American flags on the 9/11 Memorial in New York City, USA, circa August 2023. The 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks provides lessons for the conduct of US foreign policy, according to Brent Sadler. (Shutterstock/SayDavid)

The Key Lesson of the Global War on Terror

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As China eclipses the threat of terrorism, the United States must maintain the same vigilance it kept during the Global War on Terror.

As we mark the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks next month, and the fifth anniversary of the Kabul Airport bombing this month, let’s not forget the goal of the perpetrators of these atrocities: to spark a religious war intended to destroy what America is and what it represents—a free and prosperous society.

It’s an important time to remember that ensuring America’s promise of liberty for future generations has never been free. As the Irish orator John Philpot Curran noted in 1790, “The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.”

While the 9/11 attacks didn’t spark a religious war, they did excite a Global War on Terror that was pursued often with an almost religious zeal. Quick military successes in Afghanistan and later in Iraq led to an exuberance not unlike the early post-Cold War “end of history” sentiments that dulled America’s vigilance against the rise of China. That exuberance bred hubris, which fueled a zeal for nation-building and an attempt to transplant American notions and institutions of democracy into Iraq and Afghanistan.

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© The National Interest