Talibanistan: Negotiating the Borders Between Terror, Politics, and Religion
Peter Bergen
Abstract
The longest war the United States has ever fought is the ongoing war in Afghanistan. But when we speak of “Afghanistan,” we really mean a conflict that straddles the border with Pakistan—and the reality of Islamic militancy on that border is enormously complicated. This book examines in detail the embattled territory from Kandahar in Afghanistan to Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas. It pulls apart the distinctions between the Taliban and al Qaeda—and the fractures within each movement; assesses the effectiveness of American and Pakistani counterinsu ... More
The longest war the United States has ever fought is the ongoing war in Afghanistan. But when we speak of “Afghanistan,” we really mean a conflict that straddles the border with Pakistan—and the reality of Islamic militancy on that border is enormously complicated. This book examines in detail the embattled territory from Kandahar in Afghanistan to Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas. It pulls apart the distinctions between the Taliban and al Qaeda—and the fractures within each movement; assesses the effectiveness of American and Pakistani counterinsurgency campaigns; and explores the pipeline of militants into and out of the war zone. One chapter in the book criticizes the customary distinction between an Afghan and Pakistani Taliban as being too neat to describe their fragmented reality. Another paints a subtle portrait of the political and religious forces shaping the insurgency in the Northwest Frontier Province, uncovering poor governance, economic distress, and resentment of foreign troops in nearby Afghanistan. And a further chapter tries to identify the real numbers of drone strikes and victims, both militants and civilians, while disputing claims for their strategic effectiveness.
Keywords:
Afghanistan,
Pakistan,
Islamic militancy,
Kandahar,
Taliban,
al Qaeda,
counterinsurgency campaigns
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2013 |
Print ISBN-13: |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: February 2015 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199893072.001.0001 |
