Carter Malkasian


Carter Malkasian is a historian and former adviser to American military commanders in Afghanistan.

Career

Malkasian earned a doctorate in military history from the University of Oxford, where he studied under Robert O'Neill. After completing his studies, he became a teacher at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He then worked at the Center for Naval Analyses before spending time in Iraq conducting research in 2004 and 2006. In 2007, he worked with a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kunar Province in Afghanistan. He returned to Afghanistan in 2009 and spent two years in Garmsir District in Helmand Province as a State Department representative to the district. In Garsmir, he was known for his ability to speak Pashto and his rejection of typical personal security precautions. From May 2013 to August 2014, he worked as a political adviser to General Joseph Dunford, the commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Works

In 2013, Malkasian published War Comes to Garmser: Thirty Years of Conflict on the Afghan Frontier. The book is modeled on Jeffrey Race's 1972 work War Comes to Long An, an analysis of the Vietnam War. The book is a history of conflict in Garmsir District from 1979 to 2012.
Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening and the Rise of the Islamic State deals with the Anbar Awakening and the Iraq War troop surge of 2007, and attempts to explain why those events did not lead to lasting peace in Iraq.