ABSTRACT
On 11 September 2001, a group of hijackers turned some commercial aeroplanes into missiles and attacked key symbols of American economic and military power. These attacks flattened the World Trade Center towers in New York and destroyed part of the Pentagon. The military, political and diplomatic responses to this attack have been profound. Moreover, both the attacks and the response to them have led to intense debate not only about the immediate causes of, and responsibilities for, this specific set of events, but also about the broader historical and structural contexts in which these events might begin to make some sense. No one predicted the tragic events of 11 September. They were not inevitable but neither did they come out of the blue. They were the product of long-term structural developments and conjunctural individual actions that might have turned out differently. There is no single cause or set of causes to explain them, and responsibilities rest in many places.
