Neal Rauhauser reviewed The Soviet-Afghan War by Lester W. Grau
The Soviet-Afghan War
5 stars
I read this book not long after it was publish, maybe the fall of 2003. I recall it being a good read - the U.S. had pranced into Afghanistan without much of a plan, then blundered into Iraq. I never imagined breaking contact with the irregular forces of Afghanistan would be a humiliating retreat twenty years later, but I had already begun to suspect it would be bad. The lessons in this book had to be relearned the hard way by coalition forces. Asymmetric conflicts are going to be an ongoing problem and it's worth revisiting this one and comparing it to the collective war diary of NATO forces in the country that began twenty years later.