The fall of the Twin Towers: the beginning of the end of the American empire

Twenty years have passed since the attack on the Twin Towers. Leandro Morgenfeld , PhD in History, tenured professor at the University of Buenos Aires, independent researcher at CONICET, and coordinator of the CLACSO Working Group "Studies on the United States" and author of the book "Trump's Legacy in a World in Crisis," analyzes for the Argentine news agency Télam the fall of the Towers as the beginning of the crisis of US hegemony.

The brutal impact of the planes against the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, televised live, caused a shockwave across the United States and around the world. The cinematic collapse of New York's iconic skyscrapers provoked an immediate shock. Fukuyama's illusion of the "end of history" crumbled.

That tragic day opened the first major crack in the supposed unipolarity of the post-Cold War era. Amid the shock and grief over the 3.000 fatalities, George W. Bush found the perfect excuse to impose draconian laws—especially the Patriot Act—that allowed for the spying, surveillance, and eventual torture of American and foreign citizens. He expanded the power of the military-industrial complex and imposed the doctrine of "preventive wars," justified by the vague fight against terrorism. The neoconservatives promoted the Project for the New American Century, which aimed to reinforce American military and economic leadership and supremacy.

What followed were the invasions of Afghanistan in October of that year and, with evidence fabricated by the CIA, of Iraq in 2003. While various analysts were quick to imagine that the US would thus consolidate its self-appointed role as global policeman, in reality, that offensive was the swan song of the American empire. The global financial crisis that erupted in 2008, the meteoric rise of China, the US's inability to control the powder keg it had instigated in the Middle East and Africa—highlighted by its failures in Libya and Syria—the rise of Donald Trump, and the US's inability to promote a joint multilateral response to the Covid-19 pandemic only deepened the collapse of the world order centered in Washington.

The recent images of the last American soldier leaving Kabul evoke the fall of Saigon in 1975 and the "Vietnam syndrome." After 20 years occupying Afghanistan, two trillion dollars spent, and tens of thousands of casualties, the American failure is resounding. The Taliban, overthrown in 2001, immediately returned to power. There is no more graphic way to illustrate the decline of US hegemony. Despite Joe Biden's declaration that "America is back," this expression of wishful thinking seems as unrealistic as Trump's slogan, "Make America Great Again."

China is overtaking the outgoing hegemon in economic, commercial, and technological matters. It still lags behind militarily, but the US is transforming into a paper tiger, unable to win the wars it starts or achieve its proposed "nation-building." These days will see the commemoration and debate of the tragic events of September 11, 2001 (9/11), conspiracy theories, evidence of Osama bin Laden's historical ties to the CIA in the 1980s, and US support for the creation of radical Islamist groups to complicate matters for its geopolitical adversaries. Discussions will also focus on how the so-called "war on terror" served as a pretext for empowering the US intelligence community (100.000 officials distributed across 16 agencies) and increasing the military budget year after year (to $778 billion), for the benefit of the large corporations that operate as the US's contractor nation. Or about how human rights and civil liberties have been violated in recent years under the pretext of fighting terrorism, as documented by Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. Or about the "new" non-state threats of the 21st century, including cyberattacks and biochemical weapons.

What is becoming less and less doubtful, and more and more agreed upon, is that in the 20 years following 9/11, the decline of the American empire accelerated like never before.

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