What did 9/11 bring to the discourse on human and state security?

5/14/2015

There are strong indications that not least from an EU perspective the implications were to some extent devastating and to some extent beneficial. How is this possible?

– clearly 9/11 dealt a serious blow to those in the EU who saw security as a purely intergovernmental issue to be dealt with in the context of the military part of the European Security and defence policy. The European Council immediately ordered an across-the-board inventory of all possible contributions to counterterrorism. The fact that perhaps even the main attention was given to Justice and home affairs also led to the strong growth of that sector of cooperation in the EU in the following decade. A few years later the focus on radicalisation also illustrated the links to development policy.

- the devastating effect was by no means inevitable, it was a result of deliberate choices by the first George W Bush Administration to focus on a quick military victory in Iraq followed by a decade of reckless radicalisation not least of the Sunni population in Iraq.

This in turn led also EU leaders to forget what had been an important discourse before 9/11 namely conflict prevention. This is one of the findings of a serious evaluation made of conflict prevention policies in the last decades.

1 Comment

Ann Diener link

11/11/2015 00:33:09

9/11 showed us how a weakness for investigation after a terrorist incident could lead to terrible conclusions such as wars based on flawed, if not manufactured evidence.

The UN should have forced a thorough investigation on 9/12/2001. As it stands, there are many "conspiracy theories" that are more fact based than any government sponsored investigation on 9/11 and "Ground Zero.".

As with the Iraq war, all narratives counter to the "official narrative" are labeled as false despite having detailed evidence to back them up. This leads us to base most of our "foreign policy" decisions on faulty assessments. Without a firm basis on who the terrorists are, we cannot fight them effectively. In effect, we are protecting the terrorists without a thorough investigation of the facts. Some of these facts include the collapse of WTC tower 7, the reports that came out initially about explosives, the 28 pages that have not been released in the US and many other mountains of information that can be found.

The impact of the reactions to the event have been inverse to that which would prevent terrorism, as can be seen with the thousands of refugees now headed into Europe. The opposite result - potential escalation of terrorism in the EU- was created by the lack of investigation. Also ISIS and others were created over the 14 years rather than terrorism being suppressed and stopped. In effect the lack of thorough investigation triggered more terrorism and has the potential now to harm the EU.

Comprehensive approach as policy

What did 9/11 bring to the discourse on human and state security?

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