Remember the ’90s, Don’t Long for a Return
“… the West is being forced through another major
crisis that may be bigger in scale and scope than September 11, the wars that
followed, the Arab Spring, EU expansion, and the financial crisis. Panetta told
me that in the two decades following the 9/11 attacks, successive U.S.
administrations—Republican and Democrat—took their eye off the ball, turned
inward, and left a vacuum of leadership in the world that adversaries
exploited. Instead of developing a strategy for the world that was emerging,
the U.S. became trapped in rolling crisis management, reacting and withdrawing
and, ultimately, failing to hold rival powers to American lines in the sand.
The world today is the consequence. “We paid a price for that,” he said”.