COMMENTARY: Even 25 Years Later, 9/11 Resonates with Today’s Students
But several things have transpired since to make 9/11 directly relevant to students today.
Fundamentally, students understand that we are living in tumultuous, unsettling times. Under the current president, the United States is dramatically redefining the role it plays in the world. Domestically, the executive branch is wielding power in unprecedented ways, constitutional norms are being ignored, and our politics is deeply polarized. Students are not deeply versed in modern history, but they do know that the United States prevailed in the Cold War just over thirty years ago, was the sole global superpower at the turn of the century, and that both major parties agreed on core fundamental issues of American governance. If you want to understand what has gone wrong over the past couple of decades it makes sense to learn about 9/11, the first global catastrophe of the 21st century (the others being the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic).
“If you want to understand what has gone wrong over the past couple of decades it makes sense to learn about 9/11, the first global catastrophe of the 21st century.”
Second, today’s digitally-native students recognize the power of modern technology and how it can distort the balance of power between the state and the individual. They are all familiar with Orwell’s 1984 and also understand, through the travails of Edward Snowden, how 9/11 triggered a society-wide debate about privacy and civil liberties in the digital age. Students want to know what protections the Constitution and our laws provide and what lessons can be gleaned from the post-9/11 experience to address the even bigger challenges that AI presents today.
Most recently, the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, and the ensuing war launched by Israel in Gaza has reinvigorated student interest in terrorism, the Middle East region, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and the ideologies of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. My course does not just focus on what has transpired since 9/11, but goes back centuries to attempt to explain why violent extremist non-state actors like al Qaeda have arisen within Muslim Civilization and the nature of their grievances. These lessons directly intertwine with the nine-decade-long conflict between Jews and Arabs over the territory that was formerly the British Mandate in Palestine (and before that part of the Ottoman Empire). The on-again, off-again war between the United States and Iran the past seven months is also connected to 9/11 as it was bin Laden’s desire to obtain weapons of mass destruction that led America to war in Iraq, and now again in Iran. We study history first for the sake of studying history, but also for the insights it provides for the world we inhabit today.
The study of 9/11 and its aftermath also helps to illuminate the trajectory of American politics over the past quarter century.
It is remarkable to think about now, but foreign affairs barely played a role in the Bush-Gore election in 2000 because these establishment candidates agreed on so much. One of the key domestic debates, if you can believe it, was whether annual budget surpluses at the time should be used to bolster Social Security or to fund a tax cut. Today, the projected deficit for the current fiscal year is $2.1 trillion and virtually every aspect of Trump’s foreign policy is the subject of intense, polarized national debate. The 9/11 attacks nine months after Bush took office truly changed everything.
The “War on Terror” that President Bush launched in response to 9/11 not only opened the floodgates for massive federal spending, it also altered the direction of American foreign policy. Counterterrorism became the top priority for our relations with other nations. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq resulted in lengthy large scale military mobilizations that had not occurred since Vietnam.
President Bush’s approach initially unified the nation to unprecedented levels, but as the military interventions extended for years and even decades, without producing tangible victories, they became deeply unpopular.
In 2015, then-candidate Donald Trump pummeled the Republican establishment favorite Jeb Bush relentlessly over his brother’s handling of the Iraq War, even though the GOP had mainly supported President Bush’s prosecution of this war for years and Jeb had absolutely nothing to do with Iraq. Trump’s onslaught so badly damaged Bush that he was forced to withdraw in the early stage of the primaries. Then, after winning the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, Trump used Hillary Clinton’s vote in favor of the Iraq War to help defeat her in the general election. Iraq and other aspects of the 9/11 aftermath do not fully explain Trump’s populist takeover of American politics, but studying them provides a starting point for understanding the anti-establishment brand of populism that paved Trump’s path to the White House two times.
As noteworthy anniversaries of 9/11 come and go, our memories of the intense debates over aspects of our post-9/11 policies are fading, overshadowed by today’s headlines. But like most significant historical events, one can’t fully understand our world today unless you understand why 9/11 occurred and how the United States responded to it.
David Schanzer is a professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy. He also teaches the free Duke Coursera course “Understanding 9/11.”