Garčević Reflects on 9/11’s Global Legacy in N1 Interview
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Ambassador Vesko Garčević, Professor of the Practice of International Relations at the Pardee School, was interviewed by the Balkan regional television network N1. In the interview, broadcast on N1 Croatia on September 11, he reflected on how the attacks and the American response transformed the United States and the world. In his view, the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and, particularly, Iraq; human rights abuses in detention facilities; and nearly two decades of the global war on terror contributed, among other consequences, to a profound rise in Islamophobia in the West.
On the anniversary, Ambassador Garčević, along with Elizabeth Prodromou, Professor at Boston College, and Adam Silver, Professor at Emmanuel College, participated in a panel discussion, September 11, 25 Years Later, hosted by Emmanuel College.
In his remarks, Ambassador Garčević focused on how America’s allies responded in the aftermath of the attacks, supporting the U.S. invocation of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty by deploying troops to Afghanistan and remaining there until the termination of the mission.
However, he argued that the political capital, which generated the legitimate international coalition formed in response to 9/11, was largely exhausted a year and a half later, when the U.S. launched the invasion of Iraq. In his view, policymakers in Washington used the 9/11 attacks in an unreasonable manner to advance foreign-policy agendas against perceived enemies and to justify an intervention based on flawed intelligence and without the endorsement of the UN Security Council.
Ambassador Garčević also elaborated on the structural legacy of 9/11, as it extends far beyond the battlefield, reshaping international security, foreign policy, migration and civil liberties. The attacks and the conflicts that followed significantly refocused military and strategic attention on hybrid warfare and asymmetric threats, demonstrating that modern conflicts are rarely confined to traditional state-versus-state battlefields. They also contributed to the securitization of borders, the introduction and expansion of restrictive anti-immigration policies, and increased government surveillance and monitoring of ordinary citizens across the West.
The full interview can be watched here in Bosnian.
Vesko Garčević is a professor of the practice of international studies at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and the director of the Center for the Study of Europe. An expert on multilateral issues, Garčević is the co-author of Montenegro and Serbia: A Velvet Divorce? (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) which explores the divergent past between Serbia and Montenegro between 1988 and 2023. To read more about his work and accomplishments, visit his faculty profile.