October 7 could surpass September 11 in significance and path-altering power when the history of the West is written a hundred years later.

Planes crashing into the twin towers of New York was a blinding trailer. Parachutes landing on a music festival has taken us breathlessly close to a clash of civilisations.

9/11 first awakened Western civilisation to the horror that there is an enemy willing to blow itself up to destroy your home, symbols that you most cherish. It told America that its aeroplanes can be weaponised against it. Not even the Pentagon, which is supposed to police the world, is safe.

Human civilisation suddenly realised that there is a parallel world trying to obliterate it. The enemy was being controlled by a ragtag band of bandits from the deserts, caves, mountains, and seminaries of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and a few such rogue states.

The attacks showed that the most significant and immediate threat to a powerful state could be an asymmetrical, transnational non-state network with no army, territory, or traditional diplomatic standing.

The concept of security had to be entirely rethought. Lines between internal and external threats had blurred. Pre-emptive action was prioritised over response.

Intellectually, the moral, often polarising voice of Christopher Hitchens or Noam Chomsky replaced the detached, impartial........

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