9/11 Ten Years On

This weekend saw the tenth anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers . That momentous event quite literally changed the world, and we will continue to feel the ripple effects for many years to come.

As with the assassination of President Kennedy, most people remember exactly where they were the moment the planes hit the towers. In my own case, I was a Captain attending the Joint Services Command and Staff College at Shrivenham after being selected for further Staff Officer training. I clearly remember hearing the news that a plane had hit the world Trade Centre, and then watching, aghast, as the events unfolded over the following hours. I and my fellow Army officers knew that this was a day that would change the world, and it is true to say that it shaped my military career from then on.

Prior to 9/11, and following the end of the Cold War, the British Army had become used to an operational temp based around UN operations and peacekeeping. I trained in the 1990s, when Bosnia and Kosovo were the principle areas of interest – although it is worth noting the RAF’s ongoing no-fly zone operation in Iraq and the limited intervention in Sierre Leone.  The attack on New York , however, led directly to the invasion of Afghanistan and indirectly to the disastrous invasion of Iraq .

I served on operations in Bosnia and in Kosovo. I didn’t take part in the invasion of Iraq but I did visit very soon after the invasion to visit the Field Hospital at Shaibah Air Base near Basrah. As a staff officer in the Ministry of Defence, I was heavily involved in the planning and preparations for the invasion. It was around that time that I became disillusioned with the justification given for the invasion, and I made the decision to leave the Army to seek election.

Now, ten years on, the world looks like a very different place. We have pulled all but a handful of troops from Iraq . We have a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan – but the situation there is far from settled. And we have just seen a limited and successful operation to protect civilians using air power in Libya . Less visibly, the struggle against Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations continues behind the scenes. It is a different type of struggle, but every bit as important. It is also one we are making progress in. Osama Bin Laden is now dead, and while he may have been little more than a figurehead by the end, Al Qaeda as an organization is weaker now than it has been for many years.

The most significant events of the past few years have arguably been the ‘Arab Spring’, and the fall of dictatorships across the middle east. This remains a highly volatile and unstable situation, and the futures of Libya , Yemen , Egypt and even Bahrain remain far from certain. It is entirely within our own self interest as a nation to do all we can to try to help these countries move to a more stable and democratic footing. If we can help the middle east to finally start an evolution away from tyranny and dictatorship and towards more open societies, it will in the long run help our own security.

The future of the middle east remains highly uncertain. We don’t yet know how the end game in Libya will play out. Events in Syria are extremely disturbing. And through all of this, the spectre of Iran , fundamentalist and working hard to acquire nuclear weapons, continues to loom ominously.

Ten years ago, before 9/11, there were some who believed that the post Cold War world was less dangerous. 9/11 changed all of that. Even now, ten years on, the world remains uncertain but hopeful. The middle east is changing rapidly, and developing nations such as China and India are rapidly catching the West economically and in terms of military power. Anyone who says they know where we will be in another ten years is either mad or lying.