Thread

On this day in 2001, the 9/11 attacks occurred bringing down the Twin Towers in New York, killing almost 3000 Americans. America’s reaction to the tragic attacks would set the course for geopolitics in the 21st century. The War on Terror after 9/11 is estimated to have killed 4.5 million people according to the Cost of War Project at Brown University. The US would invade Afghanistan beginning a quagmire that would last over two decades, where estimated $2.13 trillion was spent, with the only winners being military-industrial complex executives. Iraq would be illegally invaded based on a pack of lies and deceit, 1 million Iraqis would die as a result of the war, with millions more displaced. Another $2 trillion was wasted in Iraq to decimate and privatise the country, leading to the rise of ISIS. The post-9/11 global War on Terror is estimated to have displaced a shocking 37 million people, fuelling anti-US sentiment around the world. By 2021, the US had spent $21 trillion on militarisation since 9/11, resulting in a draconian global military empire, diverting money away from spending on infrastructure, healthcare, and education at home. 9/11 will be remembered as one of the most consequential events in the 21st Century, where global sympathy for the US reached a global high while the US enjoyed its pinnacle of unchallenged power at the height of the unipolar world. The disaster of the ensuing War on Terror, the arrogance and wanton violation of all tenets of international law, the destruction of entire countries and imposing of American power on the global south would fuel the drive to create a multipolar world, eventually resulting in the rise of BRICS and other multipolar institutions such as the SCO.