Blain’s Morning Porridge 9^th, Sept 2026 – 25 years later what did 9/11 do to America?

“This is who we are.”

Friday is the 25^th anniversary of 9/11. It was the worst of days. It changed the World forever. How has it changed America and what are the risks it raises for the future? Who won? America is a great and powerful nation – but is going through a painful period. What did Osama Bin Laden’s carefully calculated terror do to America’s future? The scars run deep. Who won?

LINK TO PODCAST

Key Takeaways

• 9/11 was an asymmetric outrage designed to shock and trigger an over-reaction – yet America swiftly renewed itself, defining itself by its unity, resilience and determination.
• The War on Terror defined the US for the early part of this millennium, and has cost trillions – with the negatives of rising debt and ongoing regional instability. It became a focus for growing resentment of the USA.
• US public opinion has shifted against “foreign entanglements”, other nations wars, and become more inward looking. The initial unity soured – today the USA is more politically polarised than ever before.
• What did the War on Terror achieve? Afghanistan is back in Taliban hands, Iraq is a basket case, ISIS Islamic radicalism still festers in the sands, and the War on Iran is going nowhere.
• Decades of fruitless war and security operations have left the USA stretched, while China was able to build economic infrastructure, grow its economy and now challenge for hegemonic power.
• There is a danger an overstretched America suffers a strategic setback of the scale of the Tet Offensive of 1968 during the Vietnam war which could trigger a further distancing of the USA from global alliances.

Friday will be the 25^th Anniversary of 9/11.

9/11 remains the most viscerally shocking event of our lifetimes. Any of us old enough know exactly where we were as it happened.

I was in the London office of Bear Stearns – on the 28^th floor of Canary Wharf. Someone said… “wow… a plane has hit one of the Twin Towers.” We looked up to the TVs and watched the smoke billow. A few weeks before I’d been drinking martinis in Windows on the World – the top floor bar. I mentioned to my colleagues how a B-25 Bomber had hit the Empire State in a fog, but asked how could anyone have not seen into the tower on bright autumn morning?

Right then we saw the second plane hit. Reality sank in immediately – it was a deliberate attack. America was at war – but with who? Within moments the boss decided we all had to leave – Canary Wharf Tower was then the most prominent and highest target in London. We watched from a nearby gym as the Towers collapsed.

No one can ever forget the footage.

My New York friends told me of being caught in the cloud of dust and debris, of the tragedies, of the disruptions that followed… but today the Twin Towers site is a symbol of recovery, pride and resilience. The pools are remarkably powerful symbols of grief and fortitude. The new tower is a statement piece. The area is thriving. New York is stronger.

In the 2010s I found myself working for BGC. As Cantor Fitzgerald it had been almost wiped out by the attack. On Friday they will give all their trading profits to charity. Trade with them if you can.

9/11 changed the World in so many ways.

It was deliberate. It was brutal. It was evil. But it was also clever, timed to damage an America that looked in trouble. The last great tech boom – the dot.com bubble – had spectacularly imploded causing monumental losses on what proved to be widely speculative ill-judged investments that overexaggerated the scale of how the internet would change commerce. The economy was headed into recession. George W Bush had only won the 2000 election because of “hanging chads” in Florida and came across as unconvincing thrall to hawks like Dick Cheney.

Yet, the nation came together in remarkable unity immediately. The Capitol rallied around the President. The Fed reacted swiftly, slashing rates, closing markets to give them time, and flooding markets with liquidity. The inevitable market crash was limited. Markets adapted, even improved as new ways to address and package risks were adopted. Global travel changed for ever, particularly in terms of security, and the growth of the surveillance state. Anyone different is a potential threat.

From the start America was united – demanding the perpetrators must be punished. It became the War on Terror. America stormed into Afghanistan – alongside every NATO member on the Article 5 basis an attack on one was an attack on all. But Bin Laden wriggled out the Tora Bora mountains and hid in plain sight in Pakistan. The Western forces found themselves facing dirt-poor villagers, corrupt tribal politics, kids demanding chocolate and gum, and terrorists planting IEDs on the roads and sniping them. There was little that was glorious in Ghan – just rising casualty lists and a growing list of amputees. Ultimately the West lost the war as the Taliban returned just like an incoming tide.

The West committed to the invasion of Iraq without thinking through regime change and succession – a conflict that spawned more problems than ever it solved, creating the instability that spawned ISIS and setting the groundwork of bloody but thwarted social revolution across many Middle East states and the repressions that followed.

The 9/11 attacks were asymmetric propaganda exercises. In terms of economic effect they were the proverbial ant attacking an elephant, but Bin Laden’s plan was to goad the USA, the most powerful force on the planet, into a massive over-reaction to generate push back from the Moslem world. Mistakes were made, but generally America behaved better than might have been expected given the scale of the 9/11 atrocity.

The cost was enormous – the USA spent between $8-10 trillion on fighting the War on Terror, a sum largely financed through the bond markets. The cost of paying the pensions and for the care of military veterans of the struggles will cost a further $3 trillion as they age.

In terms of markets, the swift post 9/11 reaction by the Fed was the first step in establishing the expectation the authorities would react to exogenous crisis by flooding markets with liquidity, something confirmed 8 years later in the reaction the Global Financial Crisis. It means that anyone under the age of 50 in the global financial markets has never lived in a market where interventions were considered unlikely and distorting.

And what did the War on Terror achieve? While Western voters were wondering why their soldiers were being killed by Taliban insurgents in Helmand province, the Chinese were building the infrastructure that’s made their economy the strongest on the planet.

Today we remain unclear if the invasions, the SEAL’s execution of Bin Laden, or the years of conflict, achieved tangible results in terms of justice delivered? The BBC has delved into recently released materials that apparently were missed during the investigations and has been asking pertinent questions about whether elements of the Saudi intelligence services and other global actors were involved.

The War on Terror became consequential – and today is dimly recalled in the narrative of the Trump administration as foolish “Forever Wars” – which the President promised to extract America from. They have become a broken thread that will run for decades through history. American public opinion has switched 180 degrees – they want no part of it anymore. Many in the Middle East perceived the War to be a Christian Crusade, building resentment and opposition to the West – and willing to embrace BRICS and China.

The strategy of deliberately provoking a conflict they knew they would lose worked well for Hamas when they attacked Israel on October 7^th 2023. Hamas knew they were kicking the Dragon’s nest – confident the embattled Netanyahu regime would seize the opportunity to hide from the courts through a massive over-reaction. The global sympathy the brutal murder and bestial rape of young Israelis had generated for Israel was squandered over the following year by Israel’s bloody suppression of Gaza – called genocide by many younger western voters. Hamas won a propaganda victory at the cost of 75,000 dead Gazan civilians. Did it work? Yesterday the UK and much of Europe imposed sanctions on Israeli West Bank settlers – perhaps the biggest diplomatic win for Palestine in decades.

Today, the conflict we probably should recall is the Tet Offensive of 1968 – when North Vietnam executed a series of spectacular raids across South Vietnam that destroyed the illusion the USA was winning the war. The raids were effectively suicide missions, but they demonstrated to the American TV audience how an enemy that was beaten according to the White House was anything but. The US claimed a tactical win as they recovered the Saigon embassy and other sites, but it was a strategic defeat. Tet caused the USA to scale down, pull out, and five years later we watched the helicopters leaving Saigon as it fell to the Viet Cong.

Today Trump has committed the USA to a war it’s unlikely to conclusively win in Iran. To win all Iran has to do is not lose. After Iraq, Afghanistan, siding with Russia, the threats to Canada, Greenland, and South Korea, the USA is no longer perceived to be a reliable ally.

Iran is the ultimate asymmetric war. An Iranian tactical success – simply damaging a US warship would be enough – would further diminish the USA in the eyes of other states. It will influence decisions on which side of the China / USA struggle they move. Trade with China and join BRICS, or align with the USA and find themselves subject to arbitrary Tariffs at the president’s whim?

Today a divided and deeply polarised USA finds itself with a population deeply opposed to conflict, armed forces short on key munitions, weapons systems that are worn out and in need of replacement, and fighters that are tired from over-deployments. It is little wonder Trump seeks to scale back and refocus America’s resources on its own hemisphere. That leaves Trump very vulnerable to a Gulf shock ahead of the US midterms in early November.

It all begs the sad question… Who won 9/11?

But… always remember the sage words of Winston Churchill (an American by birth) when he said: “America will always do the right thing… after exhausting every other possibility.”

(I decided to write on 9/11 today as travel plans mean I can’t be sure I will be around to write a Porridge on Friday.)

Caps off. Out of Time.

Bill Blain

Author of the Morning Porridge
CEO Windshift Capital
Advisor – Spitfire Strategic Capital

Meanwhile, don’t forget about my new book: The Battle for Hamble

You can read a review on the Society of Professional Economist’s website here.