THE DAY IT ALL WENT TO HELL
On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, terror groups and nation states have left the world an even more dangerous place, writes CHARLES MIRANDA
TWENTY years ago, the world became a scarier place. Never could we have imagined hijacked aircraft would be flown into a building in a major US city and effectively into the heart of Western democracy.
Almost 3000 people died from that abhorrent assault on September 11, 20 years ago, and another 102,000 more since that day including Afghan civilians and 3500 coalition troops.
But 20 years on from the co-ordinated terror attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, and as unimaginable as it sounds the world is now an even more scarier place.
While the departure of the last US troops from Kabul on August 31 effectively ended the “war on terror”, it also emboldened darker forces with broader and more sinister agendas.
There is now not just one hate figure in the form of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qa’ida terror group, but many such men and jihadist forces as well as entire nation states looking to capitalise on the precariousness of global security since 9/11.
And unlike 20 years ago, Australia is now centre stage, strategically
and as a potential target for those who want to again change the world.
The global fallout from 9/11 has been long and comprehensively documented, in terms of the estimated more than 5000 people who have since died from cancers after sucking in the clouds of cement dust and debris from the fall of the twin towers to the heavy losses from 20 years of war in Afghanistan.
There are those other things, that may have seemed incongruous to free civil society at the time, from having to now strip coats and belts before boarding aircraft, surrender our bodies to be X-rayed for weapons,
passenger lists monitored, and cameras on street corners to look for lone wolf assailants.
But perhaps the still-being-written 9/11 consequences now follow the rapid fall of Kabul to the Taliban – that a generation ago forged an unholy alliance with al-Qa’ida and other militant groups such as the Haqqani Network, and threaten to do so again – this time from the seat of government in Afghanistan.
The power vacuum created by the rapid and messy withdrawal from Kabul of NATO-led coalition forces has already had consequences, with the apparent ease in which the
ISIS-K terror group was able to slip in and carry out a mass killing, but it has also created greater uncertainty than after the 9/11 strike.
For one, the Western world is now no longer looking to rely on the US as the world’s policeman even if Asia – its much touted new focus – emerges as the next battleground.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Afghan and US response was an event that “catalysed history” as he called for a new EU bloc of 5000 “first entry” troops to replace US dependence.
During that scrambling out of Kabul, it was noteworthy that the US was forced to move its lone aircraft carrier in the Asia-Pacific, the Ronald Reagan, to the Middle East to help with the withdrawal, its fighter jets conducting security sorties over the city.
The redeployment was only short-term but the need to divert the carrier from the Asia-Pacific has raised questions about US ability to project power here.
Its stand-in replacement in South-East Asia came in the form of Vice President Kamala Harris and a tour of Vietnam and Singapore where she attempted to reassure allies of US resolve following the chaotic end of a two-decade war sparked by 9/11.
In Taiwan, the democratic republic claimed by China, President Tsai Ing-wen responded to the chaos in Afghanistan by saying the self-ruled island had no choice but to boost its own defence.
“It is not an option for us to do nothing ourselves and rely only on the protection of others,” she said.
American Enterprise Institute defence policy expert Eric Sayers agreed.
“As US Assistant Secretary for the Indo-Pacific, Ely Ratner has Afghanistan in his portfolio,” he said.
“Where do you think his primary focus is for the next three months or longer?”
Speaking to a Lowy Institute webinar to Australian media and defence analysts, Thomas Wright, director of the Centre on the US and Europe and a Senior Fellow at the Washington Brookings Institution, said perception of a befuddled US foreign policy post Afghan withdrawal and flailing commitment was wrong.
“We already have seen the Global Times and other organs of the Chinese state say ‘this shows the US doesn’t care about Taiwan’, the Russians
also making hay in Europe calling into question the credibility,” he said. “I think that is absolutely analytically wrong about where President Biden is.
“I think for him he wanted out of Afghanistan because he disagreed with the continued prosecution of the war in Afghanistan, he has been clear on that … he believes the threats of today and tomorrow come from major powers, they come from threats to democracy and agree or disagree with that decision I think it is consistent with his doctrine, his world view, for better or worse, and I think (the US) have absolutely no intention of pulling back or retrenching other commitments and I think it is the contrary.
“I think if other actors press them and test them on that because they believe that they are irresolute, I think it will
2001, said back around As bin Laden who was the demonstrating of this is an issue be producing to horse. The US appears stronger racehorses mules, rather than nags and Dean Cheng Heritage Foundation’s US
just ensure they be more resolute and stand up there.”
Australian defence sources expect the upcoming Australia-US Ministerial consultations will have Defence Minister Peter Dutton agreeing to the US basing more troops and hardware in Australia, notably at RAAF Tindal in the NT, and in Queensland, and US warships at HMAS Stirling near Perth from 2022. It is a strategic deploy, its Guam Pacific base just a missile too close to China in the event of conflict. It is in the US interest as much as it is in ours.
But perceptions are everything in Asia, post the Afghan withdrawal, and 20th anniversary of 9/11.
“As bin Laden said back around 2001, this is an issue of demonstrating who was the stronger horse. The US appears to be producing nags and mules, rather than racehorses,” said Dean Cheng of the conservative US Heritage Foundation think tank, adding East Asian states would
be thinking about this.