 In the new political landscape of Central Asia, U.S. troops are on the ground and Western military bases are under construction throughout the region. But now, the forces aligned against the Taliban and their terrorist allies find themselves in an uneasy relationship with the drug lords who control the cultivation of much of the world s heroin. With the departure of the Taliban, the current opium crop in Afghanistan is among the largest ever. How will the world s drug control authorities deal with this fact of Central Asian life? Can agricultural reforms be implemented that will equal the profitability of the opium trade? And how will the United States resolve a dilemma that pits the war on terror against the war on drugs?