Examines how the failure of the nation building policies of the United States have contributed to increased instability in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, a result which represents the greatest threat to peace and security in the global community.

In early March 1994, five exhausted and starving members of a British Army expedition emerged from Low's Gully, a five-mile-long hell hole falling away from Mount Kinabalu in the jungles of Borneo. However, the achievement of the five - mostly fit and able young British non-commissioned officers - in being the first to conquer Low's Gully, was overshadowed by the fact that the other five members of the team, two relatively old and senior British officers as the leaders and three young novice Chinese storemen and guards serving under the British military in Hong Kong, were apparently still lost in the gully. What had gone wrong and why had the group broken the golden rule for such expeditions - never split up?

"A ... chronicle of the reasons behind Iraq's descent into guerrilla war, warlord rule, criminality, and anarchy ... It features candid interviews with high-ranking officials ... as well as Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, intelligence officers, and prominent analysts... Together, these voices reveal the principal errors of U.S. policy -- using insufficient troop levels, allowing the looting of Baghdad, purging professionals from the Iraq government, and disbanding the Iraqi military -- errors that largely created the insurgency and chaos that engulf Iraq today. The book brings the movie up-to-date by evaluating the military's recent 'surge' tactic as well as current administration policy. It concludes with a wide-ranging debate on the crucial question: what do we do now?"--P. [4] of cover.

An urgent, on-the-ground report from Pakistan—from the bestselling author of Descent Into Chaos and Taliban Ahmed Rashid, one of the world's leading experts on the social and political situations in Pakistan and Afghanistan, offers a highly anticipated update on the possibilities—and hazards—facing the United States after the death of Osama bin Laden and as Operation Enduring Freedom winds down. With the characteristic professionalism that has made him the preeminent independent journalist in Pakistan for three decades, Rashid asks the important questions and delivers informed insights about the future of U.S. relations with the troubled region. His most urgent book to date, Pakistan on the Brink is the third volume in a comprehensive series that is a call to action to our nation's leaders and an exposition of this conflict's impact on the security of the world.

Accustomed to simple security work, Cassidy Macayla finds herself in over her head, coerced by difficult circumstances and a well-meaning employer to accept an unusual proposition: Help Special Agent Chase Averey during his recovery, and hope they don't die in the process. Danger lurks around every corner, and she has enough to worry about without the handsome, dangerous blast from the past who insists on adding to an already complicated set of circumstances.......

In this provocative, classic metaphysical thriller, a group of suburban amateur actors plagued by personal demons and terrors explore the pathways to heaven and hell Certain inhabitants of Battle Hill, a small community on the outskirts of London, are preparing to mount a new play by the neighborhood’s most illustrious resident, the writer Peter Stanhope. Each actor struggles with self-absorption, doubt, fear, and sin. But “the Hill” is not like other places. Here the past and present intermingle, ghosts walk among the living, and reality is often clouded by dreams and the dark fantastic. For young Pauline Anstruther, who is caring for an aging grandmother and frightened by the specter of a doppelgänger who gets closer with each visitation, the prospect of heaven exists in the renowned playwright’s willingness to bear the burden of her terror. For eminent historian Lawrence Wentworth, the rejection of his desire pulls him deeper inside himself, leaving him vulnerable to the lure of the succubus and opening wide the entrance to hell. A brilliant theological thriller, Descent into Hell is an extraordinary fictional meditation on sin and personal salvation by one of the twentieth century’s most original and provocative literary artists. Charles Williams, a member of the Inklings alongside fellow Oxfordians C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Owen Barfield, has written a powerful work at once profoundly disturbing and gloriously uplifting, an ingenious amalgam of metaphysics, religious thought, and darkest fantasy.

Pakistan's northwest frontier has become a breeding ground for a growing Islamic militancy that threatens the stability of the country. Instability in Pakistan's federally administered tribal areas and North-West frontier province also threatens NATO's strategic Khyber Pass lifeline to Afghanistan, where 37,000 U.S. troops are attempting to contain an expanding Taliban insurgency. Pakistan's Troubled Frontier offers a gripping snapshot of the militants and movements threatening a region plunging into turmoil. Arriving at a time when the United States is dramatically increasing its presence in Afghanistan and conducting a careful review of its policies and goals in the border region, the book is a substantial contribution to understanding the long-term future of U.S. security interests in South and Central Asia. "An essential source for anyone trying to understand what is happening in every single region of the tribal belt, who the main players are, their links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban and what their future aims may be. A brilliant and impressive addition to a subject of which little is known."--Ahmed Rashid, author of Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia "A timely guide for the policymaker, the scholar, and the journalist... unequaled in its range and comprehensiveness."--Stephen P. Cohen, author of The Idea of Pakistan