Nikolas K. Gvosdev (NWC): The Soviet Victory That Never Was: What the United States Can Learn from the Soviet War in Afghanistan; and Jihadology: How the creation of Sovietology should guide the study of today’s threats. Thirty years ago, Soviet airborne troops parachuted into Kabul and began a fateful occupation that became Mikhail Gorbachev’s Vietnam — here’s the inside story of how it happened. Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway on what Congress should do about the war in Afghanistan. From NYRB, Pankaj Mishra on Afghanistan and the forgotten conflict in Kashmir (and a response). Karzai's Cronies: Meet the unsavory characters surrounding the Afghan president and his new government. The price of peace: Avoiding failure in Afghanistan means embracing its patronage politics — bribes and all. Renouncing Islamism: A generation of British Islamists have been trained in Afghanistan to fight a global jihad, but now some of those would-be extremists have had a change of heart. Hanna Bloch reviews books on the real motives of global jihadists. Al-Qaeda’s Migrant Martyrs: As coalition forces struggle to withdraw from Iraq and stabilize Afghanistan, an interview with a would-be suicide bomber shows that the Islamist foe remains elusive, motivated, and on the move. From FP, a look at how al Qaeda dupes its followers; and here's the story of how Osama bin Laden escaped. A review of Growing Up bin Laden: Osama's Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World by Najwa bin Laden, Omar bin Laden, and Jean Sasson (and more and more and more).
