Overview

Full Product Details

9780231210133

Table of Contents

Reviews

This book is a grim but necessary autopsy of America’s policy failures. The U.S. believed it could manage the risks of recruiting militias as proxy forces in the Middle East. With intrepid field research, extensive interviews, and sharp analytical thinking, Gaston shows why these efforts often proved ineffective or counterproductive. -- Ariel I. Ahram, author of <i>Break all the Borders: Separatism and the Reshaping of the Middle East</i>

This book is a grim but necessary autopsy of America’s policy failures. The U.S. believed it could manage the risks of recruiting militias as proxy forces in the Middle East. With intrepid field research, extensive interviews, and sharp analytical thinking, Gaston shows why these efforts often proved ineffective or counterproductive. -- Ariel I. Ahram, author of <i>Break all the Borders: Separatism and the Reshaping of the Middle East</i> For years, Erica Gaston has been a leading fieldwork researcher on paramilitary groups, militias, local governance, and violent internal conflicts. Her impressive on-the-ground research, running from Afghanistan to Iraq and beyond, has often revealed crucial dynamics escaping established policy. Her excellent book masterfully marries this unbeatable ground-truth knowledge with new insights. Once again, it fiercely challenges established policy dogma, but, as always, does so with nuance, objectivity and deep appreciation for regional variation. -- Vanda Felbab-Brown, Director of the Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors and Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

Author Information

Erica L. Gaston is senior policy advisor and head of the Conflict Prevention and Sustaining Peace Programme at the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research. She is also an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a nonresident fellow at both the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Global Public Policy Institute.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available