Directorate S The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan 2001–2016

Winner of the the National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction. 'Spellbinding ... a magisterial account of the great tragedy of our age ... it is a classic' Evening Standard'In the finest traditions of American investigative journalism' The Times'Spectacular ... makes Bourne movies pale in comparison' Financial Times. From the Pulitzer Prize winning of the acclaimed Ghost Wars this is the full story of America's grim involvement in the affairs of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2016. In the wake of the terrible shock of 9/11 the C.I.A. scrambled to work out how to destroy Bin Laden and his associates. The C.I.A. had long familiarity with Afghanistan and had worked closely with the Taliban to defeat the Soviet Union there. A tangle of assumptions old contacts favours and animosities were now reactivated. Superficially the invasion was quick and efficient but Bin Laden's successful escape together with that of much of the Taliban leadership and a catastrophic failure to define the limits of NATO's mission in a tough impoverished country the size of Texas created a quagmire which lasted many years.. At the heart of the problem lay 'Directorate S' a highly secretive arm of the Pakistan state which had its own views on the Taliban and Afghanistan's place in a wider competition for influence between Pakistan India and China and which assumed that the U.S.A. and its allies would soon be leaving. . Steve Coll's remarkable new book tells a powerful bitter story of just how badly foreign policy decisions can go wrong and of many lives lost.|Winner of the the National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction. 'Spellbinding ... a magisterial account of the great tragedy of our age ... it is a classic' Evening Standard'In the finest traditions of American investigative journalism' The ...|Steve Coll is dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. His major books include Private Empire The Bin Ladens and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars. He is a staff writer on The New Yorker.|Steve Coll is dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. His major books include Private Empire The Bin Ladens and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars. He is a staff writer for The New Yorker.|Every assertion is carefully sourced and checked. This book is in the finest traditions of American investigative journalism. Coll is the thinking man's Michael Wolff.|A masterful and entertaining account ... the story is delivered with a literary prowess that has been absent in previous western accounts of America's longest running war|Spectacular ... Directorate S has a cast of characters that makes Bourne movies pale in comparison|Impressively detailed stylishly crafted and authoritative... as gloomy as it is compelling|Winner of the the National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction'Spellbinding ... a magisterial account of the great tragedy of our age ... it is a classic' Evening Standard'In the finest traditions of American investigative journalism' The Times'Spectacular ... makes Bourne movies pale in comparison' Financial TimesFrom the Pulitzer Prize winning of the acclaimed Ghost Wars this is the full story of America's grim involvement in the affairs of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2016. In the wake of the terrible shock of 9/11 the C.I.A. scrambled to work out how to destroy Bin Laden and his associates. The C.I.A. had long familiarity with Afghanistan and had worked closely with the Taliban to defeat the Soviet Union there. A tangle of assumptions old contacts favours and animosities were now reactivated. Superficially the invasion was quick and efficient but Bin Laden's successful escape together with that of much of the Taliban leadership and a catastrophic failure to define the limits of NATO's mission in a tough impoverished country the size of Texas created a quagmire which lasted many years.At the heart of the problem lay 'Directorate S' a highly secretive arm of the Pakistan state which had its own views on the Taliban and Afghanistan's place in a wider competition for influence between Pakistan India and China and which assumed that the U.S.A. and its allies would soon be leaving. Steve Coll's remarkable new book tells a powerful bitter story of just how badly foreign policy decisions can go wrong and of many lives lost.