progress' and then, as the deadline drew closer, 'mission accomplished'.

In understanding why and where the failure took place, The Ledger warns against the eternal human curse in believing that we can be an exception to all that precedes us. Whatever the desire to avoid future military and diplomatic 'quagmires', the reality is that politicians will not always follow that advice, nor can these crises always be avoided.

“'This explanation of the failure of the international mission and fall of Kabul contains salient lessons for us all, now and in the future.'”

'[The Ledger] is a clear-eyed analysis made with the surgical precision of two insiders who saw, firsthand, the legion of small ways that the war was lost when it could have been won.'

-- The Sunday Times

‘A failure to understand the ties that bind Afghanistan and its people underpins the west’s 20-year struggle there, a history whose first draft is masterfully captured in The Ledger.’

-- Financial Times

'The Ledger is not a book of dread and sensationalism. It is a cool and forensic dissection of what a disaster the search for Al-Qaeda following the attack on their Afghan hosts, the Taliban, was to become. […] More than a mere polemic, this is a fine book.'

-- The Scotsman

'[Written] by authors with deep knowledge and great expertise in their subjects, The Ledger [is] very useful in understanding how we got where we are.'

-- The Independent

David Kilcullen is an author, unconventional warfare expert, and former soldier and diplomat. He was a senior counterinsurgency adviser during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Greg Mills, Director of the Brenthurst Foundation, has advised African governments, and served in Afghanistan with COMISAF. His books with Hurst include 'Why States Recover'.

'These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world,' said Charlie Wilson of America's role in supporting the mujahideen against the Soviet Union. 'And then we fucked up the endgame.' The scandal-prone US Congressman lamented the absence of support for Afghanistan after that war, a vacuum which the Taliban and Osama bin Laden would fill. The Ledger identifies and assesses the failures of the West's approach to Afghanistan after 9/11 - military, diplomatic, political and developmental. For Afghans, the war is not over because the West has declared it so, and neither will its geo-political effects simply disappear along with the last of NATO forces. Afghanistan remains connected to the world through communications and the networks of the last twenty years. The Ledger also considers these lessons for the benefit of future, similar peacebuilding missions in Africa and elsewhere. Dr David Kilcullen and Dr Greg Mills are uniquely placed to reflect backwards and forwards on the Afghan conflict, having worked with the international mission as advisers and within the Arg. Both have considerable experience of counter-insurgency and stability operations elsewhere, in Latin America, Asia and across Africa. There is plenty of blame to go around, as this book shows, in the attempts to bring peace to Afghanistan after 9/11. The signs of the collapse had been there for a long-time, mostly conveniently ignored as they were ill-suited to the political narrative of 'we're making progress' and then, as the deadline drew closer, 'mission accomplished'. In understanding why and where the failure took place, The Ledger warns against the eternal human curse in believing that we can be an exception to all that precedes us. Whatever the desire to avoid future military and diplomatic 'quagmires', the reality is that politicians will not always follow that advice, nor can these crises always be avoided.

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