The Post-9/11 Wars, Trends of ’26, State of Democracy

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Jay Shetty (1:00)

Spotify, it's Jay Shetty. Are you one of those media strategy people? Scrolling through spreadsheets, searching for an audience that pays twice as much attention to your ads than they do on social?

Let me introduce you to fans. And they're here with me on Spotify.

Trust me, I know fans. They don't skip, they stay for hours. They don't move on, they manifest. They're not a demographic group, they're fans.

Derek Thompson (1:27)

Spotify Advertising, you're among fans.

Fareed Zakaria (1:31)

This is GPS, the Global Public Square. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria. Today on the program, we'll look at the legacy of 9-11 and the wars that followed.

As the world prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of that tragic day, Peter Bergen has written an important book on the subject and he will join me. Then, the transformative effects of GLP-1s, the worrying amount of time people are spending alone, and the thought that AI will not take away all of our jobs.

Those are some of the big trends of 2026 that the writer Derek Thompson is watching. He will explain.

And, I explore the worrying state of democracy around the world with some great thinkers on the subject. Francis Fukuyama, Chrystia Freeland, and David French.

Twenty-five years ago on a crisp September morning, the brilliant blue skies were shattered by inconceivable acts of terror. The 9-11 attacks launched America into a war that would span four presidents and expand from Afghanistan to Iraq and to ISIS. The war on terror produced some remarkable tactical successes, but at enormous human and financial cost. And it has fundamentally changed the way America exercises military power. Peter Bergen, a CNN national security analyst, examines that history in his new book, All the Presidents' Wars. He joins me now. Peter, always a pleasure to have you on. This book really is a kind of an account. It brings it all together of these various actions that all fall under the idea of a kind of global response to the 9-11 attacks and to the rise of a kind of radical militant Islam. What do you think, like, what is the theme that to you emerges out of it?

Peter Bergen (3:47)

Well, one big theme, Fareed, thank you for having me on, is we never or very rarely seem to plan for the day after the conflict. Yeah, we're very good at breaking things and killing people.

But the big theme is we can win every tactical or operational engagement, but often it's not attached to a real strategy. And when we look at Iran, of course, that is the case right now. But, you know, Trump...

Fareed Zakaria (4:10)

So stop from in there. What you're saying is you can win the military part of it, but you often lose in the politics, the diplomacy. And so the victory is never enduring. It never kind of translates into success politically on the ground.

Peter Bergen (4:26)

Exactly. And if you think about a checklist, you would have to go to war. You'd have congressional authorization. You'd have NATO allies. You'd have a UN resolution. You'd have a real imminent threat.

You'd have a plan for the day after hostilities. You'd have a strategy. And like none of those things are being ticked in this case in the Iran War. And so every mistake that we've made in the past, we've barring sending in large numbers of ground troops, we're replicating. And it's like, well, we don't learn from our own history. It's very sad.

Fareed Zakaria (4:55)

There's another piece of it, and this comes through in the book, which is that there is a kind of shift in the world of Islam, particularly of Middle Eastern, of Arab Islam, of Sunni Islam.