{"id":412341,"date":"2022-05-12T12:26:27","date_gmt":"2022-05-12T17:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marineshop.net\/product\/war-comes-to-garmser\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T12:21:52","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T17:21:52","slug":"war-comes-to-garmser","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/marineshop.ecomitize.com\/shop\/product\/war-comes-to-garmser\/","title":{"rendered":"War Comes to Garmser"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n

A micro-history of one small district in Afghanistan and the vicissitudes of its people in America\u2019s longest foreign war.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

Description<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

War in Afghanistan will never be understood without getting to grips with the small places \u2013 the provinces, districts, and villages \u2013 where most of the fighting occurred, away from the cities, in hundreds of hamlets, valleys, and farms amid a vast landscape. Those small places and their people were the frontlines, and it is only there that we can truly find answers to the questions that lay at the heart of the war: why people supported the Taliban, whether intervention brought peace, whether a better outcome was ever possible. Garmser is a small place that has seen much violence; a single district within one of Afghanistan\u2019s 34 provinces. Its 150,000 people inhabit a fertile strip along the Helmand River no more than 6 miles wide and 45 miles long. Carter Malkasian spent years in Garmser district as the political officer for the US Department of State. He tells the history of thirty years of war, from 1979 to 2012, explaining how the Taliban movement formed in Garmser; how, after being routed in 2001, they re- turned stronger than ever in 2006; and how Afghans, British, and Americans fought with them between 2006 and 2012. He describes the lives of Afghans who endured and tried to build some kind of order out of war. While Americans and British came and went, they carried on, year after year, inhabitants of a small place.<\/p>\n

Reviews<\/h4>\n

\u2018Malkasian\u2019s account is not just one more book about Afghanistan, but a moving human story that stands alone as a classic of its genre as much as it explains in microcosm the political and cultural story of the conflict since 1978. \u2026 Hands down, my book of 2013.\u2019 \u2014 Emile Simpson,\u00a0Foreign Policy<\/em>\u00a0Books of the Year<\/p>\n

\u2018Malkasian\u2019s rich, shrewdly constructed history of the area shows how tribal elders used the United States and the Taliban as resources in their own turf battles, which often revolved around access to irrigated land.\u2019 \u2014\u00a0Foreign Affairs<\/em>\u00a0Best Books of 2013 in the Middle East<\/p>\n

\u2018War Comes to Garmser<\/i>\u00a0explores the war in Afghanistan from an explicitly provincial Afghan point of view, where foreigners (and even Kabul officials) are marginal actors rather than the centre of the story. Malkasian presents what is in effect a fifty-year oral history of a single district in volatile southern Afghanistan, illustrating the truism that all politics is local. \u2026 Even those with little interest in the politics cannot help but be drawn into the lives of the vivid characters Malkasian skilfully sketches.\u2019 \u2014\u00a0Times Literary Supplement<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2018War Comes to Garmser primarily deals with Malkasian\u2019s experiences applying counterinsurgency doctrine in a violent, remote district in Helmand Province, and it should be required reading for anyone interested in understanding the complex nature of the tribal and village-level politics\u2026in Afghanistan\u2026[he] also offers an excellent history of the politics and planning of the U.S.-led war, paying particular attention to strategic failures in the war\u2019s early years.\u2019\u2014Peter Tomsen,\u00a0Foreign Affairs,<\/em>\u00a02014<\/p>\n

\u2018Afghan officials and US commanders credit Malkasian with playing a critical role in the transformation of Garmser\u00a0from one of the country\u2019s most violent, Taliban-infested districts to a place so quiet that some Marines wish they had\u00a0more chances to fire their weapons.\u2019\u00a0\u2013\u2013\u00a0Rajiv Chandrasekaran,\u00a0Washington Post<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018\u2026 represents the kind of detailed study of Afghanistan that has been badly missing: Most people associated with the international military and development missions here come in for six-month or one-year stints. \u2026 One mark of Malkasian\u2019s analytical mettle is that he presents, more so than any other writer I\u2019ve read, a clear and fair picture of the Taliban and why they enjoyed so much support in the south.\u2019 \u2014 Matthieu Aikins,\u00a0New York Times<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018An important book \u2026 \u00a0War Comes to Garmser<\/i>\u00a0is far more than a vivid account of the US campaign in one district of Afghanistan. It is also a brilliant analysis of that district\u2019s history, economy, and anthropology, with lessons that stretch far beyond Afghanistan.\u2019 \u2014 Anatol Lieven,\u00a0The New York Review of Books<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2018A first-rate account of [Malkasian\u2019s] experiences in Afghanistan\u2019s Helmand Province.\u2019 \u2014\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018The twelve years of this \u201cDecade of War\u201d have produced many good books on counterinsurgency. Carter Malkasian\u2019s\u00a0War Comes to Garmser: Thirty Years of Conflict on the Afghan Frontier\u00a0<\/i>will be ranked among the best of them. Indeed, the value of this book extends beyond the case in question. It speaks to the unchanging nature of war and the complex, changing character of war in the information age.\u2019 \u2014Parameters<\/em>, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army<\/p>\n

\u2018There have been very few books about America\u2019s longest war, and even fewer good ones. \u2026 To this short list can now be added another great book on the Afghan war, Carter Malkasian\u2019s\u00a0War Comes to Garmser<\/em>.\u2019 \u2013\u2013 John Nagl, Professor, US Naval War College<\/p>\n

\u2018In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Malkasian spent two years in Garmser as a State Department political officer. His rich, shrewdly constructed history of the area shows how tribal elders used the United States and the Taliban as resources in their own turf battles [\u2026] Malkasian\u2019s gem of a concluding chapter \u2014 which analyses the opportunities the United States missed during the early years of the war and offers specific recommendations on what could and should be done now \u2014 is best appreciated after a close reading of the preceding chapters. The effort will be amply repaid.\u2019 \u2014 John Waterbury,\u00a0Foreign Affairs<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Add Malkasian \u2014 a brave, brilliant and practical man \u2014 to the names Lawrence, Galula, Lansdale and Vann. This is the definitive work on counterinsurgency at the district level. An absorbing detective story that answers the questions, \u201chow does the Taliban take power at the village level, and how can they be defeated?\u201d\u2018 \u2014 Bing West, author of\u00a0The Village\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy and the Way Out of Afghanistan<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Malkasian\u2019s study is engagingly rich in detail, and its prose is straightforward, succinct and honest. Through it, practitioners and policymakers are enabled to derive deeper insights into the nature of conflict and \u2018stability\u2019, which might inform both operational praxis and future policy. Researchers will also learn from this district-level study, which presents a localised history of socio-political violence that coloursand counterbalances grander narratives on the Afghanistan conflict. Marx said that history repeats itself; first as tragedy, then as farce. If we are to learn from history, from the recent history of military intervention, then\u00a0War Comes to Garmser<\/em>\u00a0is a rare, timely and lucidly-written historical study which will help illuminate the path ahead.\u2019 \u2014\u00a0Small Wars and Insurgencies<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018War Comes to Garmser\u00a0<\/em>is a brilliantly written, minutely detailed and rigorously honest political-military history. A microcosm of the war in Afghanistan, it is\u00a0evocative\u00a0of opportunities missed and\u00a0possibilities\u00a0yet to exploit. A must-read for those who want understanding that is more than headline deep.\u2019 \u2014 Ronald E. Neumann, former United States Ambassador to Afghanistan (2005-2007), now president of the American Academy of Diplomacy<\/p>\n

\u2018In the nineteenth century Britain employed political officers\u00a0on the troubled frontiers of its empire. They immersed themselves in their localities,\u00a0learnt about the\u00a0inhabitants\u00a0and heard their stories. Carter Malkasian is an American twenty-first century political officer. Outwardly his\u00a0deeply revealing book is about Afghanistan\u2019s experience of war over three decades, but it\u00a0is also a mirror on the US itself. His message is clear:\u00a0deep historical and cultural understanding is at the heart of good strategy.\u2019 \u2014 Hew Strachan, Chichele Professor of the History of War, Oxford University<\/p>\n

\u2018If we are to learn from history, from the recent history of military intervention, then\u00a0War Comes to Garmser\u00a0<\/i>is a rare, timely and lucidly-written historical study which will help illuminate the path ahead.\u2019 \u2014 William Carter,\u00a0Small Wars & Insurgencies<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n
\n

Carter Malkasian spent nearly two years in Garmser district as the political office working for the US Department of State. A Pashto speaker, he lived in a Marine outpost but spent most of his time with Afghans, often riding, eating, and sleeping with them. He has interviewed hundreds of Afghans about war, their district, and its history, including forty or so Taliban.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A micro-history of one small district in Afghanistan and the vicissitudes of its people in America\u2019s longest foreign war. Description […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":412371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"product_cat":[3719],"product_tag":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-412341","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-afghanistan","8":"first","9":"onbackorder","10":"taxable","11":"shipping-taxable","12":"purchasable","13":"product-type-simple"},"bundle_layout":"","bundled_by":[],"bundled_items":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marineshop.ecomitize.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/412341"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marineshop.ecomitize.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marineshop.ecomitize.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marineshop.ecomitize.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marineshop.ecomitize.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marineshop.ecomitize.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marineshop.ecomitize.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=412341"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marineshop.ecomitize.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=412341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}