The UK Deployment to Afghanistan

The UK Deployment to Afghanistan
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Defence Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 98
Release: 2006-04-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780215028280

The UK is currently involved in two military operations in Afghanistan: the US-led coalition Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) with a counter-terrorism mission; and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) with a security and stabilisation mission. The UK-led Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) will command the ISAF from May 2006 to February 2007, a period which will see the extension of the ISAF's mission into the Western and Southern provinces of Afghanistan. The Committee's report focuses on pre-deployment issues for the UK forces to be deployed in Helmand province. The report considers the likely problems they will face in attempting to balance the goals of bringing greater security to the province as well as reducing the opium trade. The report raises concerns that the UK airlift and close air support capability may not be sufficient to support the Helmand deployment, and also about the effect the Helmand deployment might have on the overstretch of UK armed forces, particularly on pinchpoint trade personnel. It also calls on the MoD to provide greater clarity about the responsibilities of UK forces to detainees under their care, and in terms of the rights of detainees established in the Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Afghanistan.

Investment in Blood

Investment in Blood
Author: Frank Ledwidge
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2013-05-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300194889

"In this follow-up to his much-praised book Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan, Frank Ledwidge argues that Britain has paid a heavy cost - both financially and in human terms - for its involvement in the Afghanistan war. Ledwidge calculates the high price paid by British soldiers and their families, taxpayers in the United Kingdom, and, most importantly, Afghan citizens, highlighting the thousands of deaths and injuries, the enormous amount of money spent bolstering a corrupt Afghan government, and the long-term damage done to the British military's international reputation. In this hard-hitting exposé, based on interviews, rigorous on-the-ground research, and official information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Ledwidge demonstrates the folly of Britain's extended participation in an unwinnable war. Arguing that the only true beneficiaries of the conflict are development consultants, international arms dealers, and Afghan drug kingpins, he provides a powerful, eye-opening, and often heartbreaking account of military adventurism gone horribly wrong."--

An Intimate War

An Intimate War
Author: Mike Martin
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2014
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199387982

An Intimate War tells the story of the last thirty-four years of conflict in Helmand Province, Afghani- stan as seen through the eyes of the Helmandis. In the West, this period is often defined through different lenses - the Soviet intervention, the civil war, the Taliban, and the post-2001 nation-building era. Yet, as experienced by local inhabitants, the Helmand conflict is a perennial one, involving the same individuals, families and groups, and driven by the same arguments over land, water and power. This book - based on both military and re- search experience in Helmand and 150 inter- views in Pashto - offers a very different view of Helmand from those in the media. It demonstrates how outsiders have most often misunderstood the ongoing struggle in Helmand and how, in doing so, they have exacerbated the conflict, perpetuated it and made it more violent - precisely the opposite of what was intended when their interventions were launched. Mike Martin's oral history of Helmand under- scores the absolute imperative of understanding the highly local, personal, and non-ideological nature of internal conflict in much of the 'third' world.

Unwinnable

Unwinnable
Author: Theo Farrell
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 515
Release: 2017-09-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1473522404

Afghanistan was an unwinnable war. As British and American troops withdraw, discover this definitive account that explains why. It could have been a very different story. British forces could have successfully withdrawn from Afghanistan in 2002, having done the job they set out to do: to defeat al-Qaeda. Instead, in the years that followed, Britain paid a devastating price for their presence in Helmand province. So why did Britain enter, and remain, in an ill-fated war? Why did it fail so dramatically, and was this expedition doomed from the beginning? Drawing on unprecedented access to military reports, government documents and senior individuals, Professor Theo Farrell provides an extraordinary work of scholarship. He explains the origins of the war, details the campaigns over the subsequent years, and examines the West's failure to understand the dynamics of local conflict and learn the lessons of history that ultimately led to devastating costs and repercussions still relevant today. 'The best book so far on Britain's...war in Afghanistan' International Affairs 'Masterful, irrefutable... Farrell records all these military encounters with the irresistible pace of a novelist' Sunday Times

Losing Small Wars

Losing Small Wars
Author: Frank Ledwidge
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2017-02-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300229097

This new edition of Frank Ledwidge’s eye-opening analysis of British involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan unpicks the causes and enormous costs of military failure. Updated throughout, and with fresh chapters assessing and enumerating the overall military performance since 2011—including Libya, ISIS, and the Chilcot findings—Ledwidge shows how lessons continue to go unlearned. “A brave and important book; essential reading for anyone wanting insights into the dysfunction within the British military today, and the consequences this has on the lives of innocent civilians caught up in war.”—Times Literary Supplement

High Command

High Command
Author: Christopher L. Elliott
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2015
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190233052

Written by a retired British Army Major General, eveals how the highest levels of the British military focused on making plans work rather than questioning whether such goals made military sense

A Million Bullets

A Million Bullets
Author: James Fergusson
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2008
Genre: Afghan War, 2001-
ISBN: 0593059026

Military history.

Why We Lost

Why We Lost
Author: Daniel P. Bolger
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 565
Release: 2014
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0544370481

A high-ranking general's gripping insider account of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how it all went wrong. Over a thirty-five-year career, Daniel Bolger rose through the army infantry to become a three-star general, commanding in both theaters of the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He participated in meetings with top-level military and civilian players, where strategy was made and managed. At the same time, he regularly carried a rifle alongside rank-and-file soldiers in combat actions, unusual for a general. Now, as a witness to all levels of military command, Bolger offers a unique assessment of these wars, from 9/11 to the final withdrawal from the region. Writing with hard-won experience and unflinching honesty, Bolger makes the firm case that in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we lost -- but we didn't have to. Intelligence was garbled. Key decision makers were blinded by spreadsheets or theories. And, at the root of our failure, we never really understood our enemy. Why We Lost is a timely, forceful, and compulsively readable account of these wars from a fresh and authoritative perspective.

88 Days to Kandahar

88 Days to Kandahar
Author: Robert L. Grenier
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2016-01-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1476712085

The director of the American-Afghan war describes how he orchestrated the defeat of the Taliban in the region by forging separate alliances with warlords, Taliban dissidents, and the Pakistani intelligence service.

The Changing of the Guard

The Changing of the Guard
Author: Simon Akam
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-03-02
Genre:
ISBN: 9781922310279

A revelatory, explosive new analysis of the British military today. Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century, Britain has changed enormously. During this time, the British Army fought two campaigns, in Iraq and Afghanistan, at considerable financial and human cost. Yet neither war achieved its objectives. This book questions why, and provides challenging but necessary answers. Composed of assiduous documentary research, field reportage, and hundreds of interviews with many soldiers and officers who served, as well as the politicians who directed them, the allies who accompanied them, and the family members who loved and -- on occasion -- lost them, it is a strikingly rich, nuanced portrait of one of our pivotal national institutions in a time of great stress. Award-winning journalist Simon Akam, who spent a year in the army when he was 18, returned a decade later to see how the institution had changed. His book examines the relevance of the armed forces today -- their social, economic, political, and cultural role. This is as much a book about Britain, and about the politics of failure, as it is about the military.