The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the

The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth

A Pulitzer Prizeâ€“winning reporterâ€™s riveting account of the transformation of the CIA and Americaâ€™s special operations forces into man-hunting and killing machines in the worldâ€™s dark spaces: the new American way of war

The most momentous change in American warfare over the past decade has taken place away from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, in the corners of the world where large armies canâ€™t go. The Way of the Knife is the untold story of that shadow war: a campaign that has blurred the lines between soldiers and spies and lowered the bar for waging war across the globe. America has pursued its enemies with killer drones and special operations troops; trained privateers for assassination missions and used them to set up clandestine spying networks; and relied on mercurial dictators, untrustworthy foreign intelligence services, and proxy armies.

This new approach to war has been embraced by Washington as a lower risk, lower cost alternative to the messy wars of occupation and has been championed as a clean and surgical way of conflict. But the knife has created enemies just as it has killed them. It has fomented resentments among allies, fueled instability, and created new weapons unbound by the normal rules of accountability during wartime.

Mark Mazzetti tracks an astonishing cast of characters on the ground in the shadow war, from a CIA officer dropped into the tribal areas to learn the hard way how the spy games in Pakistan are played to the chain-smoking Pentagon official running an off-the-books spy operation, from a Virginia socialite whom the Pentagon hired to gather intelligence about militants in Somalia to a CIA contractor imprisoned in Lahore after going off the leash.

At the heart of the book is the story of two proud and rival entities, the CIA and the American military, elbowing each other for supremacy. Sometimes, as with the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, their efforts have been perfectly coordinated. Other times, including the failed operations disclosed here for the first time, they have not. For better or worse, their struggles will define American national security in the years to come.
Country USA
Brand Penguin Press
Manufacturer Penguin Press
Binding Hardcover
ReleaseDate 2013-04-09
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781594204807

Country	USA
Brand	Penguin Press
Manufacturer	Penguin Press
Binding	Hardcover
ReleaseDate	2013-04-09
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781594204807

The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth