I don’t know to what extent the American involvement in Afghanistan, our country’s longest war and still running, is even taught in universities in international relations courses. If it is part of the syllabus, it should properly be a “lesson learned” in what can go wrong when one wants to combat a global adversary like the Soviet Union by creating a potentially worse threat through the expedient of arming and training Islamic militants. It occurred to me that if there is such a course, it would be well served by using Scott Horton’s Fool’s Errand as a textbook. It tells the whole story of Afghanistan and is full of information that will serve to educate the uninformed reader about the Afghan war and its background. Yet it also including some surprising and unique insights derived from his hundreds of interviews that will keep the more advanced student turning pages. It is highly recommended.
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