Sep 9, 2026
Javier Solana
and Angel Saz-Carranza
The terrorist attack on the United States 25 years ago remains among the most consequential events of this century. By fundamentally altering the trajectories of the United States and Russia, as well as that of a rising China, al-Qaeda’s attack set in motion developments that would produce the geopolitical tumult we live in today.
MADRID—A quarter-century ago, the world changed course in an instant. The new millennium had roughly coincided with the arrival of new presidents in the United States and Russia, then the world’s two greatest military powers. But the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US fundamentally altered both countries’ trajectories, as well as that of a rising China, setting in motion developments that would produce the fractured geopolitical order we live in today.
