The September 11 attacks represented a major strategic shock to US foreign policy in the Middle East. Whereas much of US foreign policy during the Cold War understandably focused on the global threats posed by the Soviet Union and China, these attacks orchestrated by Osama bin Laden from a hideout in Afghanistan propelled both the Middle East and terrorism to the center stage of US foreign policy making. The subsequent Afghanistan War and Iraq War were some of the longest (and least satisfying) military campaigns in US history. After 20 years of military and economic investment in the region, ...

No retrospective on the September 11 attacks can escape the bleak pall cast by the tragic events unfolding in Afghanistan today. Despite the enormous financial investment in the country and the grim human costs borne by the United States, its allies, and Afghans over the past 20 years, the US and NATO military missions have ended in ragged, ignominious failure. The question of how well these operations protected the United States and the world from Islamist terrorism remain open. But there is no doubt that the other stated purpose of creating a functioning, friendly, Afghan government and effective ...

The Impact of COVID-19 on Civil-Military Relations https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/ Dr. C. Anthony Pfaff There has been a great deal of speculation regarding how the current COVID-19 pandemic could affect civil-military relations in the United States. Oona Hathaway observes that after the terrorists attacks on September 11, 2001, which killed approximately three thousand Americans, the United States “radically re-oriented” its security priorities and embarked on a two-decade-long global war on terror that cost $2.8 trillion from 2002 to 2017. Given that COVID-19 could kill more than one hundred thousand Americans, she argues that it is time to re-orient those priorities again.

Tell Me How This Ends: The US Army in the Pandemic Era US Army Heritage and Education Center Historical Services Division https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu/ Prepared by: Conrad C. Crane, PhD: Chief, Historical Svcs. Div. Michael E. Lynch, PhD: Senior Historian Jessica J. Sheets, PhD: Research Historian Douglas I. Bell, PhD: Postdoctoral Fellow Shane P. Reilly: Contract Research Analyst Executive Summary After the 9/11 attacks, Americans yearned for a “return to normal.” The normal they longed for was the world as it was on September 10th, or status quo ante. That was impossible, however, because the events of that day irrevocably changed the world. The new normal, the status quo post, was the world as it was after 9/11. The same must be said for COVID-19. . .. We cannot return to the world before we understood the terms “social distance,” “herd immunity,” or “flatten the curve.” The coronavirus behaves as the Spanish flu virus did in 1918-1919, then a third wave might be expected as well. Army was not prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic, but neither was the nation nor the world. Given the information now known about the virus and the expert predictions that a second wave might occur soon, the Army is better prepared to plan for potentially operating under pandemic conditions. Experts warn that a true second wave arriving in the fall or winter could be much worse than the first. If the