The U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan mobilized troops, funds, and people on an international level not seen since World War II. Hundreds of thousands of individuals and tens of billions of ...dollars flowed into the country. But what was gained for Afghanistan—or for the international community that footed the bill? Why did development money not lead to more development? Why did a military presence make things more dangerous? Through the stories of four individuals—an ambassador, a Navy SEAL, a young Afghan businessman, and a wind energy engineer—Noah Coburn weaves a vivid account of the challenges and contradictions of life during the intervention. Looking particularly at the communities around Bagram Airbase, this ethnography considers how Afghans viewed and attempted to use the intervention and how those at the base tried to understand the communities around them. These compelling stories step outside the tired paradigms of 'unruly' Afghan tribes, an effective Taliban resistance, and a corrupt Karzai government to show how the intervention became an entity unto itself, one doomed to collapse under the weight of its own bureaucracy and contradictory intentions.
At War with Women reveals how post-9/11 politics of gender and development have transformed US military power. In the mid-2000s, the US military used development as a weapon as it revived ...counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military assembled all-female teams to reach households and wage war through development projects in the battle for "hearts and minds." Despite women technically being banned from ground combat units, the all-female teams were drawn into combat nonetheless. Based on ethnographic fieldwork observing military trainings, this book challenges liberal feminist narratives that justified the Afghanistan War in the name of women's rights and celebrated women's integration into combat as a victory for gender equality. Jennifer Greenburg critically interrogates a new imperial feminism and its central role in securing US hegemony. Women's incorporation into combat through emotional labor has reinforced gender stereotypes, with counterinsurgency framing female soldiers as global ambassadors for women's rights. This book provides an analysis of US imperialism that keeps the present in tension with the past, clarifying where colonial ideologies of race, gender, and sexuality have resurfaced and how they are changing today.
Today the UNHCR is present in more than 130 countries and takes care of some 90 million people. This book looks at how it is deployed and who its agents are. By taking the reader through the offices ...in charge of the Afghan refugee crisis during the 2000s, in Geneva and in Kabul, the book shows the internal functioning of this international organization. It provides analysis of Afghan refugee policies from an original position, with the author being both agency official and anthropologist, and articulates multiple levels of analysis: the micropolitics of practices as much as the institution and the multi-scalar power relations that shape its environment.
The military expert and author of Leadership presents "the most thoughtful analysis yet of America's recent conflicts—and future challenges" (Gen. Stanley A.McChrystal). Why have the major post-9/11 ...US military interventions turned into quagmires? Despite huge power imbalances in America's favor, capacity-building efforts, and tactical victories, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq turned intractable. The US government's fixation on zero-sum, decisive victory in these conflicts is a key reason why these operations failed to achieve favorable and durable outcomes. In Zero-Sum Victory, retired US Army colonel Christopher D.Kolenda identifies three interrelated problems that have emerged from the government's insistence on zero-sum victory. First, the US government has no way to measure successful outcomes other than a decisive military victory, and thus, selects strategies that overestimate the possibility of such an outcome. Second, the United States is slow to recognize, modify, or abandon losing strategies. Third, once the United States decides to withdraw, bargaining asymmetries and disconnects in strategy undermine the prospects for a successful transition or negotiated outcome. Relying on historic examples and personal experience, Kolenda draws thought- provoking and actionable conclusions about the utility of American military power in the contemporary world—insights that serve as a starting point for future scholarship as well as for important national security reforms.
The 2001 invasion of Afghanistan by United States and coalition forces was followed by a flood of aid and development dollars and "experts" representing well over two thousand organizations-each with ...separate policy initiatives, geopolitical agendas, and socioeconomic interests. This book examines the everyday actions of people associated with this international effort, with a special emphasis on small players: individuals and groups who charted alternative paths outside the existing networks of aid and development. This focus highlights the complexities, complications, and contradictions at the intersection of the everyday and the geopolitical, showing how dominant geopolitical narratives influence daily life in places like Afghanistan-and what happens when the goals of aid workersor the needs of aid recipients do not fit the narrative.
Specifically, this book examines the use of gender, "need," and grief as drivers for both common and exceptional responses to geopolitical interventions.Throughout this work, Jennifer L. Fluri and Rachel Lehr describe intimate encounters at a microscale to complicate and dispute the ways in which Afghans and their country have been imagined, described, fetishized, politicized, vilified, and rescued. The authors identify the ways in which Afghan men and women have been narrowly categorized as perpetrators and victims, respectively. They discuss several projects to show how gender and grief became forms of currency that were exchanged for different social, economic, and political opportunities. Such entanglements suggest the power and influence of the United States while illustrating the ways in which individuals and groups have attempted to chart alternative avenues of interaction, intervention, and interpretation.
At War with Women reveals how post-9/11 politics of gender and development have transformed US military power. In the mid-2000s, the US military used development as a weapon as it revived ...counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military assembled all-female teams to reach households and wage war through development projects in the battle for "hearts and minds." Despite women technically being banned from ground combat units, the all-female teams were drawn into combat nonetheless. Based on ethnographic fieldwork observing military trainings, this book challenges liberal feminist narratives that justified the Afghanistan War in the name of women's rights and celebrated women's integration into combat as a victory for gender equality. Jennifer Greenburg critically interrogates a new imperial feminism and its central role in securing US hegemony. Women's incorporation into combat through emotional labor has reinforced gender stereotypes, with counterinsurgency framing female soldiers as global ambassadors for women's rights. This book provides an analysis of US imperialism that keeps the present in tension with the past, clarifying where colonial ideologies of race, gender, and sexuality have resurfaced and how they are changing today.
In War & Homecoming: Veteran Identity and the Post-9/11
Generation , Travis L. Martin explores how a new generation of
veterans is redefining what it means to come home. More than 2.7
million ...veterans served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their homecomings
didn't include parades or national celebrations. Instead, when the
last US troops left Afghanistan, American veterans raised millions
of dollars for the evacuation of Afghan refugees, especially those
who'd served alongside them. This brand of selflessness is one
reason civilians regard veterans with reverence and pride.
The phrase "thank you for your service" is ubiquitous. Yet, one
in ten post-9/11 veterans struggles with substance abuse. Fifteen
to twenty veterans die by suicide every day. Veterans aged eighteen
to thirty-four die at the highest rates, leading advocates to focus
on concepts like moral injury and collective belonging when
addressing psychic wounds. Martin argues that many veterans
struggle due to decades of stereotyping and a lack of healthy
models of veteran identity. In the American unconscious, veterans
are treated as either the superficially praised "hero" or the
victimized "wounded warrior," forever defined by past
accomplishments. They are often appropriated as symbols in
competing narratives of national identity. War &
Homecoming critically examines representations of veterans in
patriotic rhetoric, popular media, literature, and the lives of
those who served. From this analysis, a new veteran identity
emerges-veterans as storytellers who reject stereotypes, claim
their symbolic authority, and define themselves through literature,
art, and service. Their dynamic approach to life after military
service allows for continued growth, agency, individuality, and
inspiring examples of resilience for others.
The great nineteenth century French military thinker, Ardant du Picq, argued that selfless courage is rooted in a higher moral purpose, and is found among "Elite Souls." This is a book about ...five such "Elite Souls," all highly decorated young West Point graduates and recipients of the USMA's Ninninger Medal. Elite Souls outlines the importance of building and developing moral character in military leaders, while arguing that a rigorous academic education is also essential in creating young officers capable of the kind of creative and critical thinking necessary in the complicated wars of the twenty-first century. Dr. Raymond suggests that West Point's servant-leader model is critical in fostering the kind of intense selflessness ideally seen between junior officers, their NCOs, and soldiers. Finally, Elite Souls makes the case that inspirational commanding officers are also key. In this book, Dr. Ray Raymond argues that each of the recipients of the Ninninger Award entered West Point primarily for moral reasons and that the Academy's rigorous academic, military, and developmental methods strengthened those values. West Point produced young military leaders who were exceptionally well-educated and trained to deal with the complex challenges of war in Iraq and Afghanistan in the early twenty first century.
