The long shadow of 9/11 and the retreat of an independent New Zealand foreign policy

Twenty-five years ago today, the world’s strongest military state found itself powerless to prevent attacks on its homeland by al Qaeda, a small transnational terrorist group. Now, a quarter of the way into the 21st century, it’s possible to identify the major trends that have shaped the world and New Zealand’s place in it since that terrible day. The response by the United States to the atrocities led eventually to a quagmire in Afghanistan, an illegal invasion of Iraq, and an ill-defined “war on terror” that arguably set in motion the forces shaping today’s fraught geopolitical landscape. The post-9/11 era…