One cannot but succumb to a deep and depressing sense of déjà vu when reading Jalili’s encyclopedic history of two centuries of Afghanistan’s military history. Although the precise military nomenclature may change, there is a dispiriting commonality between the British dispatching heavily armed columns to mount a show of force in the three Anglo-Afghan Wars and twenty-first century talk of deploying a “surge” to bring a resolution to the ongoing conflict. This observation is not specific to the British and the Americans; the Soviets were also drawn to use ultimately futile strategies when dealing with Afghanistan (at the time of this writing, President Trump has just announced another surge). On two occasions in the nineteenth century, the British governors-general of India resorted to a similar strategy in reaction to the Afghan people’s failure to concede defeat and comply with what others assumed was in their best interests. Moreover, conflicts in...
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Summer 2018
June 01 2018
A Military History of Afghanistan: From the Great Game to the Global War on Terror
A Military History of Afghanistan: From the Great Game to the
Global War on
Terror
. By Ali
Ahmad
Jalali
(Lawrence
, University
Press of Kansas
, 2017
) 595
pp. $34.95
Douglas
M. Peers
Douglas
M. Peers
University of Waterloo
Search for other works by this author on:
Douglas
M. Peers
University of Waterloo
Online ISSN: 1530-9169
Print ISSN: 0022-1953
© 2018 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Inc.
2018
by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of
Interdisciplinary History, Inc.
The Journal of Interdisciplinary History (2018) 49 (1): 181–183.
Citation
Douglas M. Peers; A Military History of Afghanistan: From the Great Game to the Global War on Terror. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 2018; 49 (1): 181–183. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh_r_01261
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