Thirty years ago was the milestone

Tomorrow we will all take note of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Some people suggest that we lost something profound that day, that fear changed our outlook, and it hasn't recovered since. This perplexes me. If so, it's been primarily a fabulous public relations coup by radical Islamic groups.

From the very beginning I feared the public reaction to the 9/11 attacks far more than any current or future damage. This public overreaction led to the disastrous invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

What really changed the world was something that happened ten years earlier -- not to the day, but a mere 20 days before an exact decade. August 21, 1991 was the day that the attempted coup to preserve a hard-line government of the USSR failed. That was the day we knew the Cold War was over. From roughly 1950 to that day in 1991, the US and USSR led coalitions of nations in a global competition, where each side had a large arsenal of nuclear weapons. Huge budgets supported the military on each side. Small nations suffered as the two superpowers vied for influence or control. Perhaps the nuclear weapons kept American and Soviet forces from engaging each other directly in any military action, but the price was the uncertainty of nuclear war.

As of 1988, most people saw no end in sight to that Cold War -- we judged that we were nearly 40 years into a standoff that could continue for another 100 years. In hindsight, we can see that it would be over in three years, but that was not our mindset at the time. This was an unprecedented standoff. How could anyone dare to overthrow a government with nuclear weapons at its disposal?

After that date in 1991, the danger of nuclear war decreased dramatically. Military budgets were cut, former Soviet republics declared independence. It's not as if all is well. Russia has considerable power, but it is unable to seriously consider conquering Ukraine, the second-largest of the former Soviet Republics. NATO is watching closely and has offered Ukraine a measure of protection, and Russia knows it.

What has happened in the 20 years since 9/11? Here's a list of Islamic terrorist incidents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamist_terrorist_attacks

They are tragic in their own way, of course. But they do not threaten the stability of our world. The casualty figures are nothing compared to the deaths in the wars in Vietnam or Korea, or any number of other civil wars throughout the world that were fueled by superpower confrontation. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were a reaction to 9/11, but they were very much wars of choice. The US could have stayed home. We bear the primary responsibility for both wars and the resulting death and destruction.

The world improved dramatically for the better 30 years ago. If Islamic terrorists have made us feel profoundly unsafe in the past 20 years, it's a dramatic public relations coup on their part. The images of the twin towers falling are dramatic and stay seared in memory, but the real significance of that and every terrorist attack since has been minor. Public relations.

Profound change happened 30 years ago, not 20 years ago, but that anniversary was not marked, at least not to anywhere near the same extent.