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The first English biography of the notorious warlord, Afghan politician and anti-Soviet mujahid.
What would it feel like To Run the World? Soviet rulers spent the Cold War trying desperately to find out. Perennial insecurities, delusions of grandeur, and desire for recognition propelled Moscow on a headlong quest for global power, with dire consequences and painful legacies that continue to shape our world.
A new global history of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan - an invasion whose consequences are still felt in Afghanistan and across the wider world. On 24 December 1979, Soviet armed forces entered Afghanistan, beginning an occupation that would last almost a decade and creating a political crisis that shook the world. To many observers, the Soviet invasion showed the lengths to which one of the world's superpowers would go to vie for supremacy in the global Cold War. The Soviet war, and parallel covert American aid to Afghan resistance fighters, would come to be a defining event of international politics in the final years of the Cold War, lingering far beyond the Soviet Union's own demise...
Small-scale traders play a crucial role in forging Asian connectivity, forming networks and informal institutions separate from those driven by nation-states, such as China's Belt and Road Initiative. This ambitious study provides a unique insight into the lives of the mobile traders from Afghanistan who traverse Eurasia. Reflecting on over a decade of intensive ethnographic fieldwork, Magnus Marsden introduces readers to a dynamic yet historically durable universe of commercial and cultural connections. Through an exploration of the traders' networks, cultural and religious identities, as well as the nodes in which they operate, Marsden emphasises their ability to navigate Eurasia's geopolitical tensions and to forge transregional routes that channel significant flows of people, resources, and ideas. Beyond the Silk Roads will interest those seeking to understand contemporary iterations of the Silk Road within the context of geopolitics in the region. This title is also available as Open Access.
The Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 was the result of declining active support for the government, and of waste and inefficiency in aid delivery. Yet, while corrosive, these problems were not in themselves sufficient to have brought about a collapse. To a significant degree, they were the result of early failings in institutional design, reflecting an American inclination to pursue short-term policy approaches that created perverse incentives-thus interfering with the long-term objective of stability. This book exposes the true factors underpinning Kabul's fall. The Afghan Republic came under relentless attack from Taliban insurgents who depended critically on Pakistani support. It also suffered a creeping invasion that put the government on the back foot as the US tried and failed to deal with Pakistan's perfidy. The fatal blow came when bored US leaders naively cut an exit deal with the enemy, fatally compromising the operation of the Afghan army and air force and triggering the final collapse, with top leaders at odds over whether to make a final stand in Kabul. The Afghan Republic did not simply decline and fall. It was betrayed.
"The world's leading expert on Osama bin Laden delivers for the first time the definitive biography of a man who set the course of American foreign policy for the 21st century, and whose ideological heirs we continue to battle today"--.
The IISS Strategic Dossier China’s Belt and Road Initiative provides a geopolitical and geo-economic assessment of President Xi Jinping’s flagship foreign-policy initiative. The dossier explores the Belt and Road Initiative’s role in China’s domestic industrial strategy and in the country’s growing influence around the world. It studies how Beijing’s ambitions, management and financing of the initiative have evolved since its launch in 2013. In addition, the volume reflects on the future of China’s initiative following the COVID-19 pandemic. The dossier is organised around a region by region assessment of what Beijing has sought to achieve in different countries and how the Belt and Road Initiative has played out over time. The volume examines recipient countries’ responses to the Belt and Road Initiative and how these have affected it. It also looks at responses from other global and regional powers to China’s economic activities around the world and offers thoughts on ways the West might better contend with Beijing’s geo-economic influence.
You Can Make a Global Impact--One Girl at a Time In Strong Girls, Strong World, Dale Hanson Bourke draws on her international leadership and reporting experience to offer personal insights we can all use as a road map to understanding the issues girls face--and the tangible ways we can each make a difference. Filled with personal stories, hope-filled examples, and specific opportunities, readers will discover how investing in girls changes communities and entire countries eight areas that create high-impact investments for girls what leading organizations are doing to change the lives of girls, and dozens of specific and practical ways you can make a difference today. Investing in the life of a girl can bring about global change. In Strong Girls, Strong World, you'll find out how to take the first steps.