CIAO DATE: 06/2012
June 2002
James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
The attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, is a watershed date in the history of the United States after the Cold War. Since 1989, policymakers, analysts, and historians have been unable to name the period of history the United States entered after 1989. The best that they could muster was “the post-Cold War period.” That short-lived era in U.S. history is now over. What we will name this period and how we will characterize it are not yet clear. But it will be a very different period for the United States and its role in the world. Where before the United States displayed uncertainty and confusion about its global power and place, now U.S. policy in international affairs has a clear purpose and goal. U.S. policymakers, in both political parties, understand the international stakes for the United States better than they did in the previous period, and they have already demonstrated the ability to make better decisions. The United States experienced an attack on its citizens and its territory like no other since the early Nineteenth Century. Even the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 did not threaten the territorial United States in such a deliberate and murderous way. The goal now is the defense of the American homeland, the prevention of future attacks, and the use of diplomatic and military means to make sure that the American people are as safe as possible.
Resource link: After 9/11: Preventing Mass-Destruction Terrorism and Weapons Proliferation [PDF] - 1011K