Zero Out - by Steve Coll (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The definitive and epic story of the end of America's longest war and withdrawal from Afghanistan, by Steve Coll, the Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling author of Ghost Wars and Directorate S

The war in Afghanistan spanned multiple administrations and cost trillions of dollars. In 2016, Trump promised, like previous presidents, to end it once and for all. And yet, there was no consensus across the government, intelligence services, or the military about how to withdraw troops responsibly and effectively without handing the country back over to the Taliban. Over the next four years, the US would lurch erratically towards an exit from war--holding secretive peace talks to reduce the presence of troops--but with diplomatic, CIA, and military efforts often at cross-purposes, and with little to no coordination between American allies both in Afghanistan and NATO. All the while, the Taliban grew stronger and increasingly emboldened. After Joe Biden was elected in 2020, his administration delayed the withdrawal before committing to having American troops gone by September 2021--the twenty-year anniversary of catastrophic 9/11 attacks that had instigated the war in the first place. A conclusive, disastrous retreat was set in motion, culminating in the collapse of the Afghan military, the Taliban takeover of Kabul on August 15, 2021, and, finally, a devastating suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 26. President Biden's approval rating plummeted, never to recover before the 2024 election.

One of the most distinguished and accomplished reporters at work today, Coll tells this story in astonishing, engrossing, forensic detail, revealing the true characters and motivations at work behind the scenes. With news-breaking sources from within the Pentagon and the CIA, as well as throughout the region, Coll takes readers into the rooms where the war was lost and how the fate of the people of Afghanistan was decided. This is one of the great human tragedies our time, grippingly told in full for the first time. A masterpiece of peerlessly reported history, and the capstone to the narratives of Ghost Wars and Directorate S, Zero Out is destined to be read for decades.

About the Author

Steve Coll is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars and dean emeritus of the Columbia Journalism School, and from 2007 to 2013 was president of the New America Foundation, a public policy institute in Washington, D.C. He is an editor at The Economist in London, was a staff writer at The New Yorker for nearly two decades, and before that was a writer and editor at The Washington Post, where he received a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism in 1990. He is the author of nine books, including The Bin Ladens, Private Empire, Directorate S, and The Achilles Trap.