5 ways in which 9/11 attacks changed the world

September 11, 2001, started as just one another day, but ended as an epoch-defining date etched in history.

That day, 19 terrorists hijacked four planes in the United States. They crashed a plane into each of the World Trade Center’s towers in New York City — killing 2,750 people. They rammed the third plane into the Pentagon in Washington DC, the headquarters of the Department of Defense. They brought down the fourth plane in the fields of Pennsylvania after passengers and crew tried to take control of the plane. A total of 2,977 people were killed in the attacks.

It was the deadliest attack ever on the US soil and brought the nation to the halt. Fear and panic gripped the United States as the world watched with bated breath as the post-Cold War superpower wrapped its head around what had happened.

In a speech hours after the attack, the-then President George W Bush sought unity against fear and defiance in the face of the deadliest act of terror in history. He said the terrorists attacked the United States because “we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world and no one will keep that light from shining”.

“A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve,” said Bush.

Even as the search for the survivors was on, Bush vowed to respond to the attack with the full might of the United States.

Bush said, “The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I’ve directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”

Within weeks, the United States launched the Global War on Terror and went after al-Qaeda, the Islamist terrorist organisation behind the 9/11 attacks. Here are the five ways in which the 9/11 attacks and the related developments changed the world in years to come.

1. The Global War on Terror

Following the 9/11 attacks, Bush demanded the Afghanistan’s rulers Taliban to either hand over al-Qaeda leaders or face the wrath. The war against al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist organisations across the world came to be known as the Global War on Terror (GWOT).

On Sept. 20, 2001, Bush declared, “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

Instead of being a formal war, the GWOT became the collective term for military, intelligence, covert, and financial efforts of the United States and allies to hunt down al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups’ leaders and dismantle these  grups across the world. The most recognisable of these efforts were the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Afghanistan, the US-led invasion overthrew the Taliban regime and rooted out al-Qaeda from the country.

It was not until 2011 that al-Qaeda chief who ordered 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, was killed in a special forces’ operation in Pakistan. The principal architect of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and later handed over to the United States.

The successes of the GWOT are mixed. While the efforts succeeded in preventing another 9/11-like attack, eliminating Bin Laden, capturing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and largely dismantling al-Qaeda and allied Islamist groups, the anti-terrorism campaigns antagonised the United States in the Middle East and South Asia as a large number of civilians became collateral damages amid a litany of human rights violations’ allegations.

Moreover, the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021 and the country became a safe haven for terrorists again. Another unintended consequence of the GWOT was the rise of Islamic State in the Middle East following the invasion of Iraq.

One stark failure of the GWOT is the inability to convict Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others arrested for planning and executing the 9/11 attacks. Even as they remain imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay prison for years, their trial is yet to start even after 23 years of the attacks.

2. The invasion of Iraq and rise of ISIS

In 2003, even as the US-led forces were engaged in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East, a US-led international coalition invaded Iraq.

The main rationale was the belief that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was supporting terrorist groups. The possibility that the terrorists purportedly supported by Iraq could use WMDs led to Bush declaring the disarming of Iraq a priority. This was the ground for the invasion of Iraq. Later, it was discovered that there were no WMDs in Iraq.

Following the US-led coalition’s invasion of Iraq, Saddam’s regime was overthrown, army was disbanded, and fresh elections were held. Saddam’s Ba’athist party-affiliated officers and soldiers were purged and many of them turned to terrorist groups in later years.

A jihadist leader, Abu Musal al-Zarkawi, formed the Islamic State in 2005, who previously headed the al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The Ba’athists purged by the US-led new Iraqi dispensation formed the core of the Islamic State.

In his book ‘Inside ISIS: The Brutal Rise of a Terrorist Army’, Benjamin Hall noted that “it was the failure of the US government to include these elements in post-Saddam Iraq that created the conditions for ISIS to thrive”.

“Tapping into strong tribal ties in the region and the vast military experience among them, these ex-Ba’athists were able to command countless followers, while also exerting influence over ISIS. The top three ISIS generals in the takeover of Mosul were Ba’athists, as were eight of the top ten in ISIS at the time,” noted Hall in the book.

The invasion of Iraq “led to the spectacular empowerment of armed non-state actors in the region and beyond”, according to Alia Brahimi, a Non-Resident Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programmes.

“The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, of course, emerged amid the brutal contestation of power in post-invasion Iraq and pursued its ‘caliphate’ as an alternative (Sunni) political institution to rival the nation-state…In addition, because Iran effectively won the war in Iraq, it was able to sponsor a deep bench of Shia nonstate groups which have eroded state sovereignty in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq itself. The US invasion of Iraq left us a world with less respect for state sovereignty, more guns for hire, and a dizzying array of well-armed and determined nonstate groups,” said Brahimi, as per the Atlantic Council.

During 2014-19, the Islamic State ran a ‘Caliphate’ across Iraq and Syria and controlled large swathes of land. It was only in 2019 that the Caliphate ended as a result of yearslong war by West-backed groups against the Islamic State.

3. Increased screening at airports, change in attitude on migrants

As the 9/11 attacks involved foreign hijackers taking control of aeroplanes, a direct effect was the increased security screenings at airports and change in attitude regarding migrants.

In an article for the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), Muzaffar Chishti and Jessica Bolter noted that as the hijackers were all foreigners, immigration controls were inevitably seen as obvious tools in the war on terror.

“The result is a highly securitized immigration apparatus with vastly increased budgets and large-scale arrests, detention, and removal of noncitizens based on significantly enhanced data-sharing between federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies,” noted Chishti and Bolter.

4. US pivot to Middle East and South Asia

After nearly a decade of relative detente following the end of the Cold War, the 9/11 attacks meant the US security and foreign policy pivoted to the Middle East and South Asia for the next two decades.

The United States and allies invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and went on a counter-terrorism campaign across the Middle East where they partnered with Arab nations, conducted covert operations, drone strikes, among other activities against Islamist terrorist organisations.

It was not until 2021 that the US formally shifted away from Islamism to white supremacy when it came to the biggest security threat.

5. The return of US wars abroad

After a break of nearly a decade after the end of the Cold War, the 9/11 attacks increased the US military footprint again in the world.

As the United States waged wars against the terrorist groups in the Middle East and South Asia, new bases were set up across the Middle East — many of which remain to this day.

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) also set up black sites across the world and held detainees secretly. The CIA-led operations to hunt planners of the attacks and crack down on terrorist groups came under scrutiny as agency’s techniques came under question. The alleged torture of detainees —which the CIA dubbed ’enhanced interrogation techniques— means that evidence gathered from detainees is unlikely to be admissible in courts.