Directorate S

The international bestselling account of America's grim involvement in the affairs of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2016In the wake of the terrible shock of 9/11, the C.I.A. scrambled to work out how to destroy Bin Laden and his associates. Superficially the invasion was quick and efficient, but Bin Laden's successful escape, together with that of much of the Taliban leadership, and a catastrophic failure to define the limits of NATO's mission in a tough, impoverished country the size of Texas, created a quagmire which has now lasted many years. At the heart of the problem lay 'Directorate S', a highly secretive arm of the Pakistan state which had its own views on the Taliban and Afghanistan's place in a wider competition for influence between Pakistan, India and China, and which assumed that the U.S.A. and its allies would soon be leaving.Steve Coll's remarkable new book tells a powerful, bitter story of just how badly foreign policy decisions can go wrong and of many lives lost.

“Every assertion is carefully sourced and checked. This book is in the finest traditions of American investigative journalism. Coll is the thinking man's Michael Wolff.”

-- Sherard Cowper-Coles The Times
A masterful and entertaining account ... the story is delivered with a literary prowess that has been absent in previous western accounts of America's longest running war -- Rafia Zakaria Guardian
Spectacular ... Directorate S has a cast of characters that makes Bourne movies pale in comparison -- Demetri Sevastopulo Financial Times
Impressively detailed, stylishly crafted and authoritative... as gloomy as it is compelling Economist

Steve Coll is dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. His major books include Private Empire, The Bin Ladens and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars. He is a staff writer on The New Yorker.

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