As we mark the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, enough time has passed for us to move on from reverential remembrances to a more sober assessment of the political and societal legacies of the American response.

There have been many such reflections this month – including one edited by yours truly for the Lowy Institute examining how September 11 changed our world. Many of these retrospectives focus on the failures of Bush-era foreign policy, the many negative consequences of the global war on terror, the normalisation of mass surveillance, growth in Islamophobia, lack of trust in the efficacy and capabilities of democratic leaders and greater societal polarisation. The failures of the war on terror and US-led military interventions justified on the back of the threat of jihadist terrorism are more apparent than ever in the face of the Taliban’s recent return to power in Afghanistan.