How Strategic Empathy Helps Us Understand and Prevent Wars

The 9/11 attacks on the US were 25 years ago this week and, while there hasn’t been a second such shock, questions remain as to the Free World’s preparedness, whether a divided America can rediscover unity, and the strength of international alliances. Phillip Zelikow, the Hoover Institution’s Botha-Chan senior fellow and executive director of the 9/11 Commission, discusses lessons learned from the attack.

Is the progressive dream of wealth taxes soon to be reality – or a fiscal and economic nightmare – should voters approve Proposition 40 and a one-time 5% tax on the holdings of the Golden State’s billionaire class? And 25 years after one of the darkest days in the republic’s history, what is the legacy of the 9/11 attacks on America?

For many Americans, 9/11 changed us in profound ways. The images of planes being flown into buildings, of desperate people jumping from the Twin Towers are seared into our memory. Few can understand the hatred that led nineteen hijackers to intentionally take thousands of lives.