The Return of the Taliban

Reviewed by: Christopher Anzalone, George Mason University, Virginia, USA

Published by – New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023, 305pp. ISBN: 978-0300267884.

In August 2021, the Afghan Taliban took over control of Afghanistan, ending over two decades of insurgency and seizing control over the institutions and levers of state power. Though still not officially recognized as the Afghan government, the Taliban today frame themselves as the country’s rulers and continue to seek the establishment of varying levels of diplomatic relations with foreign countries and international organizations and NGOs. How did the internationally-backed Afghan government fall so quickly in the face of Taliban offensives, enabling the armed group to capture Kabul and all of the country’s other major cities? That is the driving question explored in The Return of the Taliban: Afghanistan after the Americans Left, a conversationally written book by Hassan Abbas, a long-time professor of international relations at the Near East South Asia (NESA) Strategic Studies Center housed at the National Defense University, a professional military education (PME) institution that is part of the United States Department of Defence. Abbas has published and spoken extensively on South Asian security including on Afghanistan and Pakistan.