Organizations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond (Hardcover)  | Released: 2008

While popular accounts of warfare, particularly of nontraditional conflicts such as guerrilla wars and insurgencies, favor the role of leaders or ideology, social- scientific analyses of these wars focus on aggregate categories such as ethnic groups, religious affiliations, socioeconomic classes, or civilizations. Challenging these constructions, Abdulkader H. Sinno closely examines the fortunes of the various factions in Afghanistan, including the mujahideen and the Taliban, that have been fighting each other and foreign armies since the 1979 Soviet invasion. Focusing on the organization of the combatants, Sinno offers a new understanding of the course and outcome of such conflicts.Table of Contents: List of Maps and Figures List of Tables Preface Note on Transliteration 1. Organizing to Win PART ONE: AN ORGANIZATIONAL THEORY or GROUP CONFLICT 2. Organization and the Outcome of Conflicts 3. Advantages and Limitations of Structures 4. The Gist of the Organizational Theory PART TWO: EXPLAINING THE OUTCOMES OF AFGHAN CONFLICTS 5. The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan 6. Resilience through Division, 1979 - 1989 7. The Cost of the Failure to Restructure, 1989 - 1994 8. The Rise of the Taliban, 1994 2001 9. Afghan Conflicts under U.S. Occupation, 2001 - PART THREE: AND BEYOND . . . 10. The Organizational Theory beyond Afghanistan Glossary of Terms Participants in Post-1978 Afghan Conflicts References