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A Culprit for the 9/11 Attacks
In the summer of 2004, the US National Committee on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States ("the 9/11 Commission") released its final report explaining why the United States was blindsided by Al Qaeda on September 11, 2001, and what improvements the United States could make to reduce the chances of another catastrophic terrorist attack on US soil. The Commission went to great lengths to identify the shortcomings of the US governmental system that allowed the attacks to occur. Despite the Commission's efforts, one important topic remained outside the scope of their report: the intellectual mindset that guides US national security strategy. The United States must re-evaluate and modify the political theories that guided the national security leadership on the eve of September 11 if it is to be effective in deterring international terrorism in the future.
Immediately prior to September 11, the administration of US President George W. Bush was operating in a more or less realist framework. Realism, however, is a worldview ill-equipped to deal with the challenges to security in the 21st century, as it greatly underestimates the critical role played by non-state actors. In our globalized world of asymmetrical hazards, we must rethink our priorities to include unconventional rogue networks alongside traditional great power threats. If the 9/11 Commission and its successors are to achieve their objective of providing a comprehensive set of recommendations for reducing the likelihood of disastrous attacks in the future, it is imperative that we grasp the limitations of realism as a guiding worldview. This requires that we are more receptive to liberalism as a guiding paradigm and that we take a more critical view of the teachings of realism.
Realism versus Liberalism
On April 8, 2004, US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice appeared before the 9/11 Commission, an event that was covered in real time by every major network in the United States. In an effort to investigate the failures and oversights of the US government in possibly preventing the September 11 attacks, the Commission demanded that the National Security Advisor testify in public under oath and succeeded in getting this. This was despite the established separation of powers precedent that shields White House staff from having to testify under...