Helping the Terrorists to Win

Snyder Substack | TIMOTHY SNYDER

The U.S. government's strategic reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 systematically weakened domestic freedom and international law by falling into a psychological trap set by provocation. Instead of making the shift to clean energy in order to get rid of its dependence on oil, Washington set up the Department of Homeland Security and carried out the unprovoked 2003 invasion of Iraq.

These policy decisions had the effect of establishing a form of domestic politics based on exclusion and damaged the world's confidence in democratic institutions by using falsified intelligence as a justification. As a result, the weakening of international legal norms enabled later revisionist actions, such as the Russian invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. The use of lies harmed the credibility of democracy. This general decline in truth undermined the credibility of Western intelligence, leaving international partners unready for the extent of modern conflicts. In the end, the consequences of the decisions made after 9/11 still serve to strengthen authoritarian regimes, which take advantage of the historical examples of unprovoked aggression to justify their own expansionist policies, thus fundamentally altering the global security situation. ---

Comment

The value of provocation at the state level is based on getting an adversary into a position where it takes actions that harm itself and thus weaken its own long-term security structure, as shown by the change in security policy after 9/11. When the United States carried out its invasion of Iraq in 2003, it was caught in this pattern since the military operation used up its strategic reserves and broke down its international alliances. The excessive military involvement in Baghdad illustrated how tactical success can in fact conceal a complete strategic failure when it is guided by emotional rather than analytical considerations.

As a result of this attempt to shape the narrative, the credibility of Western intelligence suffered, directly undermining NATO's ability to maintain a collective deterrent posture against later revisionist powers. The fact that the United States had made public the Russian plans before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine aroused widespread international scepticism because of the historical record of the false claims regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. This lack of trust greatly reduced both the speed and the unity of the European Union and NATO's first diplomatic and military response to the crisis in Kyiv.

Strategic Question for Discussion

What alternative methods could democratic states use in order to build consensus and prevent hybrid threats before resorting to open hostilities if the historical record of the 2003 invasion of Iraq continues to damage the credibility of Western intelligence disclosures?

The evidence indicates that the only way to overcome this lack of credibility is to move towards shared intelligence among multiple countries and to quickly declassify images obtained from commercial satellites. When democratic alliances make use of independent, non-governmental verification methods together with official intelligence, they will be able to avoid the doubt that has in the past been attached to unilateral assertions by Western powers. This method shares the responsibility of providing proof and helps achieve faster diplomatic agreement when geopolitical crises arise.

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