Homeland security

"We have become obsessed with security": a foreign policy expert on America after 9/11

This weekend marks the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It’s hard to overstate how transformative that event was for this country. It has defined our politics ever since.

In 2011, the RAND Corporation published a collection of essays called The Long Shadow of 9/11. The aim was to examine the legacy of 9/11 from a variety of perspectives — military, fiscal, social, cultural, and policymaking.

One of the more instructive essays was called “The Land of the Fearful, or the Home of the Brave?” The author was Brian Michael Jenkins, a senior adviser to the president of RAND and the former chair of its political science department. Against the backdrop of a decade-long “war on terror,” Jenkins posed some important questions: How did 9/11 change America? How differently do we see the world as a result of that attack? How have we altered the balance between liberty and security?