Experts and Observers Reflect on Security Threats 25 Years After 9/11

As the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks approaches, security experts and observers are evaluating the current state of global terrorism and national vulnerability. The original attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon killed nearly 3,000 people and led to two costly wars. While some argue that global Islamic terrorism is a problem of the past due to successful military campaigns and intelligence improvements, other experts warn that the United States is currently more vulnerable to a major attack than it has been in years.

Recent cases highlight ongoing threats. In December 2025, an Al Qaeda operative named Cholo Abdi Abdullah was sentenced to life in prison in New York. Abdullah, a Kenyan native who joined al Shabab in 2015, had received hundreds of hours of commercial flight training in the Philippines as part of a plot to fly an airplane into an American building. Additionally, in 2024, three U.S. citizens conspiring to mount a coup in the Democratic Republic of Congo purchased a flamethrower attachment for a drone from a U.S. company.

Former intelligence and law enforcement officials, including former FBI agent Christopher O'Leary and former CIA operator Marc Polymeropoulos, argue that the U.S. has lost focus on terrorism. They cite a loss of expertise, reduced personnel, and frayed international alliances as key factors. Some critics attribute this decline to President Joe Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan and a shift in focus toward Russia and China, while others argue that the second Trump administration has further weakened defenses by removing experienced counterterrorism personnel.

Perspectives on the legacy of 9/11 vary by political framing. A center left perspective frames the event as a pivotal historical rupture that ended the dream of the inevitable triumph of Western democracies. A left perspective frames the current situation as a systemic failure of vigilance, emphasizing that the ideology of extremism persists while the institutional capacity to fight it has been hollowed out.