{"text":[[{"start":6.56,"text":"The writer was a ranking member of the US House Intelligence Committee after 9/11. She also served as chair of the National Defense Strategy Commission and is the author of ‘Insanity Defense: Why Our Failure to Confront Hard National Security Problems Makes Us Less Safe’"}],[{"start":23.04,"text":"Twenty-five years have passed, and memories of September 11 2001 have faded. Americans hold ceremonies and read names every year. But we have not fully accounted for how much the US and the world have changed."}],[{"start":37.24,"text":"9/11 was the crucible from which a generation of US foreign policy was forged. The operation to find and kill Osama bin Laden was a major success. The US has also not suffered a large-scale catastrophic attack since. But its government has changed in ways that make it almost unrecognisable."}],[{"start":57.6,"text":"Congress surrendered much of its power to the president. Diplomacy has been starved and then dismantled, while the defence budget has ballooned. America has become deeply indebted. And the alliances that were the foundation of our global strength are now incredibly weak. This did not happen because of one leader or one party. Decisions that seemed prudent at the time turned into excesses that were never reined in due to partisanship, lack of effective oversight or simple inertia."}],[{"start":85.44,"text":"9/11 was considered an act of war. Three days after the attacks, with only one dissenting vote, Congress passed an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), designed to authorise military action against those who planned the attacks or harboured them. But once Osama bin Laden was killed and other perpetrators killed or captured, Congress never rescinded it."}],[{"start":107.72,"text":"With the exception of the Iraq war, every president since then has used the 2001 AUMF as a standing licence for military operations — from warrantless surveillance and detention to the drone campaign that killed terrorist leaders far beyond Afghanistan and Iraq."}],[{"start":123.6,"text":"The relationship between force and diplomacy has also changed. America’s tools of soft power have always been viewed as among its strongest. But the country’s investments in them have lagged. In 2001, the US spent more than 13 dollars on defence for every dollar on the state department and foreign aid. Many have since warned that America has overly militarised foreign policy. But no one fixed it, and the second Trump administration is making matters worse. Its most recent defence budget request is nearly $1.5tn, almost a 50 per cent increase from the year before. Meanwhile, it proposed cutting the state department and foreign aid budgets by more than 80 per cent, while dismantling USAID. A ratio that was 13:1 would have approached 100:1 had Congress accepted those cuts."}],[{"start":169.96,"text":"The attacks also ended the brief era of fiscal responsibility that began in 1997, when a bipartisan coalition balanced the budget and produced four years of surpluses. After 9/11, the US government ran a large budget deficit and has continued to do so every year since. The 2008 financial crisis and 2020 pandemic may have justified temporary deficits, but there was never any serious effort to reduce them afterwards. Debt this year crossed $40tn, the most as a share of the economy since the end of the second world war."}],[{"start":201.9,"text":"There has also been a callous disregard of partners and allies. After 9/11, Nato invoked Article 5 for the first time in its history — and it was not to defend a European country. Instead, allies rallied to defend America. Europe and Canada’s support was not merely rhetorical; they sent their troops to fight and die beside Americans in Afghanistan."}],[{"start":221.64,"text":"The strain that subsequently grew between America and its allies began with legitimate grievances on both sides. Some allies disagreed with the war in Iraq. The US also had reason to complain that it was investing more in Europe’s defence than the Europeans were themselves. But significant efforts by Nato countries to increase defence spending have been met with punishing tariffs, demands that Denmark hand over Greenland, and by abandoning robust support for Ukraine. The message today is Europe is on its own. And by not consulting with allies before the recent action in Iran, the US finds itself alone, waging an unpopular and costly war in the Middle East."}],[{"start":257.4,"text":"Young Americans today have never witnessed Congress authorise a war, they’ve never seen a US administration balance its books, they’ve never watched a well-funded and empowered state department operate, and they see only mistrust between allies. They assume the situation is normal. It is not."}],[{"start":275.52,"text":"The real cost of forgetting the pre-9/11 world is not a country that has changed, but one that no longer knows it could be different."}],[{"start":288.06,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1788928876_9271.mp3"}