The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan - Hardcover

Feifer, Gregory

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061143189 ISBN 13: 9780061143182

Verlag: Harper Collins, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

Book by Feifer Gregory

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Reseña del editor:

Examines the conflict from a perspective of ground soldiers to offer insight into how the war was presented as a victory but experienced as a demoralizing defeat that had a substantial impact on the Soviet Union and its collapse, in an extensively researched account that reveals key lessons for today's American foreign policymakers.

Contraportada:

The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a grueling debacle that has striking lessons for the twenty-first century. In The Great Gamble, Gregory Feifer examines the conflict from the perspective of the soldiers on the ground. During the last years of the Cold War, the Soviet Union sent some of its most elite troops to unfamiliar lands in Central Asia to fight a vaguely defined enemy, which eventually defeated their superior numbers with unconventional tactics. Although the Soviet leadership initially saw the invasion as a victory, many Russian soldiers came to view the war as a demoralizing and devastating defeat, the consequences of which had a substantial impact on the Soviet Union and its collapse.

Feifer's extensive research includes eye-opening interviews with participants from both sides of the conflict. In gripping detail, he vividly depicts the invasion of a volatile country that no power has ever successfully conquered. Parallels between the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are impossible to ignore—both conflicts were waged amid vague ideological rhetoric about freedom. Both were roundly condemned by the outside world for trying to impose their favored forms of government on countries with very different ways of life. And both seem destined to end on uncertain terms.

A groundbreaking account seen through the eyes of the men who fought it, The Great Gamble tells an unforgettable story full of drama, action, and political intrigue whose relevance in our own time is greater than ever.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: Harper Collins
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0061143189
• ISBN 13: 9780061143182
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 326