Follow us on social

The 'war on terror' lives on 22 years after 9/11

The 'war on terror' lives on 22 years after 9/11

Despite being out of Iraq and Afghanistan, the US has normalized a militarized approach to security worldwide

Analysis | Global Crises

More than two decades after 9/11, with a staggering price tag of $8 trillion and the tragic loss of nearly 5 million lives, the horror of the events and its aftermath continue to haunt. While the overt conflicts of the “Global War on Terror” have receded with the U.S.'s departure from Iraq and Afghanistan, many of today's tensions and political unrest can be directly traced to the forces set in motion during the NATO-led global war.

Anti-terror funding continues to flow with few checks and balances, supercharging security forces and the global military industry. West Africa’s ongoing surge in coups highlight the pitfall of Western aid bolstering military institutions at the expense of civil governance.

In the Global North, anti-terrorism experts, having rebranded themselves as holistic security pundits, advocate a more hawkish confrontational approach toward China and Russia. Similarly, in Central Asia, global networks and organizations have concocted a developmental aid industry not always in line with the needs of people on the ground, but the buzzwords of “terrorism” and “security” are music to international donors’ ears.

Meanwhile, in places as varied as Nepal, the ripples of the GWOT can be felt first-hand with the revival of Gurkha training institutes, once used by coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, but now at the disposal of the private security industry. The vast resources and networks mobilized by war do not simply dissipate, but forge new channels, continually reshaping the global landscape.

Beyond its military footprint, the GWOT has spawned a draconian wave of securitized logics and invasive legal frameworks. From the United Kingdom and France to India and Indonesia, nations have invoked their own "9/11 moments" in the wake of domestic terror incidents, unrolling a cascade of repressive laws still in operation. These edicts have authorized prolonged detentions without trial, and wide-ranging privacy infringements demanding compromise on liberty for security.

Leaders in Central Asia and the Middle East, despite their authoritarian credentials, have reinvented themselves as indispensable to a U.S.-led security architecture, leveraging the GWOT's prevailing ethos to quell internal opposition. Even in Latin America, seemingly distant from the 9/11 epicenter, governments have weaponized these legal tools against a broader spectrum of perceived adversaries, including civil society and grassroots organizations. A hyper-securitized world is now our new normal.

Muslims worldwide remain in the crosshairs, even as the echoes of 9/11 grow fainter. In China, age-old frictions between the central authority and its peripheries have been repackaged, using the GWOT narrative to amplify oppression against the Uyghur minority. Muslims in the diaspora, especially in the West, find themselves walking a tightrope — compelled to constantly justify their “anti-Taliban” convictions and reassert their fidelity to liberal ideals.

Across media platforms, hackneyed stereotypes of Muslims persist. Even well-intentioned gestures, like the CBS sitcom about an Afghan interpreter for the U.S. military and Marvel's recent embrace of Muslim characters, can end up ensnared in the familiar and limiting motifs of the GWOT. But many Muslim communities refuse to be silent. In Northwest Pakistan, for example, opposition to drone bombing sparked a grassroots political movement that has united people against both imperialism and extremism.

Young adults today may view 9/11 as distant history. The COVID pandemic, climate disasters, and the war in Ukraine dominate their global purview, not the drone-strikes, surveillance apparatus, and aftershocks of the Global War on Terror. But just as the repercussions of World War II dictated the contours of global dynamics for decades, the ongoing legacies of the GWOT continue to sculpt our world in both overt and insidious ways. They demand remembering, archiving, and vigilant attention.


Analysis | Global Crises
Trump and Keith Kellogg
Top photo credit: U.S. President Donald Trump and Keith Kellogg (now Trump's Ukraine envoy) in 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Trump's silence on loss of Ukraine lithium territory speaks volumes

Europe

Last week, Russian military forces seized a valuable lithium field in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, the latest success of Moscow’s grinding summer offensive.

The lithium deposit in question is considered rather small by industry analysts, but is said to be a desirable prize nonetheless due to the concentration and high-quality of its ore. In other words, it is just the kind of asset that the Trump administration seemed eager to exploit when it signed its much heralded minerals agreement with Ukraine earlier this year.

keep readingShow less
Is the US now funding the bloodbath at Gaza aid centers?
Top photo credit: Palestinians walk to collect aid supplies from the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled/File Photo

Is the US now funding the bloodbath at Gaza aid centers?

Middle East

Many human rights organizations say it should shut down. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have killed hundreds of Palestinians at or around its aid centers. And yet, the U.S. has committed no less than $30 million toward the controversial, Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

As famine-like conditions grip Gaza, the GHF says it has given over 50 million meals to Palestinians at its four aid centers in central and southern Gaza Strip since late May. These centers are operated by armed U.S. private contractors, and secured by IDF forces present at or near them.

keep readingShow less
mali
Heads of state of Mali, Assimi Goita, Niger, General Abdourahamane Tiani and Burkina Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traore, pose for photographs during the first ordinary summit of heads of state and governments of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) in Niamey, Niger July 6, 2024. REUTERS/Mahamadou Hamidou//File Photo

Post-coup juntas across the Sahel face serious crises

Africa

In Mali, General Assimi Goïta, who took power in a 2020 coup, now plans to remain in power through at least the end of this decade, as do his counterparts in neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. As long-ruling juntas consolidate power in national capitals, much of the Sahelian terrain remains out of government control.

Recent attacks on government security forces in Djibo (Burkina Faso), Timbuktu (Mali), and Eknewane (Niger) have all underscored the depth of the insecurity. The Sahelian governments face a powerful threat from jihadist forces in two organizations, Jama‘at Nusrat al-Islam wa-l-Muslimin (the Group for Supporting Islam and Muslims, JNIM, which is part of al-Qaida) and the Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP). The Sahelian governments also face conventional rebel challengers and interact, sometimes in cooperation and sometimes in tension, with various vigilantes and community-based armed groups.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.