The Course of the Forever Wars: After 9/11

In the first of a three-part series, The Take looks at the buildup of the US national security apparatus after 9/11.

This is the first episode of a three-part series looking at the past, present, and future of the so-called ‘war on terror’. September 11, 2001, marked a milestone in a new chapter of warfare: after the 9/11 attacks, the US began not only the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but a so-called “global war on terror”. That meant building a new war infrastructure that is fully global in nature, massively profitable in scale, and now, after 20 years, part of the fabric of our lives. So how did we get here?