Most of us who were alive when the September 11 attacks happened remember exactly where we were when we first heard the news. I was working as a banquet server at a hotel when someone from the kitchen said a plane had flown into one of the World Trade Center towers. We did not know it was a Boeing 767. We had thought it was probably a small plane, something that might damage the building but not cause it to fall. When we finally saw the footage, we all immediately knew it was one of those history-defining events that would change the world. And it did.
I also remember the moment when it all ended. I was sitting in a classroom with colonels, watching footage of the last C-17s take off from Afghanistan, with Afghans clinging to the wheels of the planes. The 20 years of conflict came to a sudden end. The men I sat with did not say much. They had all done numerous tours. What had they spent their careers doing? Why had their comrades bled and died in these countries?
Christopher Nolan’s recent adaptation of The Odyssey captures this sense of moral disillusionment well. One is tempted to see in Nolan’s interpretation a commentary on the post-9/11 wars. The war against Troy is portrayed as an expedition motivated by lust for power, self-interest, and misguided ideology. Gone are the heroism and glory of Homer’s original story.
What were we supposed to learn from these wars so that our experiences, along with our blood and treasure, were not in vain? I often ask myself these questions. While this list is not exhaustive, we need to think hard about the lessons we should take away from this longest war.
September 20, 2001 -- Rescue workers standing next to the antenna that was formerly atop the World Trade Center discuss next steps in their rescue efforts. Photo by Mike Rieger/ FEMA
The first lesson, which is a temptation with all major events, is that we should not overlearn the lessons of 9/11. While the Iraq regime-change war was ultimately a mistake and the war in Afghanistan was a quagmire, the message should not be that all wars are bad. Though it feels good to say this and plays well with many audiences, we require a military willing to visit violence on our enemies when necessary. That is just a basic fact. In a world that is becoming more chaotic and disordered by the day, having the most lethal and capable military in the world is a great benefit to our nation.
We will need our military more, not less, in the coming years, as the current reconfiguration of world order continues to create friction and conflict. Many would like to hunker down in Fortress America, pull up the drawbridges, and ignore the rest of the world. That impulse would leave us poorer and less secure. Peace requires that we not only possess military power but also exercise it, albeit judiciously and realistically.
Another lesson we must learn is the danger of the missionary zeal that is hardwired into America’s DNA. Historian Walter McDougall speaks of America’s engagement with the world in two modes: “promised land” and “crusader state.” For most of the 19th century, the U.S. had a small global military presence, interacted mostly on the basis of trade, and believed its duty was to be a beacon of freedom. That changed in the 20th century.
We became a global superpower and have maintained that position of preeminence for more than 80 years. The War on Terror awakened a “crusader state” mentality in which we often acted and sounded like a nation engaged in holy war (see George W. Bush’s Second Inaugural). America has a deeply religious faith in its mission and its existence, which, when aroused, can cause us to act recklessly and destructively, though it need not. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, we attempted to reengineer ancient societies into our own image through military force and occupation. We were justified in striking back against our foes after 9/11. But the overreaction that launched us into a 20-year campaign against radical Islam was fueled by a religious zeal we must recognize in order that we can tame it.
The third lesson is that if we are going to fight a war, we need to go all in. Colin Powell enunciated what later became known as the Powell Doctrine—that when you go to war, you must use overwhelming and decisive force. War is inherently a political endeavor, but if you are going to fight one, you cannot do so with an eye primarily concerned with opinion polls.
This might seem counterintuitive when it comes to a 20-year war, but in fact, we did not go all-in in Afghanistan. Rather than going all in we sought to accomplish our objectives on the cheap. We easily toppled the Taliban regime with minimal military force. At that point, we should have pulled up stakes and gone home or committed the necessary forces to defeat the enemy. We did neither. We allowed the Taliban to reconstitute itself, which created the long insurgency that eventually overran the country.
That said, public support does matter. We conducted the post-9/11 wars with consistently declining support. President Bush was reelected by a razor-thin margin, and after that the wars were fought largely against the wishes of the American people. In a democracy like ours, it is vital that our military have their support.
If our cause is just and a war makes the country safer, the president, as commander in chief, should publicly make the case for fighting. If he does not believe a war should be fought, then we should bring the troops home. While veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have not been spit on, as was not uncommon after Vietnam, they did not enjoy full public support because presidents after Bush wished the wars would just go away.
Barack Obama sent mixed messages about the Afghanistan War. He publicly offered tepid support, but behind the scenes he was caustic toward the military and skeptical of the mission. It was demoralizing for the military, and the public largely checked out or turned against the war.
Reinhold Niebuhr talked about the “irony of American history”: when America sets out to master events, they often prove beyond its control and produce the opposite of what it intended. Despite our best intentions, Iraq sank into full-on intertribal warfare, and Afghanistan rejected the liberal democracy imposed from without. Military force can do some very important things, but it cannot do everything, as we are learning again in Iran.
Perhaps the greatest lesson we can learn from our follies after 9/11 is humility. America, while a great nation with many blessings bestowed upon it, must accept that it, too, has limitations and that its greatest danger often lies within itself rather than without.