The EconomistFebruary 10th 2018 Books and arts 77H
OW to account for America’s failure in
its longest war? For Steve Coll, the con-
flict in Afghanistan has proved to be a
“humbling case study in the limits of
American power”. Sixteen years after the
invasion, and despite military or aid efforts
from 59 countries, Afghanistan is unstable,
violent and poor. Afghans remain vulner-
able to a resurgent Taliban army.
Few writers are better placed than Mr
Coll, a journalist and former head of the
New America Foundation, a think-tank, to
explain why. In “Ghost Wars”, published in
2004, he assessed the years before the at-
tacks of September 11th 2001; it won a Pulit-
zer prize and is required reading on the re-
gion, especially on the foibles of America’s
spies. “Directorate S” is the sequel. In it Mr
Coll sets out an impressively detailed, styl-
ishly crafted and authoritative chronicle of
America’s post-invasion efforts in Afghani-
stan and Pakistan.
He has remarkably good sources and
sprinkles his text with vivid descriptions.
The Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, sits with
his legs drawn up, picking at his bare toes
and chatting to a Pakistani spy chief. An
anxious Taliban negotiator vomits copi-
ously during talks at a safe house in Mu-
nich. Conveying the views of Pakistan’s
double-dealing generals and spooks, Mr
Coll draws from private conversations re-
corded by American eavesdroppers.
These details enliven strong analysis.
America’s primary goals after 9/11, he ar-
gues, were twofold. Unfortunatelythey re-
quired contradictory methods. Preventing
Pakistani nuclear weapons going astray
depended on close co-operation with the
Pakistani state, notably its army and spy
service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
But achieving a second goal—destroying al-
Qaeda and otherviolentIslamist groups—
has proved far harder. In that, Pakistan has
more often been a hindrance than a help.
Despite the killing of Osama bin Laden
in 2011, al-Qaeda and its jihadist offshoots
remain “active, lethal and adaptive”, notes
Mr Coll. As for America’s lesser goals, his
recurrent theme is failure (he uses the term
over 100 times). Stable, civilian rule is a
long way off in both countries. The Taliban
are undefeated, despite negotiations,
drone assassinations and conventional
fighting. That is mostly because Pakistan
gives them support and sanctuary. Afghan
opium cultivation continues in place of le-
gal crops. The author captures well a sense
of futility among Western forces. “This is anever-ending war,” CIAofficers lament. A
Canadian commander complains that he
is “digging a hole in the ocean”.
Rightly, Mr Coll spreads the blame for
all this disappointment. America’s spies
and soldiers failed to kill bin Laden early in
the Tora Bora mountains. Their use of tor-
ture and excessive aggression strength-
ened their opponents. American political
leaders, allergic to “nation-building”,
would not fund peace efforts and were dis-
tracted by Iraq. Anyway, they could never
agree on exactly what they hoped to
achieve in Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai, the
former Afghan president, proved unreli-
able and too fond of warlord allies.Friends like these
Meanwhile American diplomats and spies
were generally too slow to grasp how Paki-
stan backs the Taliban and promotes vio-
lence over its border. Compounding that
problem, American politicians, above all
Barack Obama, signalled that they would
withdraw early even as they boosted their
forces in Afghanistan. That encouraged
Pakistan to plan for a new civil war, with
the Taliban as proxies. Mr Coll concludes
that there was “chronic triangular mis-
trust” between America and the two Asian
countries. That persists.
The title suggests Mr Coll especially
blames the destructive behaviour of Paki-stan’s spies. Directorate S, equivalent to the
CIA’s special-activities division, is a partic-
ularly dark corner of the notoriousISI. It
oversees relations with the Taliban and un-
dermines civilian politicians in Pakistan.
More generally, the army promotesjihadi
terror attacks in India and Afghanistan,
stoking tension, the better to justify its out-
sized claims on state resources.
Mr Coll points the finger atISIofficers
for causing bloodshed and taking risks that
might provoke another war. He concludes,
for example, that it was “fully evident that
ISIofficers had cooked up” the horrific ter-
rorist attack in Mumbai in 2008, which did
much to isolate Pakistan internationally
and spurred better relations between India
and America. He is more cautious than
some writers, however, on whether the ISI
also helped bin Laden find shelter in Ab-
bottabad, an army town. He calls the idea
“plausible” butnot proven.
Oddly, for an otherwise exhaustive
book, Mr Coll neglects some notable epi-
sodes. He omits the murder of a Pakistani
investigative journalist, Syed Saleem
Shahzad (widely blamed on the ISI,
though it denies involvement). Nor does
he mention al-Qaeda’s unnervingly suc-
cessful, large-scale attack in 2011 on Meh-
ran, a military base in Karachi, which
Shahzad was investigating. That raid, and
the killing of bin Laden, humiliated the ISI.
Mr Coll also passes over al-Qaeda’s attack
on an American base in Khost, on the Af-
ghan-Pakistani border, which killed eight
CIAstaff in 2009, the agency’s biggest hu-
man loss in over a quarter of a century.
These flaws are small. Mr Coll’s overall
judgment is as gloomy as it is compelling.
The fighting since 2001 led directly to at
least 140,000 deaths, including 50,000 ci-
vilians, but has achieved painfully little.
Throughout, America lacked a “coherent
geopolitical vision”. Most glaringly, it could
never decide if Pakistan was an ally or an
enemy. Despite recent, tough-sounding
talk from President Donald Trump about
Pakistan, that fatal ambiguity endures. 7The war in AfghanistanDigging a hole in the ocean
American politicians have never decided whether Pakistan is an ally or an enemyThe hunt for hearts and mindsDirectorate S: The CIA and America’s
Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan,
2001-2016.By Steve Coll. Penguin Press;
748 pages; $35. Allen Lane; £25