What the U.S. Got Wrong in the War on Terrorism

This episode unpacks how the September 11 attacks reshaped the U.S. approach to global threats and internal security.

Host:

James M. Lindsay (cfr.org/experts/james-m-lindsay), Mary and David Boies Distinguished Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy, CFR

Guest:

Walter Russell Mead (hudson.org/experts/1038-walter-russell-mead), Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship, Hudson Institute

We Discuss:

• Why the September 11 attacks were such a pivotal moment in the history of U.S. foreign policy, and how they are understood by those who lived through them in comparison to younger Americans.

• How the attacks shattered a post-Cold War sense in the United States that “history had ended,” with the world moving inevitably toward greater freedom and prosperity.

• Whether the "Global War on Terrorism" reflected the idiosyncrasies of the Bush administration, or something more fundamental about how the United States responds to attacks.

• How the Bush response to 9/11 compares to Franklin D. Roosevelt's response to Pearl Harbor.

• Why the United States found it so hard to leave Afghanistan and Iraq, and how mission creep turned those military campaigns into open-ended nation-building projects.

• How "liberal fundamentalism" shaped an overconfident belief that American values could be easily applied to other, complicated societies.

• Why Americans tend to treat foreign policy as a solvable problem rather than a set of chronic issues to be managed.

• The fate of the Jeffersonian impulse in American foreign policy, and what lessons Mead hopes 2028 presidential candidates will take from the legacy of September 11.

Mentioned on the Episode:

Walter Russell Mead, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World (penguinrandomhouse.com/books/112767/special-pr…), Knopf

Walter Russell Mead, Power, Terror, Peace, and War: America’s Grand Strategy in a World at Risk (penguinrandomhouse.com/books/112766/power-terr…), Knopf

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (solzhenitsyncenter.org/his-writings/large-work…), Harper & Row

Walter Russell Mead, “The Return of Geopolitics: The Revenge of the Revisionist Powers (foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2014-04-17/r…),” Foreign Affairs

George F. Kennan (“X”), “The Sources of Soviet Conduct (foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/george-k…),” Foreign Affairs

“The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (September 2002) (2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/635…),” The White House

For an episode transcript and show notes, visit The President’s Inbox at: cfr.org/podcasts/presidents-inbox/what-the-us-…

Opinions expressed on The President’s Inbox are solely those of the host or guests, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.