CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) The Daily Brief - September 11, 2026 - Twenty - Five years after 9/11

 

September 11, 2026

Twenty-Five Years After 9/11 By Ivana Saric Digital Editor, Council on Foreign Relations Today’s anniversary of the worst-ever terrorist attacks on U.S. soil invites reflection for the lives lost and the profound ways the world has changed in the generation since.   Over the past few weeks, CFR gathered a host of experts to analyze this moment. They have unpacked the legacy of 9/11, the lessons and foibles of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and much more. Here’s a preview of our coverage: CFR President Michael Froman reflected on the national security lessons of 9/11 in his weekly column. “We cannot afford complacency,” he wrote. “Tragic anniversaries shouldn’t be necessary to remind us of that, but we should not let them pass without reflection.” CFR’s Bruce Hoffman and Farah Pandith wrote about the pressing challenges posed by drones and the weaponization of social media. Yet “U.S. policymakers have neither prioritized nor invested in the current and future threat landscape,” they wrote. Hoffman and Pandith also sat down with CFR’s Steven Cook for a video roundtable to discuss how the attacks and their aftermath changed U.S. national security and conceptions of safety. They also delved into new security challenges. CFR’s Council of Councils initiative gathered sixteen experts from fifteen countries to weigh in on the successes, failures, and missed opportunities in the fight against terrorism. “We have become extraordinarily good at finding terrorists. But finding terrorists and defeating terrorism are not the same thing,” Hyunjin Choi, from South Korea’s East Asia Institute, wrote. Read all of their insights on CFR.org. CFR’s James Lindsay wrote two important pieces this week. In the first, he reflected on the foreign policy lessons of 9/11. In the second, he provided an overview of ten resources that debunk conspiracy theories around the attacks. The significance of 9/11 isn’t lost on Gen Z, even if they don’t remember it. CFR interns reflected on the legacy of the attacks in this YouTube short. “Before 9/11, I think that America probably felt like a really safe bubble, an untouchable place for a lot of the people that were living here,” twenty-one-year-old Reina Hneidi said.  For more, check out the recap of CFR’s symposium on the attacks and their aftermath. Below, we share CFR coverage offering some of our experts’ personal experiences of 9/11 alongside their policy analysis. As always, the Daily Brief also lists today’s top news headlines from around the world.

Ask Us About UNGA The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) holds annual high-level meetings, which begin this year on Monday, September 21. It’s a tradition for many attendees to also stop by CFR’s New York office for events and panels.    Have questions about UNGA? Send them to the Daily Brief. We’ll ask CFR’s experts to answer as many as possible, and feature a selection in the newsletter next week. Reach us at dailybrief@cfr.org. We read every email.

Podcast: What the United States Got Wrong in the War on Terrorism In this week’s episode of The President’s Inbox, CFR’s Lindsay sat down with Walter Russell Mead—a professor of strategy and statecraft and the Global View columnist for the Wall Street Journal—ahead of the 9/11 anniversary.    They discussed memories of the day itself—Mead was in New York City, Lindsay in Washington, DC—and how drastically it altered U.S. foreign policy. They also dug into the global war on terror, why it failed to produce a decisive victory for the United States, and the expanded U.S. national security apparatus that developed in the aftermath of the attacks. “It is much harder to fix chaos,” Mead told Lindsay. “How is the United States going to stop the causes of terrorism by remedying social and political conditions in some [other] part of the world? That’s kind of beyond our capability.” Listen to the episode

CFR Spotlight: How Bruce Hoffman Got His Career in Foreign Policy CFR’s Diana Roy interviewed Hoffman, one of the Council’s in-house experts on terrorism and insurgency, for the latest edition of our “How I Got My Career in Foreign Policy” series.    Hoffman shared his experiences serving on the FBI’s 9/11 Review Commission, and his thoughts about the growing threat of domestic terrorism and the lessons the United States learned—or didn’t—from the attacks.   “What I’ve always found is that terrorists, for their survival, have to be learning organizations. They study their mistakes and the mistakes of other terrorist groups, and then strive not to repeat them—otherwise, they won’t survive. That’s the paradox: terrorists are very good at learning, while governments aren’t.” Read more on CFR.org

Regional Roundup Every day, the Daily Brief brings you a curated list of the top stories from around the world. Africa Ebola Spreads to Seventh Province in Congo. The deadly outbreak, caused by a rare strain of the disease, was confirmed in the northwest province of Sud-Ubangi, according to local authorities.  Reuters: The Gambia Bans Unpermitted Protests. The country’s police chief announced the move after days of unrest over widespread blackouts. Americas Peru to Join U.S. Anti-Drug Coalition. During a visit from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, President Keiko Fujimori said the country would join the United States’ Shield of the Americas coalition, which aims to promote cooperation on counternarcotics and security.  Asia Pacific BRICS Leaders Begin to Arrive in New Delhi. This weekend’s summit will test cooperation. Among the presidents expected to attend are China’s Xi Jinping, Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Hong Kong Sentences Vigil Organizers on National Security Grounds. Three organizers of annual Tiananmen Square commemoration events were each sentenced to years in prison under a Beijing-imposed national security law. Hong Kong, a special administrative region, used to be the only place in China where such events were permitted.  Europe AP: Five Countries to Withdraw From the International Criminal Court. Following U.S. pressure, including sanctions on staff members, the list of member states planning to leave the tribunal has grown to include Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, and Venezuela. Sweden Holds Key Elections. On Sunday, voters will go to the polls in an election that could prove pivotal for the country’s populist right-wing party, the Sweden Democrats. Middle East Houthis Capture Yemen’s Perim Island. The strategic island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait divides the vital shipping route in two. The Iran-backed rebel militia said today that maritime passage was safe for all vessels except ones from Saudi Arabia. Hamas Commander Killed in Gaza, as Seven Members Charged in Germany. Both Israel and Hamas confirmed that Mohammed Abdel Salam al-Yazouri, an architect of the October 7 attacks, was killed in an Israeli strike yesterday. In Germany, federal prosecutors charged seven suspected Hamas members over a separate alleged plot against targets in Germany and Austria.

The Daily Brief Host: Ivana Saric Editor: Xian Chiang Waren Email Operations: Eric Rojas Editorial Director, News: Phil McCausland Editor-at-Large: Robert McMahon Chief Digital Content Officer: Millie Tran