Podcasts about ghost wars the secret history

Subscribe to The Realignment to access our exclusive Q&A episodes and support the show: https://realignment.supercast.com/REALIGNMENT NEWSLETTER: https://therealignment.substack.com/PURCHASE BOOKS AT OUR BOOKSHOP: https://bookshop.org/shop/therealignmentEmail Us: realignmentpod@gmail.comFoundation for American Innovation: https://www.thefai.org/posts/lincoln-becomes-faiSteve Coll, author of The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq and Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, joins The Realignment. Marshall and Steve discuss America's decades-long relationship with Saddam Hussein before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the CIA's intelligence failures that led to radical misinterpretations of Saddam's ambitions after the Gulf War, the Iraq War's significance 20 years later, and how past mistakes can inform today's assessments of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. 

In this episode, we are joined by Steve Coll. Coll is a New Yorker staff writer and reports on issues of politics, intelligence, and national security in the United States and abroad. He has written about the education of Osama bin Laden, secret negotiations between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, and the hunt for the fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. He was the managing editor of the Washington Post from 1998 to 2005, having earlier been a feature writer, a foreign correspondent, and an editor there; in 1990, he shared a Pulitzer Prize with David Vise for a series of articles about the Securities and Exchange Commission. From 2007 to 2013, he was the president of the New America Foundation. Coll is the author of several books, including “Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan”; “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power”; “The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century,” which won the pen/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction; “On the Grand Trunk Road: A Journey Into South Asia”; “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the C.I.A., Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001,” for which he received an Overseas Press Club Award and a Pulitzer Prize; “Eagle on the Street,” which was based on his reporting on the S.E.C.; “The Taking of Getty Oil”; and “The Deal of the Century: The Breakup of AT&T.” Coll has served as dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, where he continues to teach. Support the show and become a War Stories patron: https://www.patreon.com/warstoriespodcast Website: https://www.warstories.co

About the Book In Three Dangerous Men, defense expert Seth Jones argues that the US is woefully unprepared for the future of global competition. While America has focused on building fighter jets, missiles, and conventional warfighting capabilities, its three principal rivals—Russia, Iran, and China—have increasingly adopted irregular warfare: cyber attacks, the use of proxy forces, propaganda, espionage, and disinformation to undermine American power. About Seth Jones Seth G. Jones is senior vice president, Harold Brown Chair, director of the International Security Program, and director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He leads a bipartisan team of over 50 resident staff and an extensive network of non-resident affiliates dedicated to providing independent strategic insights and policy solutions that shape national security. He also teaches at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. Moderated by Steve Coll Dean Steve Coll is a staff writer at The New Yorker, the author of eight books of nonfiction, and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Coll is the author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 published in 2004, for which he received an Overseas Press Club Award and a Pulitzer Prize. . . Do you believe in the importance of international education and connections? The nonprofit World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth is supported by gifts from people like you, who share our passion for engaging in dialogue on global affairs and building bridges of understanding. While the Council is not currently charging admission for virtual events, we ask you to please consider making a one-time or recurring gift to help us keep the conversation going through informative public programs and targeted events for students and teachers. Donate: https://www.dfwworld.org/donate

It's 1992. The 40th Army is long gone and the Soviet Union has collapsed, but war still rages across Afghanistan. As the Afghan communist regime crumbles, Ahmed Shah Massoud and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's forces clash in Kabul. While America turns its back and the Mujahideen turn on each other, new threats arise and threaten to sweep the old generation of freedom fighters away – The Taliban and Osama bin Laden. (Part 4 of Ghosts in the Mountains) SOURCES: Ahmadi-Miller, Enjeela. The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan. 2019. Alexievich, Svetlana. Zinky Boys. 1989. Ansari, Mir Tamim. Games Without Rules: The Often-Interrupted History of Afghanistan. 2012. Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History. 2010. Borovik, Artyom. The Hidden War. 1990. Braithewaite, Rodric. Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979-1989. 2011. Coll, Steve. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to 2001. 2004.  Dobbs, Michael. Down with Big Brother: The Fall of the Soviet Empire. 1997. Feifer, Gregory. The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan. 2009.  Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. The Soviet-Afghan War, 1979-89. 2012. Galeotti, Mark. Storm-333: KGB and Spetsnaz Seize Kabul. 2021. Gall, Sandy. Afghan Napoleon: The Life of Ahmed Shah Massoud. 2021. Grad, Marcela. Massoud: An Intimate Portrait of the Legendary Afghan Leader. 2009. Goodwin, Jan. Caught in the Crossfire. 1987.  Grau, Lester W. The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics In Afghanistan. 1996. Hosdon, Peregrine. Under a Sickle Moon: A Journey Through Afghanistan. 1986. Kalinovsky, Artemy. A Long Goodbye: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan. 2011. Kaplan, Robert D. Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 2001. Rosen, Ethan. The Bear, The Dragon, & the AK-47. 2017. Tanner, Stephen. Afghanistan: A Military History of Afghanistan from Alexander the Great to the War Against the Taliban. 2009.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the CIA wages a covert proxy war against the Soviet 40th Army, the Mujahideen are showered with billions of dollars and cutting-edge weaponry. An old animosity between two prominent Mujahideen commanders – Ahmed Shah Massoud and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar - turns into a bitter, deadly rivalry. Meanwhile, Soviet reformers led by Mikhail Gorbachev attempt to extricate the USSR from Afghanistan with a shred of dignity intact. After the Soviet withdrawal, the world turns it back on Afghanistan as a civil war rages between the Mujahideen factions – and the Taliban emerges.  SOURCES: Ahmadi-Miller, Enjeela. The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan. 2019. Alexievich, Svetlana. Zinky Boys. 1989. Ansari, Mir Tamim. Games Without Rules: The Often-Interrupted History of Afghanistan. 2012. Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History. 2010. Borovik, Artyom. The Hidden War. 1990. Braithewaite, Rodric. Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979-1989. 2011. Coll, Steve. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to 2001. 2004.  Dobbs, Michael. Down with Big Brother: The Fall of the Soviet Empire. 1997. Feifer, Gregory. The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan. 2009.  Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. The Soviet-Afghan War, 1979-89. 2012. Galeotti, Mark. Storm-333: KGB and Spetsnaz Seize Kabul. 2021. Gall, Sandy. Afghan Napoleon: The Life of Ahmed Shah Massoud. 2021. Grad, Marcela. Massoud: An Intimate Portrait of the Legendary Afghan Leader. 2009. Goodwin, Jan. Caught in the Crossfire. 1987.  Grau, Lester W. The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics In Afghanistan. 1996. Hosdon, Peregrine. Under a Sickle Moon: A Journey Through Afghanistan. 1986. Kalinovsky, Artemy. A Long Goodbye: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan. 2011. Kaplan, Robert D. Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 2001. Rosen, Ethan. The Bear, The Dragon, & the AK-47. 2017. Tanner, Stephen. Afghanistan: A Military History of Afghanistan from Alexander the Great to the War Against the Taliban. 2009.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Soviet 40th Army invaded Afghanistan in the closing days of 1979. They would not leave for another nine years. Exhausted and frustrated by their inability to decisively crush the elusive freedom fighters in the mountains – the Mujahideen – the Soviets turn to atrocity and criminal violence to achieve their objectives. Meanwhile, adrenaline-seeking journalists and idealistic Western reporters illegally sneak into the war zone to uncover the truth behind the war.  SOURCES: Ahmadi-Miller, Enjeela. The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan. 2019. Ansari, Mir Tamim. Games Without Rules: The Often-Interrupted History of Afghanistan. 2012. Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History. 2010. Borovik, Artyom. The Hidden War. 1990. Braithewaite, Rodric. Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979-1989. 2011. Coll, Steve. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to 2001. 2004.  Dobbs, Michael. Down with Big Brother: The Fall of the Soviet Empire. 1997. Feifer, Gregory. The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan. 2009.  Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. The Soviet-Afghan War, 1979-89. 2012. Galeotti, Mark. Storm-333: KGB and Spetsnaz Seize Kabul. 2021. Goodwin, Jan. Caught in the Crossfire. 1987.  Grau, Lester W. The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics In Afghanistan. 1996. Hosdon, Peregrine. Under a Sickle Moon: A Journey Through Afghanistan. 1986. Kalinovsky, Artemy. A Long Goodbye: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan. 2011. Kaplan, Robert D. Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 2001. Rosen, Ethan. The Bear, The Dragon, & the AK-47. 2017. Tanner, Stephen. Afghanistan: A Military History of Afghanistan from Alexander the Great to the War Against the Taliban. 2009.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Soviet Russia invaded Afghanistan in December of 1979, few could have imagined what a seismic impact it would have on the modern world. In an attempt to prop up a wobbly client regime, the Soviets sparked a transnational jihad, inflamed Cold War tensions, and hastened the downfall of their own empire. Often referred to as “Russia's Vietnam”, the Soviet-Afghan War is an overlooked, deeply misunderstood, and immensely important conflict. In this first installment of a multi-part series, we will explore how the Soviets found themselves ensnared in the “graveyard of empires”, through the eyes of the everyday people who experienced it firsthand.  SOURCES: Ahmadi-Miller, Enjeela. The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan. 2019. Ansari, Mir Tamim. Games Without Rules: The Often-Interrupted History of Afghanistan. 2012. Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History. 2010. Borovik, Artyom. The Hidden War. 1990. Braithewaite, Rodric. Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979-1989. 2011. Coll, Steve. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to 2001. 2004.  Dobbs, Michael. Down with Big Brother: The Fall of the Soviet Empire. 1997. Feifer, Gregory. The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan. 2009.  Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. The Soviet-Afghan War, 1979-89. 2012. Galeotti, Mark. Storm-333: KGB and Spetsnaz Seize Kabul. 2021. Grau, Lester W. The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics In Afghanistan. 1996. Hosdon, Peregrine. Under a Sickle Moon: A Journey Through Afghanistan. 1986. Kalinovsky, Artemy. A Long Goodbye: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan. 2011. Kaplan, Robert D. Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 2001. Rosen, Ethan. The Bear, The Dragon, & the AK-47. 2017. Tanner, Stephen. Afghanistan: A Military History of Afghanistan from Alexander the Great to the War Against the Taliban. 2009.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's episode, Andrew Keen talks with Steve Coll about what Donald Trump gets from contesting Joe Biden's presidential victory and the damage to foreign policy Trump's administration has caused. Steve Coll, a staff writer, is the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University and reports on issues of politics, intelligence, and national security in the United States and abroad. For the magazine, he has written about the education of Osama bin Laden, secret negotiations between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, and the hunt for the fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. He was the managing editor of the Washington Post from 1998 to 2005, having earlier been a feature writer, a foreign correspondent, and an editor there; in 1990, he shared a Pulitzer Prize with David Vise for a series of articles about the Securities and Exchange Commission. From 2007 to 2013, he was the president of the New America Foundation. Coll is the author of several books, including “Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan”; “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power”; “The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century,” which won the pen/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction; “On the Grand Trunk Road: A Journey Into South Asia”; “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the C.I.A., Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001,” for which he received an Overseas Press Club Award and a Pulitzer Prize; “Eagle on the Street,” which was based on his reporting on the S.E.C.; “The Taking of Getty Oil”; and “The Deal of the Century: The Breakup of AT&T.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Viraj Solanki, IISS Research Analyst for South Asia, joins Dr Kori Schake for this episode of Sounds Strategic.Viraj and Kori discuss the distinct breadth and depth of research produced by the IISS South Asia Programme. Viraj explains how recent events in the Maldives and Seychelles reflect a geopolitical renaissance for small island nations in South Asia.Set within the context of China's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Viraj highlights the new importance of small power relations and the scale of renewed engagement by China, India and the West. Kori and Viraj also discuss the future of the BRI and prospects for peace in Afghanistan in this wide-ranging discussion on the region.Favourite data visualisation:Financial Times, How China rules the waves, January 2017Reading recommendations:Christina Lamb, Farewell Kabul: From Afghanistan to a More Dangerous World (London: William Collins Publishers, 2015)Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden (London: Penguin Books, 2005)Date of recording: 25 January 2019Sounds Strategic is recorded and produced at the IISS in London.Theme music: ‘Safety in Numbers' by We Were Promised Jetpacks. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

About 13 years ago, I climbed on the bandwagon and, like lots of other folks, read several books to better understand our history in Afghanistan and Iraq and with Al Quaeda — how we got into the mess and, maybe how we’d get out.You may recall – it was a bit of a golden age of reporting and writing. Among them: “The Looming Tower” by Lawrence Wright;  “Fiasco,” by Thomas Ricks; “Imperial Life In The Emerald City,” by Rajiv Chandrasekaran; “The Places in Between,” Rory Stewart’s crazy story of walking across Afghanistan, as well as his follow-up "The Prince of Marshes." But the first one I read has long stayed with me, and set the context for the all the others to come: That was the Pulitzer prizewinning “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001” by Steve Coll.“Ghost Wars” outlined the CIA’s secret history in Afghanistan, the Taliban’s rise, the emergence of Osama bin Laden, and the failed efforts by U.S. forces to find and assassinate him in Afghanistan. It ends the day before 9/11.Now, finally, Steve Coll is back on the beat. His new book is "Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” It tells the story of America's intelligence, military, and diplomatic efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 9/11.The book is as powerful and relevant and urgent as Ghost Wars was. It mixes details and insights and analysis that, once again makes plain — in painful ways — what happened after those planes hit the World Trade Center.More about Steve Coll — somehow, writing some of the most important books on our most important foreign policies is not all he does. Coll’s day job is serving as Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism. He is also a staff writer at The New Yorker, author of seven books, and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. There’s a lot more, but you get the idea. That’s also why at the end of our talk, I picked up on my conversation last week with Harvard professors Steve Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt. They wrote the outstanding “How Democracies Die.” My question for journalism Dean Coll, rather than the author: How does democracy work with people who think facts are alternative facts, that real news is fake news? How does it work with people who believe anything – or nothing at all?

Steve Coll is the Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University. Coll most recently served for five years as president of The New America Foundation, a leading public policy institute in Washington that has supported a wide range of thinking on the public issues facing our society, including the changes in journalism. In 1985, Coll joined the Washington Post as a general assignment feature writer for the Style section and over the next twenty years served as a foreign correspondent and senior editor, culminating in his tenure as managing editor from 1998 through 2004. He received his first Pulitzer in 1990 for explanatory journalism with a series of articles on the Securities and Exchange Commission which he reported with David Vise. The author of seven books, Coll won his second Pulitzer Prize in 2005, in general non-fiction, for Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. Ghost Wars also won the Council of Foreign Relations' Arthur Ross award, the Overseas Press Club Award, and the Lionel Gelber Prize for the best book published about international affairs. His latest book, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, was published this past November, and won the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs prize for best business book of the year.

Conversations Host Harry Kreisler welcomes Steve Coll, Pulitzer prize winning author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden for a discussion of how the superpower conflict in the last stages of the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy before and after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the political dynamics of South Asia created the setting in which Islamic terrorism took root and flourished. Series: "Conversations with History" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 9513]

Conversations Host Harry Kreisler welcomes Steve Coll, Pulitzer prize winning author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden for a discussion of how the superpower conflict in the last stages of the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy before and after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the political dynamics of South Asia created the setting in which Islamic terrorism took root and flourished. Series: "Conversations with History" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 9513]

Conversations Host Harry Kreisler welcomes Steve Coll, Pulitzer prize winning author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden for a discussion of how the superpower conflict in the last stages of the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy before and after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the political dynamics of South Asia created the setting in which Islamic terrorism took root and flourished. Series: "Conversations with History" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 9513]