TY - BOOK AU - Tanner,Stephen TI - Afghanistan: a military history from Alexander the Great to the war against the Taliban SN - 9780306818264 (pbk.) : AV - DS356 .T27 2009 PY - 2009///] CY - Philadelphia PB - Da Capo KW - Afghanistan KW - History, Military N1 - Includes bibliographical references (p. 355-359) and index N2 - This volume provides a military history of Afghanistan, including the recent operations by American and Afghan forces fighting the Taliban insurgency. For over 2,500 years, the forbidding territory of Afghanistan has served as a vital crossroads for armies and has witnessed history-shaping clashes between civilizations: Greek, Arab, Mongol, and Tartar, and, in more recent times, British, Russian, and American. When U.S. troops entered Afghanistan in the weeks following September 11, 2001, they overthrew the Afghan Taliban regime and sent the terrorists it harbored on the run. But America's initial easy victory is in sharp contrast to the difficulties it faces today in confronting the Taliban resurgence ER -