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.
