Pakistan Adrift

Pakistan Adrift
Author: Asad Durrani
Publisher: Hurst & Company
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2018
Genre: History
ISBN: 1849049610

An insider's view of Pakistan's vicissitudes over the last two decades, by the former head of the country's renowned intelligence agency.

Pakistan Adrift

Pakistan Adrift
Author: Asad Durrani
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2018-10-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1787381587

Asad Durrani served as a three star general in the Pakistan army, and later headed the Inter-Services Intelligence agency from 1990 to 1992. His time in service encompassed the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan and dissolution; shifting regional and international alliances, particularly with the US; and contending with India's economic recovery. On the home front, Pakistan passed through a transition from military rule to a democratic order. As an intelligence chief General Durrani dealt with many critical issues at home and abroad. Here he reflects on his time in office--refined by distance and by diplomatic stints in Germany and Saudi Arabia, his assessment of the challenges faced by Pakistan in the last decades is both novel and informed. Though critical of the country's civil and military leadership-- also conceding some of his own flaws--he argues that the real causes of Pakistan's travails differ from what international observers have come to believe. This insightful book concludes by offering new perspectives on Saudi involvement in and reaction to 9/11 and on the Kingdom's shifting foreign policy goals following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The Hardest Place

The Hardest Place
Author: Wesley Morgan
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Total Pages: 697
Release: 2022-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812985222

COLBY AWARD WINNER • “One of the most important books to come out of the Afghanistan war.”—Foreign Policy “A saga of courage and futility, of valor and error and heartbreak.”—Rick Atkinson, author of the Liberation Trilogy and The British Are Coming Of the many battlefields on which U.S. troops and intelligence operatives fought in Afghanistan, one remote corner of the country stands as a microcosm of the American campaign: the Pech and its tributary valleys in Kunar and Nuristan. The area’s rugged, steep terrain and thick forests made it a natural hiding spot for local insurgents and international terrorists alike, and it came to represent both the valor and futility of America’s two-decade-long Afghan war. Drawing on reporting trips, hundreds of interviews, and documentary research, Wesley Morgan reveals the history of the war in this iconic region, captures the culture and reality of the conflict through both American and Afghan eyes, and reports on the snowballing missteps—some kept secret from even the troops fighting there—that doomed the American mission. The Hardest Place is the story of one of the twenty-first century’s most unforgiving battlefields and a portrait of the American military that fought there.

The Islamic State in Khorasan

The Islamic State in Khorasan
Author: Antonio Giustozzi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2018-08-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1787380955

So-called Islamic State began to appear in what it calls Khorasan (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia, Iran and India) in 2014. Reports of its presence were at first dismissed as propaganda, but during 2015 it became clear that IS had a serious presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan at least. This book, by one of the leading experts on Islamist insurgency in the region, explores the nature of IS in Khorasan, its aim and strategies, and its evolution in an environment already populated by many jihadist organisations. Based on first-hand research and numerous interviews with members of IS in Khorasan, as well as with other participants and observers, the book addresses highly contentious issues such as funding, IS's relationship with the region's authorities, and its interactions with other insurgent groups. Giustozzi argues that the central leadership of IS invested significant financial resources in establishing its own branch in Khorasan, and as such it is more than a local movement which adopted the IS brand for its own aims. Though the central leadership has been struggling in implementing its project, it is now turning towards a more realistic approach. This is the first book on a new frontier in Islamic State's international jihad.

The Spy Chronicles

The Spy Chronicles
Author: A.S. Dulat
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2018-05-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9352779266

Pointing to the horizon where the sea and sky are joined, he says, 'It is only an illusion because they can't really meet, but isn't it beautiful, this union which isn't really there.' -- SAADAT HASAN MANTO Sometime in 2016, a series of dialogues took place which set out to find a meeting ground, even if only an illusion, between A.S. Dulat and Asad Durrani. One was a former chief of RAW, India's external intelligence agency, the other of ISI, its Pakistani counterpart. As they could not meet in their home countries, the conversations, guided by journalist Aditya Sinha, took place in cities like Istanbul, Bangkok and Kathmandu.On the table were subjects that have long haunted South Asia, flashpoints that take lives regularly. It was in all ways a deep dive into the politics of the subcontinent, as seen through the eyes of two spymasters. Among the subjects: Kashmir, and a missed opportunity for peace; Hafiz Saeed and 26/11; Kulbhushan Jadhav; surgical strikes; the deal for Osama bin Laden; how the US and Russia feature in the India-Pakistan relationship; and how terror undermines the two countries' attempts at talks.When the project was first mooted, General Durrani laughed and said nobody would believe it even if it was written as fiction. At a time of fraught relations, this unlikely dialogue between two former spy chiefs from opposite sides--a project that is the first of its kind--may well provide some answers.

The China-Pakistan Axis

The China-Pakistan Axis
Author: Andrew Small
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2020
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 019007681X

"The Beijing-Islamabad axis plays a central role in Asia's geopolitics, from India's rise to the prospects for a post-American Afghanistan, from the threat of nuclear terrorism to the continent's new map of mines, ports and pipelines. China is Pakistan's great economic hope and its most trusted military partner; Pakistan is the battleground for China's encounters with Islamic militancy and the heart of its efforts to counter-balance the emerging US-India partnership. For decades, each country has been the other's only 'all-weather' friend. Yet the relationship is still little understood. The wildest claims about it are widely believed, while many of its most dramatic developments are hidden from the public eye. This book sets out the recent history of Sino-Pakistani ties and their ramifications for the West, for India, for Afghanistan, and for Asia as a whole. It tells the stories behind some of its most sensitive aspects, including Beijing's support for Pakistan's nuclear program, China's dealings with the Taliban, and the Chinese military's planning for crises in Pakistan. It describes a relationship increasingly shaped by Pakistan's internal strife, and the dilemmas China faces between the need for regional stability and the imperative for strategic competition with India and the USA."--Amazon.com.

Honour Among Spies

Honour Among Spies
Author: Asad Durrani
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2020-10-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9353579813

In May 2018, a book was published that set off a perfect storm in the intelligence circles in the subcontinent, and made people in the spy community sit up around the world. What made The Spy Chronicles unusual was that two of its authors, A.S. Dulat and Asad Durrani, co-writing with journalist Aditya Sinha, had headed their respective spy agencies -- Dulat had been chief of India's RAW, and Lt Gen. Durrani of Pakistan's ISI. The fallout of the book would result in Lt Gen. Durrani being put on the exit control list and having his pension revoked.Honour Among Spies is a fictional account of a spy who is sent out into the cold, but one that reflects all too accurately the predicament of a distinguished officer fighting to protect his reputation. Woven into the novel is a throwback to another famous incident -- the raid on Osama bin Laden, about whose hideaway and the raid itself Lt Gen. Durrani had made some prescient comments. These and other elements come together in this taut battle of wits that takes forward, in a way, the narrative of The Spy Chronicles.

Defeat is an Orphan

Defeat is an Orphan
Author: Myra MacDonald
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2017
Genre: History
ISBN: 1849046417

When India and Pakistan held nuclear tests in 1998, they restarted the clock on an intense competition that had begun with Partition. Nuclear weapons restored strategic parity, erasing the advantage of India's much larger military. But the shield offered by nuclear weapons also encouraged a reckless reliance by Pakistan on militant proxies even as jihadis spun out of control within and beyond its borders. In the years that followed, Pakistan would lose decisively to India, sacrificing its own domestic stability in a failed attempt to assert its claim to Kashmir and influence events in Afghanistan.Defeat is an Orphan tracks the defining episodes in the relationship between India and Pakistan from 1998, from bitter conflict in the mountains to military confrontation in the plains, from the hijacking of an Indian airliner to the Mumbai attacks. It is a frank history of an enduringly bitter relationship, set against the background of Islamist militancy in Pakistan and India's economic leap forward.

Empire Made Me

Empire Made Me
Author: Robert A. Bickers
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 428
Release: 2003
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780231131322

This riveting "biography of a nobody" offers a rare view of empire from the bottom up and a glimpse of the making of modern China. Robert Bickers mines the letters of Richard Tinkler along with archival files to create a fascinating and much-needed narrative of everyday life in the colonial world and an unvarnished portrait of the colonial experience that will permanently affect our view of it.

Pakistan Beyond the Crisis State

Pakistan Beyond the Crisis State
Author: Maleeha Lodhi
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012-10-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780199327430

Seen through the lens of the outsider, Pakistan has often been reduced to a caricature. Its diversity and resilience have rarely figured in the single-issue focus of recent literature on the country, be it journalistic or scholarly. This book seeks to present an alternate paradigm and to contribute a deeper understanding of the country's dynamics that may help explain why Pakistan has confounded all the doomsday scenarios. It brings together an extra-ordinary array of leading experts, including Ahmed Rashid, Ayesha Jalal and Zahid Hussain, and practitioners, such as the book's editor, Maleeha Lodhi, Akbar Ahmed and Munir Akram. Together they debate their country's strengths and weaknesses and offer ways out of its current predicament. This book provides a picture of how Pakistanis see themselves and their country's faultlines and spells out ways to overcome these. Pakistan's political, economic, social, foreign policy and governance challenges are assessed in detail. So too is the complex interplay between domestic developments and external factors including great power interests that are so central to the Pakistan story and explain the vicissitudes in its fortunes. Lodhi and her contributors contend that Pakistan and its people have the capacity to transform their country into a stable, modern Muslim state, but bold reforms will be needed to bring about this outcome.