About the Author

Bruce Riedel is senior fellow and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project. Riedel joined Brookings following a thirty-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency. He served as a senior adviser to four U.S. presidents on South Asia and the Middle East, working as a senior member of the National Security Council. In 2009 President Obama made him chairman of a strategic review of American policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is author of the Brookings best seller The Search for al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future.

Reviews

“A penetrating analysis of America's covert war in Afghanistan from 1979 to1989 and of the important lessons of that 'secret war.' In What We Won, Bruce Riedel shows once again that he ranks with the most authoritative voices on this episode, providing a brilliant chronicle of the development of the Afghan covert operation and offering an unblinking assessment of the consequences of the mujahedin defeat of the Soviets.” —General David H. Petraeus, U.S. Army (Retired)

The foremost intelligence and policy expert on Afghanistan and Pakistan has produced a vital and concise history of America's first engagement in that pivotal part of the world that is still President Obama's war today. This book is both cogent history and dramatic lesson.” —Bob Woodward, Washington Post

“An exceptionally fine piece of work by someone superbly qualified to address the subject with authority and perspective, it changed my mind on several key issues and players in the war.” —John McLaughlin, former deputy director of the CIA and professor at the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies