In the ongoing stream of events that we call history, there are events that challenge established paradigms and force a shift in the flow of history. The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 was one such event. The attacks on US soil by an international network of terrorists arguably provoked the greatest change in the conduct of Western democracy since the end of World War II. Simultaneously, it had an impact on global politics similar in scope to the end of the Cold War, which was marked by the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

These two events promised very different futures. The end of the Cold War promised a new, more open and peaceful world order, characterised by the democratisation of the former eastern European bloc and the end of the nuclear- deterrence mindset known as mutually assured destruction (MAD). This atmosphere of promise was abruptly shattered by the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Those events unleashed an entirely new series of wars, most of which continue to the present day. They began in 2003 as a war of pre- emption engaged in by the United States against Iraq, and continued in 2005 as a war of retribution against Afghanistan for suspected harbouring of the terrorist leaders responsible for the 9/11 attacks – particularly Osama bin Laden, the figurehead of the terrorist network al- Qaeda. These missions were launched under the political slogan the ‘war on terror’, and pushed the world into a new, fear- driven security paradigm (Schmitt 2005).