Swimming with Warlords

Swimming with Warlords
Author: Kevin Sites
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2014-10-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 0062339427

The veteran journalist and author of In the Hot Zone and The Things They Cannot Say explores the impact of more than a decade of war on Afghanistan, from the American invasion after 9/11 to today, and offers insights into its future and the possible consequences for the U.S. Kevin Sites made his first trip to Afghanistan in October 2001, staying 100 days to cover the U.S. invasion for NBC News. On his fifth trip to the country in June 2013, Sites retraced that first odyssey, contemplating the significant events of his original trip to explore what, if anything, has changed. He interviewed warlords, ex-Taliban fighters, politicians, women cops and dentists, farmers, drug addicts, international aid workers, diplomats, and military personnel. In Swimming with Warlords, Sites examines Afghanistan today through the prism of those two parallel journeys, exploring that nation’s past and considering its future in light of the drawdown of U.S. troops. As he tells the stories of the people he met—how they have been affected by this conflict that has cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives—Sites provides a fresh perspective on Afghanistan and America’s role there. Swimming with Warlords contains 30 black-and-white photos throughout.

Afghanistan

Afghanistan
Author: Musa Khan Jalalzai
Publisher: Vij Books India Pvt Ltd
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2021-02-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 939043954X

Writers and analysts have uncovered the illegal role of private militias’ commanders in Afghanistan. These commanders and self-styled leaders were driven overwhelmingly by their personal power, and they were not only considered illegitimate on the domestic political scene, and viewed as irrelevant. The present Afghan government is a mix of all types of its efforts, including war criminals, and militia commanders who smuggle narcotics, drugs, arm, and kill women and children. War criminals and militias commanders have developed complex survival and legitimation strategies beyond their territorial realms. After years of its establishment, the Afghan local police (ALP) was undermined due to its failure to stabilize remote regions of the country. The US proxy militias are the source of consternation. The US Army established an incompetent intelligence agency (NDS) to serve its interest. The NDS established regional militias to support the CIA and Pentagon war mission against the people of the country. The NDS established Unit-01 for Central Region, Unit-02 for Eastern Region, Unit-03 for Southern Region, and Unit-04, as a Khost Protection Force (KPF), and committed war crimes in these regions with the support of the US Army and CIA. This book has documented the role of all internal and external actors, warlords and stakeholders.

World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor Signature Series Strategy Guide

World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor Signature Series Strategy Guide
Author: BradyGames
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2014-11-13
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 074401607X

Past and present collide in World of Warcraft's newest expansion, Warlords of Draenor. Players must mount a charge on Draenor and defeat the Iron Horde before the future is unmade. With a level 90 character boost and the level cap raised to 100, players can join and take their place among Warcraft's finest. The expansion introduces Garrisons, personal fortresses for players to build and manage, along with all new dungeons, raids, world bosses, challenge modes, scenarios, and more!

Warlords, Inc.

Warlords, Inc.
Author: Noah Raford
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2015-05-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 158394902X

Combining path-breaking research and analysis from leading political scientists, advisors to heads of state, and award-winning academics, Warlords, Inc. pulls back the curtain on the secretive world of drug cartels and violent insurgencies, revealing their inner workings and implications for a world driven by unrelenting change and growing political uncertainty. These essays show how, as the complexities of modern geopolitical pressures mount, the world's elaborate but fragile political systems are becoming increasingly vulnerable to breakdown and deliberate disruption. The authors demonstrate that as infrastructures such as IT networks, global supply chains, and financial markets become increasingly volatile, the stability of entire populations hangs in the balance. Warlords, Inc. traces the evolution of forces that are reshaping the future of the geopolitical landscape: Mexican drug cartels, revolts in the Middle East and Africa, military conflicts in Eastern Europe, the growth of slums and street gangs in India, and the proliferation of cyber-attacks and drone warfare. The contributors demonstrate how the underworld of the global economy thrives, how it disrupts and maintains power, and why, looking toward the future, we should all be paying attention. CONTENTS 1. Of Warlords and Rodeos: What Happens When Nothing Works? 2. Social and Economic Collapse: Lessons from History and Complexity 3. Innovation, Deviation and Development: Warlords and Proto-State Provision 4. Sovereignty, Criminal Insurgency, & Drug Cartels: The Rise of a Post-State Society 5. From Patronage Politics to Predatory States:Crime and Governance in Africa 6. Warlord Governance: Transition Towards, or Coexistence with, the State? 7. 5GW: Into the Heart of Darkness 8. Weaponizing Capitalism: The Naxals of India 9. Mexico's Criminal Organizations: Weakness in Their Complexity, Strength in Their Evolution 10. The Politics of a Post-Climate-Change World: Pyongyang, Puntland, or Portland? 11. Bringing the End of War to the Global Badlands 12. The White Hats: A Multitude of Citizens 13. Beyond Survival: A Short Course in Pioneering Responses to Present (and Future) Crises

Afghan National Army

Afghan National Army
Author: Musa Khan Jalalzai
Publisher: Vij Books India Pvt Ltd
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2020-03-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9389620058

The Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Air Force (AAF) stand today as products of the 2001 war and Western intervention in Afghanistan. This is not only because they were established in 2002 by the government brought to power by that intervention, but even more importantly because they were funded, designed and trained by the intervening forces. It was perhaps inevitable therefore that the question of their sustainability should arise.

Perspectives on the American Way of War

Perspectives on the American Way of War
Author: Thomas A. Marks
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2020-06-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000713040

Perspectives on the American Way of War examines salient cases of American experience in irregular warfare, focusing upon the post-World War II era. This book asks why recent misfires have emerged in irregular warfare from an institutional, professional, and academic context which regularly produces evidence that there is in fact no lack of understanding of both irregular challenges and correct responses. Expert contributors explore the reasoning behind the inability to achieve victory, however defined, and argue that what security professionals have failed to fully recognize, even today, is that what is at issue is not warfare suffused with politics but rather the very opposite, politics suffused with warfare. Perspectives on the American Way of War will be of great interest to scholars of war and conflict studies, strategic and military studies, insurgency and counterinsurgency, and terrorism and counterterrorism. The book was originally published as a special issue of Small Wars & Insurgencies.

The Water Manifesto

The Water Manifesto
Author: Riccardo Petrella
Publisher: Zed Books
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2001
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781856499064

In an urgent call to action, he asks for a world water contract to enshrine fresh water as an essential good to which all people have a right - controlled by communities in the public interest, and with international rules for its equitable management and distribution."--BOOK JACKET.

Militia Order in Afghanistan

Militia Order in Afghanistan
Author: Matthew P. Dearing
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2021-07-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000406776

This book offers a new insight into when and why paramilitary groups in Afghanistan engage in protective or predatory behavior against the civilians they purportedly defend. In Afghanistan’s counterinsurgency environment, America leaned on militias to provide order and stabilize communities cut off from weak central government institutions. However, the lucrative market of protection challenged militia loyalty, as many engaged in banditry, vendettas, and predation. This book examines the varying militia experiments in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2020 and their outcomes through three sub-national case studies. It argues that successful militia experiments in Afghanistan involved inclusion of local orders, where communities had well-established social structures and accountability mechanisms in place, and state patrons relied upon those structures as a restraint against militia behavior. Complementary management ensured patrons leaned on communities for strong accountability systems. But such environments were far from the norm. When patrons ignored community controls, militias preyed on civilians as they monopolized the market of protection. This book adds to the rich literature on the U.S. experience in Afghanistan, but differs by focusing on the interplay between states, communities, and militias. This book will be of much interest to students of military and strategic studies, Asian politics, security studies and International Relations.

American Warlords

American Warlords
Author: Jonathan W. Jordan
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 642
Release: 2016-05-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0451414586

From New York Times bestselling author Jonathan W. Jordan—author of Brothers, Rivals, Victors—comes the intimate true story of President Franklin Roosevelt’s inner circle of military leadership, the team of rivals who shaped World War II and America. “Superbly written, well researched, and highly interesting.”—Jean Edward Smith, New York Times bestselling author of FDR and Eisenhower in War and Peace After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States was wakened from its slumber of isolationism. To help him steer the nation through the coming war, President Franklin Roosevelt turned to the greatest “team of rivals” since the days of Lincoln: Secretary of War Henry Stimson, Admiral Ernest J. King, and General George C. Marshall. Together, these four men led the nation through history’s most devastating conflict and ushered in a new era of unprecedented American influence, all while forced to overcome the profound personal and political differences which divided them. A startling and intimate reassessment of U.S. leadership during World War II, American Warlords is a remarkable glimpse behind the curtain of presidential power.

In the Hot Zone

In the Hot Zone
Author: Kevin Sites
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2009-10-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 006174509X

Kevin Sites is a man on a mission. Venturing alone into the dark heart of war, armed with just a video camera, a digital camera, a laptop, and a satellite modem, the award-winning journalist covered virtually every major global hot spot as the first Internet correspondent for Yahoo! News. Beginning his journey with the anarchic chaos of Somalia in September 2005 and ending with the Israeli-Hezbollah war in the summer of 2006, Sites talks with rebels and government troops, child soldiers and child brides, and features the people on every side, including those caught in the cross fire. His honest reporting helps destroy the myths of war by putting a human face on war's inhumanity. Personally, Sites will come to discover that the greatest danger he faces may not be from bombs and bullets, but from the unsettling power of the truth.