Five Years
Even now, five years on, the events of 11 September 2001 possess a certain surreality, a lack of context in the state of things then and the state of things now.
It's certainly one of those 'Kennedy moments', which we will all look back upon decades from now. For me it was doubly unreal, since I was at that time on a military exercise up in the wilds of Scotland, at Garelochhead, an army base near Faslane submarine station. Our SOPs were to remain isolated from external influences, even other units, and when the news broke all we has was a tiny transistor radio that could only pick up the crackly local Scottish station.
The fumbling attempts of those underfunded reporters to take stock of the situation were typical of all media outlets, in a way: CNN didn't do much better. It was weeks before I got to see the footage, by which time its impact had faded; it felt like it hadn't really happened, it was just another late-night disaster movie on repeat showing.
But it was real, and the world we live in now is as much a consequence of 9/11 as 9/11 was a consequence of the world we lived in then. But no-one saw it - it was impossible - even if we had effectively (in the words of IR professor Steve Smith) "sung that world into existence".
The world we are singing into existence now is certainly a bleaker one than we thought we had in 1989, the year of revolutions. It's telling that despite the failure of China's 1989 pro-democracy revolution and the success of those in Europe, it's China that is leading now while Europe is swiftly falling behind.
But that's by the by. The new world disorder is one where terrorist attacks are more, not less, likely. Afghanistan seemed to be a success for a while, but that image is fading fast. Post-Iraq the suicide bombers there and elsewhere have added motive and impetus. This year's 'spectacular' failed, but there'll be another.
North Korea and Iran are both enjoying their spell in the limelight due to the nuclear issue, and post-Lebanon, Israel and Palestine are further than ever from reconciliation while Britain and Blair are now looking like the lame ducks of international affairs.
Ultimately, it looks as if the bigger picture is one where the enemies of the US are winning. In the past five years it has lost so much of the legitimacy it built up since World War II, and squandered the sympathy, solidarity and support of 12 September. It's almost as if 9/11 didn't happen: Bush started it, didn't he?
Perhaps the world didn't change on 9/11; perhaps we just perceived it to have done. If anything, it's a massive distraction from the real underlying and interlinked problems of the planet: overpopulation, poverty, pollution.
But what is happening now and what happens next is and will be the result of the changes that we have wrought. Let's hope that we can turn the tide before that cycle spins out of control.
