As former managing editor of The Washington Post and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars, Steve Coll has spent years studying the forces that have impacted U.S. foreign policy. In his new book, Directorate S, he reveals how the war in Afghanistan was doomed because of the United States’ failure to apprehend the motivations and intentions of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Coll says ISI created a special branch, “Directorate S,” which covertly armed, trained and financed the Taliban, frustrating American forces at every turn. Come hear Coll’s startling explanation of how America came to be so badly ensnared in an elaborate, factional and seemingly interminable conflict.
Steve Coll
Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University; Staff Writer, The New Yorker; Author, Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan (forthcoming); Twitter @SteveCollNY
In Conversation with Dr. Gloria Duffy
President and CEO, The Commonwealth Club