Empires of Mud

In Empires of Mud, Giustozzi analyses the dynamics of warlordism in Afghanistan. He approaches this complex task by first analysing aspects of the Afghan environment that might have been conductive to the fragmentation of central authority and the emergence of warlords and then accounts for the emergence of warlordism in the 1980s and subsequently the lion's share of this book consists of an in-depth analysis of the systems of rule--political, economic, military--which developed under Afghanistan's two foremost warlords, Ismail Khan and Abdul Rashid Dostum, both of whom still wield considerable power even after the intervention of Allied forces in Afghanistan in 2001. Their two systems are compared, highlighting convergences and divergences, in order to explain how warlords administer the areas that they control within so-called "failed states", in the process challenging much of the received wisdom in scholarly and policy circles about warlordism. The author also discusses Ahmad Shah Massoud, whose "system" incorporated elements of rule not dissimilar from that of the warlords. Giustozzi concludes that although charismatic leaders play a key role in shaping the specific characteristics of each warlord polity, there are some common elements that underlie the emergence of warlordism.