ABSTRACT
The attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001 and the subsequent anthrax incidents which began in October o f the same year represented the greatest test o f American security policy since the Cuban Missile Crisis o f 1962. The nature o f the attack and the enormous loss o f civilian life combined to dramatically test the conventional security dictums which had been in place since the end o f the Cold War. The myth o f American security invincibility was shattered and the episode demonstrated the vulnerability o f the United States to the same type o f substate and state-sponsored terrorist groups that have operated in other areas o f the world since the 1960s. Other attacks, including the 1993 bombing o f the WTC, failed to significantly impact national policy and were, for the most part, treated as isolated criminal acts which did not rise to the level o f a direct threat to national security.
