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

Description: Directorate S by Steve Coll Traces Americas intelligence, military, and diplomatic efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the years since 9/11, and how the U.S. efforts in the Afghan War faltered because of a failure to understand the intentions of Pakistans intelligence agency. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction • Nominated for the National Book Award for NonfictionFrom the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars and The Achilles Trap, the epic and enthralling story of Americas intelligence, military, and diplomatic efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 9/11Prior to 9/11, the United States had been carrying out small-scale covert operations in Afghanistan, ostensibly in cooperation, although often in direct opposition, with I.S.I., the Pakistani intelligence agency. While the US was trying to quell extremists, a highly secretive and compartmentalized wing of I.S.I., known as "Directorate S," was covertly training, arming, and seeking to legitimize the Taliban, in order to enlarge Pakistans sphere of influence. After 9/11, when fifty-nine countries, led by the U. S., deployed troops or provided aid to Afghanistan in an effort to flush out the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the U.S. was set on an invisible slow-motion collision course with Pakistan.Today we know that the war in Afghanistan would falter badly because of military hubris at the highest levels of the Pentagon, the drain on resources and provocation in the Muslim world caused by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and corruption. But more than anything, as Coll makes painfully clear, the war in Afghanistan was doomed because of the failure of the United States to apprehend the motivations and intentions of I.S.I.s "Directorate S". This was a swirling and shadowy struggle of historic proportions, which endured over a decade and across both the Bush and Obama administrations, involving multiple secret intelligence agencies, a litany of incongruous strategies and tactics, and dozens of players, including some of the most prominent military and political figures. A sprawling American tragedy, the war was an open clash of arms but also a covert melee of ideas, secrets, and subterranean violence. Coll excavates this grand battle, which took place away from the gaze of the American public. With unsurpassed expertise, original research, and attention to detail, he brings to life a narrative at once vast and intricate, local and global, propulsive and painstaking. This is the definitive explanation of how America came to be so badly ensnared in an elaborate, factional, and seemingly interminable conflict in South Asia. Nothing less than a forensic examination of the personal and political forces that shape world history, Directorate S is a complete masterpiece of both investigative and narrative journalism. Author Biography Steve Coll is the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Ghost Wars and a professor and dean emeritus of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, and from 2007 to 2013 was president of the New America Foundation, a public policy institute in Washington, D.C. He is a staff writer for The New Yorker and previously worked for twenty years at The Washington Post, where he received a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism in 1990. He is the author of nine books, including On the Grand Trunk Road, The Bin Ladens, Private Empire, Directorate S., and The Achilles Trap. Review "Colls book is riveting." —Richard Cohen, NY Daily News "[A] journalistic masterpiece . . . Coll succeeds on all levels . . . Coll is masterful at plumbing the depths of agencies and sects within both Afghanistan and Pakistan . . . In this era of fake news, Coll remains above it all, this time delivering an impeccably researched history of "diplomacy at the highest levels of government in Washington, Islamabad, and Kabul." —Kirkus (starred review)"With his evenhanded approach, gift for limning character, and dazzling reporting skills, he has created an essential work of contemporary history." —Booklist (starred review)"The most comprehensive work to date on the U.S. war in Afghanistan . . . Colls vital work provides a factual and analytical foundation for all future work on the Afghan War and U.S. policy in Central Asia." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)"Spellbinding . . . It does for America in Afghanistan what Michael Gordon and Tom Ricks did for the Iraq misadventure in Cobra II and Fiasco." —Evening Standard"This sequel to Ghost Wars might well become the definitive account of the CIA and Americas secret wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan . . . In the pages of Directorate S, the sequel to Colls Pulitzer prize-winning Ghost Wars, the story is delivered with a literary prowess that has been absent in previous western accounts of Americas longest running war. The dance of blame, with the US swaying at one moment towards Pakistan and the next towards Afghanistan, is a choreography familiar to CIA chiefs, US presidents and writers who have tackled the subject. Coll refuses to follow this tired tune, and the result is masterful." —The Guardian "Steve Colls Directorate S is the sequel to his magisterial Ghost Wars. Both books rest on a foundation of serious scholarship and Colls extraordinary access, to individual CIA officers mostly, but also to many others. These notably included members of Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, where Directorate S was the name given to the branch of the agency "devoted to secret operations in support of the Taliban, Kashmiri guerrillas, and other violent Islamic radicals". Every assertion is carefully sourced and checked. This book is in the finest traditions of American investigative journalism. Coll is the thinking mans Michael Wolff." —Sherard Cowper-Coles, Times of London "Coll draws on decades of experience in South Asia, nearly 600 interviews over a decade, and thousands of pages of documents to give the most balanced and comprehensive picture to date of the unraveling of U.S. policy in Afghanistan. Few writers can match Colls length of time on the topic, range of contacts, or personal knowledge of realities on the ground . . . it is hard to imagine a more complete and thoughtful account of how the United States went wrong in Afghanistan." —Task & Purpose"A spectacular account of 15 years of secret CIA and US military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan by the investigative journalist and academic Steve Coll . . . With impressive access to American, Afghan and Pakistani intelligence, Coll reveals the extent of the surveillance undertaken by all sides . . . Directorate S has a cast of characters that make Bourne movies pale in comparison—from type-A CIA officers and paramilitaries to cigar-smoking and whisky-drinking Pakistani generals to a dog nicknamed Lucky because he was able to detect incoming missile strikes from drones before they hit." —Financial Times Review Quote "Colls book is riveting." -- Richard Cohen, NY Daily News "[A] journalistic masterpiece . . . Coll succeeds on all levels . . . Coll is masterful at plumbing the depths of agencies and sects within both Afghanistan and Pakistan . . . In this era of fake news, Coll remains above it all, this time delivering an impeccably researched history of "diplomacy at the highest levels of government in Washington, Islamabad, and Kabul." -- Kirkus (starred review) "With his evenhanded approach, gift for limning character, and dazzling reporting skills, he has created an essential work of contemporary history." -- Booklist (starred review) "The most comprehensive work to date on the U.S. war in Afghanistan . . . Colls vital work provides a factual and analytical foundation for all future work on the Afghan War and U.S. policy in Central Asia." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Spellbinding . . . It does for America in Afghanistan what Michael Gordon and Tom Ricks did for the Iraq misadventure in Cobra II and Fiasco ." -- Evening Standard "This sequel to Ghost Wars might well become the definitive account of the CIA and Americas secret wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan . . . In the pages of Directorate S , the sequel to Colls Pulitzer prize-winning Ghost Wars , the story is delivered with a literary prowess that has been absent in previous western accounts of Americas longest running war. The dance of blame, with the US swaying at one moment towards Pakistan and the next towards Afghanistan, is a choreography familiar to CIA chiefs, US presidents and writers who have tackled the subject. Coll refuses to follow this tired tune, and the result is masterful." -- The Guardian "Steve Colls Directorate S is the sequel to his magisterial Ghost Wars . Both books rest on a foundation of serious scholarship and Colls extraordinary access, to individual CIA officers mostly, but also to many others. These notably included members of Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, where Directorate S was the name given to the branch of the agency "devoted to secret operations in support of the Taliban, Kashmiri guerrillas, and other violent Islamic radicals". Every assertion is carefully sourced and checked. This book is in the finest traditions of American investigative journalism. Coll is the thinking mans Michael Wolff." -- Sherard Cowper-Coles, Times of London "Coll draws on decades of experience in South Asia, nearly 600 interviews over a decade, and thousands of pages of documents to give the most balanced and comprehensive picture to date of the unraveling of U.S. policy in Afghanistan. Few writers can match Colls length of time on the topic, range of contacts, or personal knowledge of realities on the ground . . . it is hard to imagine a more complete and thoughtful account of how the United States went wrong in Afghanistan." -- Task & Purpose "A spectacular account of 15 years of secret CIA and US military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan by the investigative journalist and academic Steve Coll . . . With impressive access to American, Afghan and Pakistani intelligence, Coll reveals the extent of the surveillance undertaken by all sides . . . Directorate S has a cast of characters that make Bourne movies pale in comparison--from type-A CIA officers and paramilitaries to cigar-smoking and whisky-drinking Pakistani generals to a dog nicknamed Lucky because he was able to detect incoming missile strikes from drones before they hit." -- Financial Times Details ISBN0143132504 Author Steve Coll Short Title DIRECTORATE S Language English ISBN-10 0143132504 ISBN-13 9780143132509 Format Paperback Year 2019 Publication Date 2019-02-05 Place of Publication New York, NY Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2019-02-05 NZ Release Date 2019-02-05 US Release Date 2019-02-05 UK Release Date 2019-02-05 Pages 800 Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc Imprint Penguin USA Subtitle The C.I.A. and Americas Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan DEWEY 958.1047 Illustrations 8-PAGE B/W INSERT (ON INSERT STOCK); 4 B/W MAPS Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. 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