Atlantic Community:Open Think Tank Article "The Post-9/11 Era: A Lost Decade"

The Post-9/11 Era: A Lost Decade

Fabian Martin Lieschke: With President Obama’s announcement to start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in 2011, we may be tempted to think that the post-9/11 period is giving way to a new era. Yet, it is precisely such thinking that has turned the years after 9/11 into a lost decade. We should not repeat this mistake.

President Obama wants to start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in his first term. This announcement - in hand with a final surge - is the beginning of the end to eight years of the latest international military presence around the Hindu Kush. With the engagement in Iraq winding down, it seems that we are about to cross the threshold into a new era: the successor to the post-9/11 period.

But before we do so, it is time to look back and ask whether or not 9/11, and the years following it, have changed the world.

The question itself may be an insult to many. Thousands of lives were taken in the event and continue to be lost in its aftermath; the United States has invaded two countries; Iran perceives the fall of its neighbor regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan as an opportunity for regional dominance; religious fundamentalism has made a comeback. The list goes on.

So, of course the world has changed!

Pause for a moment, though. If the post-9/11 period has really changed the world we live in, then why is climate change still the most pressing issue of our time? Why is China still rising? The global imbalances that have led to the Great Recession are still with us; nuclear proliferation has not vanished; Israelis and Palestinians are not talking; and one billion people continue to starve everyday.

The major challenges of our time have not changed - they were there on September 10 and did not cease to exist on September 12, 2001.

What changed after 9/11 was our perception. It is human nature to compartmentalize events into distinct periods of time: World War I, the inter-war-period, World War II, the Cold War, the post-Cold War-period and post-9/11. We can place single events into context to help our brains fathom why something must have happened when it happened - and what we should do in response to it.

The problem with doing so is that we tend to see every event and policy option in a predetermined context; and 9/11 has enabled policy-makers to create a particularly problematic situation.

Neoconservative ideologues in the Bush administration hijacked the terrorist attacks to implement their agenda. They suggested that 9/11, which had "changed our world forever", was the prism through which we should view everything.

The implications are well known and go beyond the mistakes made in Afghanistan and Iraq. The years after 9/11have turned into a lost decade not only because of the policies that were made, but also because of the policies that were not.

A global response to climate change was unthinkable. There was little effort to bring Israelis and Palestinians together. Setting a double standard - cooperation with India, sanctions on Iran and North Korea - undermined the non-proliferation regime. Force trumped diplomacy with a Defense Department on steroids and an under-resourced State Department.

9/11 has not changed the world, but policy-making in its name has left many challenges unmet, leaving us with huge opportunity costs.

Attaching a historical label to the present is counterproductive because it leads to a diversion from the real trends. Although it may be easy to think that we are about to enter into a ‘post-post-9/11' era, that kind of thinking is harmful. We could conclude to abandon Afghanistan and Pakistan - again. After all, thinking in terms of the ‘end' of the ‘Cold War' has brought us to where we are today. We should not repeat this mistake.

President Obama has been focusing on the real challenges of our time. He wants to correct past mistakes to move on with a long list of unresolved issues. It will take time. He will have to show resolve and demonstrate that US policy is no longer taken hostage by ‘era-thinking', but ready to favor permanent solutions over temporary fixes.

Fabian Martin Lieschke is a student at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

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