Readers of George Packer's The Assassin's Gate, Asne Seierstad's The Bookseller of Kabul, Christina Lamb's The Sewing Cirdes of Herat, Jason Burke's Al Qaeda, Rory Stewart's The Plaoes In-Between, and Samantha Power's A Problem from Hell Tribal rivalries, the bluff cunning of the warlords, the jihadist insurgents, the opium traders, the politicians and police chiefs: they all come under Chayes' unblinking gaze, and her book yields telling and mesmerizing insights into how the imperially mighty American occupiers are outwitted and outdanced at every turn by lesser forces. The dazzling villain of this story? ISI, Pakistani intelligence, to whom every other group is but a puppet.