Global Security Post 9/11

Abstract

This chapter aimed to answer the seemingly simple question of how did 9/11 impact global security-and it has revealed complex interrelated levels of impact concerning complex themes and issues. On an 'abstract' or conceptual level, 9/11 has brought a new 'power-holder5 in the international security arena, a non-state power now recognized as a serious international threat, to a level it has never reached before until 9/11. The American response to this was almost as alarming as the attack itself. While America understandably condemned the terrorist acts and launched a campaign to end terorism via a 'War on Terror', the tactics to do so have dichotomized the world into an 'us vs. them' ideology in which terrorism is either solved the American way or no way at all, automatically pushing whoever stands in that way into the side of the terrorists. The military might of the US was a concrete manifestation of its political power to shape and coerce international security to their liking. Aside from the painting of a black-and-white community, their flouting of international approval in overt military strikes in Afghanistan and Iraq are glaring examples of a US-dominated global community. As the US accuses states of belligerency, branding them as 4rogue states' or states that are part of the 'axis of evil, the US itself practices belligerency in its military actions as well as in its proliferation of nuclear weapons-but again the world cannot condemn a state that controls a vast amount of the international economy and security.