I was two weeks into a foreign service assignment in Brussels when the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001. From that moment on, the Global War on Terrorism would be the overarching framework for US foreign policy, much as the Cold War had been until the collapse of the Soviet Union ten years earlier.  

For those of us working in diplomacy, defense, development, or intelligence, 9/11 and the resulting war on terrorism indelibly stamped our careers. Where we served and the jobs we did were fundamentally shaped by the imperative to protect our homeland from further terrorist attacks. 

In Brussels, I watched as our allies invoked Article 5, NATO’s mutual defense clause, for the first time in history. In the years that followed, all NATO allies deployed to Afghanistan, leading regional commands and provincial reconstruction teams across the country. A dozen allies also sent troops to Iraq. When I worked on NATO enlargement, the United States insisted that the newest members be prepared to support out-of-area operations. After 9/11, NATO was no longer about static defense; it was about developing the capabilities needed to tackle threats far beyond Europe’s borders. The September 11 attacks transformed our most important alliance. 

As counterterrorism morphed into nation-building, the work of foreign service officers in Afghanistan and Iraq was re-branded as “transformational diplomacy.” And indeed, our workplace was transformed. Unaccompanied assignments – or postings to countries deemed too dangerous to bring family members – more than quadrupled and became required for promotion into the senior ranks. Jobs were cut in Washington and at “traditional” embassies across the world in favor of new positions at our massive embassies in Baghdad and Kabul and their constituent posts. Thousands of civilians volunteered, and often trained alongside US soldiers, sailors, and airmen before taking up their assignments.  

Across the world, each country’s performance in the war on terrorism became a key measure of those bilateral relationships, often subordinating other priorities. When I worked on Central Asia, for example, we were focused above all on preserving base access and transit permissions to resupply our forces in Afghanistan. Eventually, Afghanistan came to define my career. I was assigned there twice, led the country desk in Washington for three years, and oversaw rule of law programs for another two. I was in Kabul on May 2, 2011, when Osama bin Laden was killed. The day after, the global war on terrorism continued. 

In times of war, it’s the warriors who naturally come to the fore. After 9/11, combatant commanders gained policy sway across their respective theaters and in interagency deliberations at every level. When I first went to Kabul, the embassy was led by no fewer than five ambassadors in a (mostly futile) effort to keep pace with the dozens of general/flag officers making consequential decisions on the ground. Civil-military cooperation improved as civilians and service members came to understand each other’s ways. The sheer size of our military exerted a powerful influence, and over time we civilians adopted a fair amount of military jargon and traditions like the now-ubiquitous challenge coin. This too is a legacy of 9/11. 

When in August 2021 I helped lead the Afghanistan evacuation on the ground in Kabul, it felt like the end of a foreign policy era – one that had lasted far too long. Today, with a resurgent Russia and a rising China, it feels as if history – to butcher Francis Fukuyama – has returned with a vengeance. Looking back on September 11, it is worth considering what might have been if the United States had not become so deeply entangled in the building of nations as bulwarks against terrorism. Perhaps we could have built stronger relations with more countries, tended to other rising challenges, and been better prepared for the complex world we face today.