9/11

With the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center soon to be upon us, time should be taken to understand the consequences of that attack, what has changed, and where the United States goes from here. A decade later the geopolitical realities of the world as well as the nature of the United States have become so different that we can with no great certainty predict the next ten years. Nonetheless, we should try to see what the United States should do differently in foreign policy, defense policy, and national security.

In terms of foreign policy, it is unlikely that the United States can do much better without the possibility of jeopardizing its interests. Too often, Americans have conflicting and contradictory viewpoints when it comes to the stances that the United States should take. Citizens of the United States sometimes want their country to not interfere in the affairs of other countries while at the same time wanting them to diplomatically spread freedom around the world. These goals are often in conflict. Indeed, America's current State Department is among the best that it has. This is, in short, about as good as America's diplomats can act. You will not see many better periods for foreign policy in the future.

There are some Americans who are worried that current foreign policy is unlikely to help America commit to its ostensible goals of building democracy around the world. This, however, is not the case. Oftentimes, American diplomatic intervention is seen as cover for otherwise overt manipulation of those pro-democracy forces. Indeed, without the ability to back up pro-democracy advocates, American diplomatic and foreign policy is likely to simply backfire against those seeking to spread democracy. And if America commits military forces to every pro-democracy uprising, it is likely to exhaust itself both militarily and financially, while reinforcing the belief that all democratic agitators are actually American agents bent on world conquest.  It is probably better, then, that the United States allows the people of foreign countries to promote democracies themselves and step in when asked only.

This is partly because America is unable or unwilling to afford the same commitment to military endeavors that the previous administration had. Some would counter the previous statement by pointing to the United States' involvement in Libya, as well as their continued presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. This, however, ignores several key developments that the United States is undertaking. Military spending will be on the decline as more and more useless programs are cut. The recently passed debt ceiling deal mandates that up to $600 billion could potentially be cut from future defense budgets in the next 10 years. America is not becoming a country less willing to use force, but it is becoming a country less willing to have prolonged military presences in foreign nations.

And this is in line with a better counterterrorism policy in the wake of 9/11. Rather than turning entire countries with massive military commitments, the United States should use its superior intelligence agencies and technology to launch precision strikes against specific targets. Such counterterrorism methods would be much more effective: whereas military occupations can in fact be counterproductive, taking out specific individuals or locations is more likely to hamper the planning and morale of terrorists. Invading countries is simply a massively inefficient use of resources: dealing with a single country cannot solve a global problem like terrorism.

But while military doctrine is changing to adapt to the problems of terrorism well, national security has not. Indeed, because of the need for intelligence services, that particular area of the federal government is subject to tremendous waste and abuse. The number of outside consultants and private companies that provide little to no value and yet survive because it is hard to evaluate whether they are actually helping at all is too many to count. A more effective foreign policy will require that these people be weeded out.

And even more so, the way that the United States handles its domestic security in a wide variety of aspects need to be tuned up. Airport security is all but a joke, considering its inefficacy in getting anything done and its agents strict and arbitrary adherence to rules for the sake of rules. The TSA has, for example, been unable to stop a single terrorist, allowing individuals like Richard Reid onto flights. The new scanners they plan on implementing throughout all American airports has been shown to be ineffective at catching even rudimentary weapons. In short, domestic security in the United States is a mess. It is nonsensical, poorly implemented, and ineffective. The next decade will require serious changes to how the United States ensures the country against terrorist attacks.

In an overall sense, the United States is better prepared to deal with a terrorist attack than it was ten years ago. But it is not better prepared in all aspects. In terms of long and medium term prevention, both through better foreign policy and military doctrine, the country is on the right track and has made significant gains. But in terms of the implementation of actual defenses that would immediately be able to catch a terrorist, the country is in no better shape. That makes sense, as the 9/11 terrorists would have for the most part been able to get past current security setups. They did none of the things that made them overtly illegal or easy to catch by the TSA's rudimentary system. Either the TSA has to get smarter, or all of America's security gains since the last decade will have been for nothing.