For a long time, Afghanistan was considered to be “the good war” among Western pundits and intellectuals, a noble crusade against Islamic extremism which the Bush administration neglected in favor of the illegal invasion of Iraq.
Slowly but surely, as the corruption of the Karzai government was exposed, as U.S.-NATO bombings repeatedly struck at civilian targets, and as the Taliban gained strength in the countryside, this image began to shift and choruses of dissent began to emerge.
Tim Bird and Alex Marshall’s book, Afghanistan: How the West Lost Its Way (Yale University Press), is the latest to challenge triumphalist narratives about the war being promoted in Washington. The authors, a lecturer at the Joint Services Command and Staff College at King’s College in London and a lecturer in war studies at the University of Glasgow, argue that after the ouster of the Taliban, the U.S.-NATO coalition squandered a small window of opportunity to engage in effective state-building actions capable of solidifying the new order.
Shifts in subsequent military strategy consequently proved futile in containing the Taliban. The Western powers worsened the situation as a result of their lack of clear strategy and ideological commitment to neoliberal economic paradigms which have contributed to declining living standards for the majority of the population.