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Winner of the 2015 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest.
"I can’t imagine a more important book for our time." —Sebastian Junger
The world is blowing up. Every day a new blaze seems to ignite: the bloody implosion of Iraq and Syria; the East-West standoff in Ukraine; abducted schoolgirls in Nigeria. Is there some thread tying these frightening international security crises together? In a riveting account that weaves history with fast-moving reportage and insider accounts from the Afghanistan war, Sarah Chayes identifies the unexpected link: corruption.
Since the late 1990s, corruption has reached such an extent that some governments resemble glorified criminal gangs, bent solely on their own enrichment. These kleptocrats drive indignant populations to extremes—ranging from revolution to militant puritanical religion. Chayes plunges readers into some of the most venal environments on earth and examines what emerges: Afghans returning to the Taliban, Egyptians overthrowing the Mubarak government (but also redesigning Al-Qaeda), and Nigerians embracing both radical evangelical Christianity and the Islamist terror group Boko Haram. In many such places, rigid moral codes are put forth as an antidote to the collapse of public integrity.
The pattern, moreover, pervades history. Through deep archival research, Chayes reveals that canonical political thinkers such as John Locke and Machiavelli, as well as the great medieval Islamic statesman Nizam al-Mulk, all named corruption as a threat to the realm. In a thrilling argument connecting the Protestant Reformation to the Arab Spring, Thieves of State presents a powerful new way to understand global extremism. And it makes a compelling case that we must confront corruption, for it is a cause—not a result—of global instability.
- Sales Rank: #197445 in eBooks
- Published on: 2015-01-19
- Released on: 2014-12-29
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
"The target of her zeal is government corruption around the world -- an old challenge but one she recasts in urgent and novel terms." (Carlos Lozada - Washington Post)
“Makes a strong case that acute corruption causes not only social breakdown but also violent extremism…An important book that should be required reading for officials in foreign service, and for those working in commerce or the military. The story will interest the nonspecialist reader too.” (Giles Foden - New York Times Book Review)
“Chayes tells [a] fascinating story…[T]he central revelation in Thieves of the State: at a certain point, systemic corruption became not just a lamentable by-product of the war but an accelerant of conflict…Chayes argues, convincingly, [that state-sanctioned larceny is] a threat not just to Afghanistan’s national security but to that of the United States.” (Patrick Radden Keefe - New Yorker)
“[Chayes] tells the story of what happened in Afghanistan brilliantly, and compares her experience there with the current corruption in Egypt, Russia and the dismal rest…[a] page-turner.” (Deirdre N. McCloskey - Wall Street Journal)
“Essential.” (G. John Ikenberry - Foreign Affairs)
“Informative, thought-provoking, very interesting and concisely written…Through personal experience and her own research, Chayes makes a simple yet profound argument.” (Taylor Dibbert - Huffington Post)
“Thieves of State is a revolutionary book. It upends our understanding of the sources of violent extremism on its head, arguing that the governments we have been relying on to fight terrorism are themselves one of its most potent and insidious sources. Sarah Chayes weaves together history, adventure, political analysis, personal experience, culture, and religion in a shimmering and compelling tapestry.” (Anne-Marie Slaughter)
“Sarah Chayes provides a vivid, ground-level view on how pervasive corruption undermines U.S. foreign policy and breeds insurgency. Thieves of State provides critical lessons that all policymakers should heed.” (Francis Fukuyama)
“Sarah Chayes brilliantly illuminates a topic no one wants talk about―but we must. Corruption is an insidious force that is causing some of the most dangerous challenges our world is facing. It has to be at the core of America’s strategies, engagements and relationships for the twenty-first century.” (Admiral (ret.) Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff)
From the Author
Dear readers:
�
Thanks very much for visiting this page, and for your interest in Thieves of State.� I wrote this book to address a dumbfounding impasse: the inability of senior U.S. officials to make the connection between acute and abusive corruption and dramatic global upheavals, from the rise of violent extremism to the revolutions of the Arab Spring or Ukraine.� What Thieves of State does is take you with me, so you can experience for yourself not just the abuse and humiliation of everyday corruption in many countries, but also the inner workings of the U.S. government as it reached a decision not to address the problem.
We'll also take a fascinating historical detour, for history has much to teach us about how people have grappled with these issues - and about how similar their responses have been across time and culture.� We'll detail hard-nosed options for different approaches, and we'll take a glance in the mirror.
�
It is an unusual book: no dry, expository policy-wonk analysis, rather a riveting story that will keep you engaged.� But you'll also find plenty of thought-provoking, even sometimes provocative, analysis.� I hope that you like it, and that you will let me know your thoughts either way.
From the Inside Flap
An Excerpt From
THIEVES OF STATE
by Sarah Chayes
Reprinted here with permission.
The question of pursuing a serious anticorruption policy was finally put to rest in January 2011.� The battle was waged in the margins of an interagency document called "Objective 2015."� It had occurred to someone that the U.S. government really ought to have a picture of what it was trying to achieve in Afghanistan - what the country would need to look like by the end of 2014 if it were to weather the withdrawal of international troops without imploding.
�
The document was an embarrassment.� Just the grammatical errors in the first paragraph made me flinch.� Rather than identify true minimal requirements for Afghanistan to survive without international troops, it cut down ambitions to fit what was deemed "achievable" - whether or not such goals were sufficient to ensure Afghanistan could continue to exist.
�
It seemed to me, for example, that for the Afghan government to last, motivations for joining the insurgency had to diminish.� Afghans had better think more highly of their government by 2015 than they did in 2011.� Yet in the document, the very modest goal of an upward trend in Afghans' confidence in their government was not listed as essential to mission success.� It was considered only a "nice-to-have."
�
The real anticorruption fight, however, was not over such fundamentals.� It played out in the fine print of the document's "implementation guidelines."� Over the furious dissent of mid-level Justice Department (DoJ) officials, seconded by the Joint Staff - but not by their own chief, Attorney General Eric Holder - the documents barred DoJ attorneys from mentoring anticorruption cases.� They could do generalized capacity building, but they could not help shepherd specific cases against specific Afghan government officials.� The investigations units, even if they were able to continue functioning, would never be able to bring a case to court.� The courageous anticorruption prosecutors could never hope for backup from U.S. officials if they were intimidated, harassed, or demoted.
�
The gavel had come down.� By way of an apparently insignificant detail buried deep in an interagency document - a few words of guidance to DoJ attorneys - the U.S. decision to turn a blind eye to Afghan corruption was finally spelled out.
�
�
NOT TILL the spring of 2013 did the penny drop as to what had prompted Petraeus's sudden change of heart in the summer of 2010 - and ultimately, what made the U.S. government shrink from addressing corruption in Afghanistan.� On April 28, Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times reported that the CIA had been paying millions of dollars per year, in cash, to President Karzai.� Toward the end of his article was the nugget of information that told the whole story.
�
The CIA's bagman was Muhammad Zia Salehi - that aide to Karzai who had been arrested, and then quickly released, in the summer of 2010.� U.S. officials had walked into a circular firing squad.� Salehi, the subject of the U.S. government's corruption� test case, was also the U.S. government's intermediary for cash payments to Karzai.� The choice of this target may have been deliberate - an effort to flush out into the open the profound contradiction at the heart of U.S. policy.
�
Two senior U.S. officials told me later that throughout the investigation of Salehi, the planning for the arrest, and his liberation within a few hours, CIA personnel had remained silent about their relationship with him.� Even afterward, despite strong words at Principals' Committee meetings and that Joint Staff "top twenty" list, the CIA never provided the U.S. ambassador or the key cabinet secretaries with the names of the Afghans it was paying.� The station chief in Kabul continued to hold private meetings with Karzai, with no other U.S. officials present.
�
In other words, a secret CIA agenda - which involved enabling the very summit of Afghanistan's kleptocracy - was in direct conflict with the anticorruption agenda.� And with no one explicitly arbitrating this contradiction, the CIA's agenda won out.
�
After those first few weeks in command, Petraeus veered hard away from governance efforts and devoted himself to targeted killing, which he intensified considerably.� Targeted killing of individual terrorist suspects is the special domain of the CIA, which Petraeus left Kabul to run - until his tenure there was cut short by an extramarital affair that had germinated in the Yellow Building at ISAF headquarters.
�
The Obama Administration, sickened by the cost in lives and resources that the counterinsurgency approach was exacting, and perhaps uncomfortable with the power and discretion that large-scale military operations place in the hands of the brass, turned increasingly toward special operations and drone warfare to counter security threats.� Targeted, technologically advanced, secretive killing, over which the president had direct control, increased after 2010, spreading to Yemen and other theaters.
�
But the point officials missed in making this shift - and in letting the priorities generated by this strategy trump governance objectives - is that targeted killings still represent a military response to a problem that is fundamentally political and economic in nature: a problem that is rooted in the conduct of government.� The current U.S. approach sends a message, wittingly or not, to people who are often driven to violence by the abusively corrupt practices of their ruling cliques, and by frustration at seeing their legitimate grievance systematically ignored.� The message seems to be: your grievances are, in fact, of no account.� They will not be heard.
Most helpful customer reviews
68 of 70 people found the following review helpful.
An Important Book
By Deborah O'Keeffe
I believe Thieves of State is a must-read for anyone concerned about promoting peace and civility in communities, nations, and the world. Sarah Chayes compellingly discusses how the corrupt practices of governments and authorities spawn violent reactionary movements that undermine the security and stability of societies. Chayes’s voice is strong and confident, her prose is taut, fact-rich, and colorful, sometimes passionate but never indulgent. The book is intelligent and well-researched and refreshingly accessible, with a strong narrative current to draw the reader along. More than that, this is an important book, one with the potential to alter the discussion and--one may hope--the U. S. government’s approach to diplomacy and national security issues. Chayes, a former NPR correspondent, lived in Afghanistan for a decade; a trained historian, she is not only a thoughtful, penetrating observer, but a talented story teller, and many of her stories are disturbing. Imagine, for example, living in a country where the conduct of simple business--obtaining a license, paying a utility bill--requires you to first bribe a bureaucrat or series of functionaries simply to accomplish your objective. Injustices unremedied, with no channel for redress, sow the frustration and desperation that may ultimately erupt in violence. Although Chayes cites examples of national corruption (Egypt, Uzbekistan, Tunisia, Nigeria) and the responses it provokes, a reader may also consider what happens at the individual or local level when a person’s or community’s sense of fairness is continually, unapologetically offended. Reading this book has changed the way I see the world and my role in it as an unwitting contributor to its miseries, or more hopefully, to its peace.
45 of 46 people found the following review helpful.
Why corruption matters!
By Kirk E. Meyer
Fourteen years after the 9-11 attacks and two costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, those countries are still not secure, and regional jihadist groups, aligned and unaligned with al-Qaeda, have emerged. This situation certainly demands a critical analysis of the effectiveness of all U.S. policies and responses to terrorism. In Thieves of State, Sarah Chayes hopes to ignite discourse about the role corrupt regimes play in spawning both jihadist insurgencies, as well as Arab Spring protests, and that alliances with these regimes may not be in our long term strategic interests. Consequently, this book is a must read for policy makers who have yet to conduct a critical evaluation of the impact of strategic alliances with corrupt governments, and whether they have increased not lessoned our risk.
The book catalogues the author’s journey through events in Southwest Asia and the Middle East, which have led her to conclude that these alliances are ill-advised and weaken our national security. She walks us through her life as a reporter, founder of a non-profit in Kandahar City, Afghanistan, and an advisor to three commanders of the International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) in Afghanistan, culminating with an advisory position to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen.
While in Afghanistan, Sarah Chayes learned that the corrupt government had been mischaracterized as a simple patronage system. In reality, it operated as a vertically integrated criminal syndicate where financial rewards were not distributed downward from patron to client, but instead moved “up the chain of command…in the form of gifts, kickbacks, levies paid to superiors, and the purchase of positions.”
This realization drastically altered her understanding of corruption and sent her on a mission to understand how other kleptocracies operate. This mission led to her discover that kleptocracies all have the same purpose, self-enrichment, but that they organize differently to achieve this end. In Thieves of State, she explains and categorizes different organizing models which range from Egypt’s Military-Kleptocracy Complex to Nigeria’s Resource Kleptocracy.
Throughout, she champions the voices of common citizens she met along the way who were the victims of the venality of public officials. Unfortunately, since governments are designed to interact with other governments, U.S. officials assigned to these countries have often been caught off guard by regime threatening events because they have been denied access or avoided these voices. The reader will find woven in her personal journey historical references to “mirrors” - which are treatises written by European and Islamic political advisors to their contemporary leaders on how to achieve successful governance. These quotes indicate that across time and geography, leaders were consistently advised to avoid engaging in corruption themselves and to swiftly punish those of their employ who did, as corruption was the spark that would ignite rebellion and threaten a sovereign’s reign.
The book analyzes how different corrupt states are organized not to govern, but to fulfill the political leaders’ objective of personal wealth building at the expense of the country. She argues that because of corruption, outsiders viewed these countries as weak or failed states. However, since their goal was avarice not good governance, they succeeded.
And while policy makers will find this book filled with key insights from an experienced policy analyst, I also recommend Thieves of State for anyone who wants to better understand the complexity of these issues in a clear, concise, yet personalized account.
Kirk E. Meyer
Founding Director, Afghanistan Threat Finance Cell
Afghanistan, 2006-2011
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful.
A powerful read
By Molly
I highly recommend Thieves of State to anyone looking to expand their understanding of the corruption that cripples global security. Sarah Chayes spent 10 years living in Afghanistan among corruption; this first-hand experience granted her the ability to bestow a deeper understanding of “on the ground” corruption as it occurs not only in Afghanistan but in corrupt societies around the globe. Furthermore, her ability to link what may seem like localized regional corruption to global insecurity is truly illuminating. From the first page, I was hooked—this is a book that succeeds in both entertaining and informing its readers. Thank you, Ms. Chayes, for speaking up on a topic that is all-too-often overlooked.
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