When the US Navy killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011, it was widely regarded as a symbolic and strategic victory over Al Qaeda and terrorism. However, since 2011, a deeper issue has transpired, which is that while Osama Bin Laden was killed, he achieved his core objectives of weakening the West’s military, economically and politically, across the world. He achieved this not through military might, but by provoking the West into actions that proved counterproductive to their interests. In doing so, the West paid a profound cost, not only in economic and militaristic terms, but also in the weakening of Western values, such as the erosion of civil liberties and the rise of the European far right. While Bin Laden’s death caused the dismantlement of Al-Qaeda, it sparked an irreversible motion of strategic and psychological impacts; some of which have detrimentally altered the Western geopolitical landscape.

Overextension and Military Defeats:

Besides creating an Islamic caliphate, Bin Laden’s main goal was to retaliate against Western interference in the muslim world. As such, he sought to weaken “the American empire” and its allies by striking at its political and financial centers. By doing so, Bin Laden lured the US into a costly war that would drain its resources. In the days following 9/11, President Bush announced the War on Terror, which fundamentally altered the trajectory of the current political landscape. The first action of the newfound war, with backing from the international community, was the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, which sought to punish the planners of 9/11, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban.

The initial invasion of Afghanistan was a resounding success, with the US ousting the Taliban from power and creating the UN-sanctioned International Security Assistance Force that aimed to create a democratic authority to prevent the Taliban from returning to power. Following the toppling of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, the US shifted its focus to Iraq and Saddam Hussein due to beliefs that he supported terrorism through his supposed WMD program. At dawn on 20 March 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom began with 295,000 US and allied troops invading Iraq across its border with Kuwait. By May 2003, the US achieved total control of Iraq with the collapse of Hussein’s regime

At this point, Osama Bin Laden’s aspiration of defeating the West was seemingly in tatters—the USA, with its allies, including much of the EU, was arguably in total control, and the hopes of exporting democracy and freedom to the Middle East were high. 25 years later, however, this same hope and idea have become moot. While initially successful in Afghanistan, the USA wasn’t decisive in fully defeating Al Qaeda or the Taliban, with many of its leaders like Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden moving to Pakistan’s safe havens.

The US’s refusal to negotiate with the Taliban and announcing a new government with Hamid Karzai as the interim president came back to bite them. Both the Taliban and Al Qaeda planned to launch an insurgency to regain power as they believed the international community would eventually lose interest in Afghanistan. This turned out to be true as years of being bogged down in Afghanistan without an end in sight eventually led to NATO’s withdrawal. On 15 August 2021, the internationally backed Islamic Republic of Afghanistan collapsed as Taliban forces overran the country weeks before the 11 September deadline for the full withdrawal of all US troops. With 6,951 US military casualties and almost a trillion dollars funneled into the graveyard of empires, the war in Afghanistan became the longest war ever, turning out to be a complete failure, with the Taliban right back in power.

In Iraq, the situation became worse after the invasion, as Paul Bremer decided to disband the Iraqi army and the Baathist which led to many Sunnis losing their positions. This decision led to the Sunni insurgency between 2003 and 2005, which engulfed the country. To complicate matters was that before the US invasion of Iraq, Al Qaeda was on the ropes with the US and its allies routing them in Afghanistan, and many of Al Qaeda’s allies even criticized Bin Laden for his actions, which led to the defeat of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. However, with the invasion of Iraq, a new chapter for jihad was beginning. The number of foreign jihadists was steadily increasing, as seen with Sunnis turning to jihad, which was unheard of in the previous Baathist regime.

As Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, sarcastically notes, “If Osama was a Christian – it’s the Christmas present he never would have expected.” Al Qaeda’s growing power in Iraq meant that the jihadists were at the forefront of efforts to foment a sectarian war between Iraq’s Shi’a and Sunni populations, which they succeeded in 2006 when the Shia shrine of Samarra was destroyed in 2006. This led to a cycle of violence between Sunnis and Shia, engulfing the country even more into chaos. Iran, traditionally a historical enemy of Iraq and the Sunnis, benefited greatly from the invasion, as it facilitated the infiltration of Iran into Iraq. The 2011 American withdrawal from Iraq permanently left a scar on the once-stable country. With Iraq now engulfed in a sectarian conflict, other actors, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, better known as ISIS or Daesh, were able to swoop in and take control. The extent of this control would culminate in 2014 with ISIS taking over major cities in northern Iraq, such as Mosul.

ISIS’s rampage across Iraq forced the tattered country to seek help from the West. By 2017, ISIS had been defeated, forcing the group to go underground. However, the sectarian divide remains in Iraq, as the now Shia-led government has become an Iranian puppet. In total, the American invasion cost the US, in conservative estimates, about 3 trillion dollars, not taking into account non-monetary costs like US soldiers injured and mental health problems stemming from the war, while 4,550 service members and 3,793 military contractors also died in the Iraq War. In hindsight, by luring the United States into two protracted and destabilizing wars that ultimately empowered regional rivals like Iran, revived jihadist movements, and exposed the limits of Western military and political power, Osama bin Laden achieved his goal: he baited the West into a self-inflicted unraveling that has left the region more unstable and the West more divided and weakened than arguably before 9/11.

Erosion of Civil Liberties and the Surveillance State:

One of the striking features of 9/11 is the ever-expanding surveillance state across the Western world and the decline of individual civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism. We all have heard the phrase, “if you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to fear,” in response to criticism of the growing surveillance conducted by Western states. In the USA, as soon as the Twin Towers were destroyed, the Patriot Act was passed, which swept away long-standing rules preventing the state from monitoring US citizens without consent, and gave law enforcement agencies sweeping powers. It allowed agencies like the FBI and NSA to acquire wiretaps more easily while also monitoring phone calls without a warrant. It eviscerated the firewall that had been in place since the 1970s, shielding US citizens from foreign surveillance, and gave the FBI ever-expanding powers to obtain personal records without a court warrant. It only took the leaks by Edward Snowden, who, in June 2013, stole thousands of classified NSA files and gave them to journalists, to realise the extent of the US surveillance program. Edward Snowden exposed that President Bush secretly authorised the NSA to collect phone metadata of virtually every American in bulk, something that pre-9/11 wasn’t allowed.

What was also shocking was that Snowden exposed that the US and Britain secretly spied on allies and rivals, with intelligence agencies targeting the communications of at least 11 world leaders, which caused major outrage among world leaders. Unfortunately, while Snowden’s job of exposing the surveillance state of the US shocked the world and turned public opinion against surveillance, surveillance has grown and continued in the US. From the FBI, which oversees enormous facial recognition apparatus that can scan hundreds of millions of photos on behalf of state and local enforcement, to the thousands of CCTV cameras sprawling across the US, which can track you, a gigantic federal and state data sharing ecosystem has been built with no end in sight. As for data collected by the government, much of that data can be stored and accessed without a court order, with phone data revealing your location, who you’re intimate with, and how often you visit the stores.

While the EU is known for placing high emphasis on personal data protection, Europe’s situation has been likewise affected, with many EU states expanding their surveillance programs to protect lives. Britain, since 9/11, has radically transformed its security to combat terrorism, and through this transformation, has become more of a state that relies heavily on technology to spy on the population in the name of fighting terrorism. The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 is an act that allows the British state, including the police and security services, to spy on anyone without probable cause, requiring a warrant only for the ‘most intrusive measures’. In 2024, an amendment was made to the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, with the bill including changes to the bulk personal dataset regime, which will improve the intelligence services’ ability to respond with greater agility and speed to existing and emerging threats to national security.

Britain itself has one of the highest CCTV cameras per capita around the world, just behind China, and it’s estimated that Britain is home to as many as 20% of the world’s total CCTV cameras (The Price of Privacy: The £515m Cost of CCTV, 2012, P 3). This report was conducted in 2012, and now it’s estimated that 942,252 CCTV cameras in London, with 1 CCTV camera per 10 persons in London alone.

With the increased use of cameras, facial recognition has become increasingly popular with police and private investigative companies, allowing them to circumvent privacy laws, to create a digital footprint and biometric data unbeknownst to the individual in question. Across Europe, we see a massive securitization involving massive surveillance and laws passed that invade the privacy of individuals with little oversight. Since 2014, we have seen a move from the view that it is the role of governments to provide security so that people can enjoy their rights, to the view that governments must restrict people’s rights to provide security (Europe: Dangerously Disproportionate: The Ever-Expanding National Security State in Europe, 2017 P.6).

What’s happened is that since the infamous terrorist attacks in France and Belgium between 2015-2016, individual EU states have responded to these attacks by proposing and adopting new counter terrorism laws which have eroded the rule of law, weakened the judiciary and empowered the executive branch (Europe: Dangerously Disproportionate: The Ever-Expanding National Security State in Europe, 2017 P.6). Furthermore, across Europe, we have seen a rise in powers of the executive branch in determining who they can surveil at the cost of judicial checks. In addition to that, we have seen some European states push for greater mandatory data retention, a practice which can be both discriminatory and lead to government power disproportionately increasing (Europe: Dangerously Disproportionate: The Ever-Expanding National Security State in Europe, 2017, P 27-28).

Germany, known traditionally to be against mass surveillance due to its history of occupation by East Germany, employed the Stasi—the secret service/police, which violated the privacy rights of East German citizens—has shown that it’s willing to bend rules in the name of protecting the public and fighting terrorism. After expanding the surveillance powers of the federal intelligence service, parliament adopted another law in 2016, which allowed surveillance on foreign-to-foreign communications, even with the UN Special Rapporteur commenting that it’s highly regrettable that a “stable and progressive liberal democracy” like Germany’s had voted for a new surveillance law that legalized practices discriminating against foreigners (Europe: Dangerously Disproportionate: The Ever-Expanding National Security State in Europe, 2017 P 31).

What does this all show us? It shows us that in trying to defend against terrorism, the United States and Europe have compromised the very individual freedoms they claim to protect under liberalism, creating surveillance states that would have once been unthinkable—ironically fulfilling bin Laden’s goal of provoking the West into abandoning its core liberal values from within.

The Global Proliferation of Terrorism:

One of the biggest mistakes of the Western world was to treat the terrorist attack on 9/11 as an act of war rather than treating it as a criminal issue on a far bigger scale. The Bush administration claimed that 9/11 was an act of war by Al Qaeda—creating a state of war between the US and Al Qaeda whose leader, Osama Bin Laden, wasn’t the head of a state or nation, but rather the head of a terrorist group (Paust, 2004, P 1340). This phrasing allowed the US to go to war against the Taliban, who were indeed harboring Al Qaeda. What the US did at first in countering the Taliban and Al Qaeda was undoubtedly successful and a smart plan, which saw the US, with the Northern Alliance, successfully ousting the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But while it was a successful action at first, it was after staying in Afghanistan and invading Iraq that it greatly weakened the US and the West.

If the US had just gone into Afghanistan and deposed the Taliban, captured Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, and stopped there, it would have arguably been much better off than today. However, instead of just leaving after weakening Al Qaeda, the US and the West’s actions have arguably created more terrorists and led to the global proliferation of terrorism. 9/11 was supposed to be an action taken to dismantle terrorist networks across the world. Yet, over 25 years later, terrorism has adapted and spread across the world, which doesn’t even include Iraq and Afghanistan. In Syria, years of civil war and instability paved the way for extremist terrorists like Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS to expand and grow.

Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Salafist group led by Mohammad Al Joulani, launched a major offensive against Assad in December 2024, leading to its eventual collapse. With Joulani at the head of post-Assad Syria, it’s important to understand that Joulani was at one point the head of Jabhat Al Nusra, which was an Al Qaeda affiliate, and before joining Nusra, he took part in defending Iraq against the US invasion, where he was imprisoned in 2005 at Camp Bucca. While today, Joulani has reformed and become a politician for all Syrians, with Joulani meeting with President Macron in May 2025, and the US willing to remove sanctions on Syria, as President Trump claims he wants a fresh start with Syria, it’s important to remember that it was 9/11 and the constant meddling by the West which turned Joulani into a fighter he was with the second intifada playing a huge role in his radicalisation.

In Somalia, Al Shabab remains Al Qaeda’s most resilient force, with the organization continuing to control land and launch attacks against civilians and military personnel alike. The organization continues to exploit the gap filled by the corruption and inefficiency of the Somali government, and they have proven to be more than a match facing overwhelming odds to survive. In 2025, Al Shabaab launched a major offensive in Central Somalia with their Shabelle offensive, which has resulted in them taking over large parts of Central Somalia, routing the Somali army, who have scrambled for help from the international coalition, which includes the US, the African Union, and Turkey. Even with Trump taking office, which has ramped up airstrikes against the group, Al Shabab continues to exploit space and grievances, allowing them to hold vast swathes of land, threatening the outskirts of Mogadishu.

In the Sahel regions, the growing strength of terrorism and violent organisations like the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam,wal Muslimeen (JNIM), Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), and Islamic State in the West African Province threatens to exacerbate the ongoing issues in the region. Mali itself is facing a civil war, with the Army losing major ground in Northern Mali to the Tuareg and Islamist forces, while Burkina Faso itself faces a major insurgency problem perpetuated by JNIM, with Islamist forces controlling over 40% of Burkina Faso. Extremist violence has surged across the Sahel, with over 7,800 civilians killed in 2023, which contradicts the claims by the Junta states that they are handling the security issues. Instead of Western interventions crushing Islamists in the Sahel, Western states like France have been kicked out of the Sahel over local anti-French sentiment, leaving an unfixed issue and allowing terrorists and Islamists to grow and adapt to the situation to further exploit local grievances.

The war on terror mission, whose ultimate aim was the destruction of Islamist terrorism, has failed miserably, as, instead of containing Islamists, it strengthened and entrenched them, working as further evidence that the war on terror has not only failed its mission but exacerbated the problem it sought to overcome.

The Rise of Rival Powers: Russia and China Fill the Strategic Void:

Osama bin Laden might be dead, but his actions speak for themselves. While the USA and the Western world were busy fighting the war on terror, bogged down in the Middle East, Russia, China, Iran, and all states opposed to the West and democracy managed to rise in influence across the world. Since 2001, America’s focus on fighting jihadists has meant that China has risen militarily, economically, and politically across the globe and in Asia, as the War on Terror has consumed the US focus (Campbell & Ratner, 2018, p.69). 

This strategy distraction has meant that China has pressed forward with its advantages. With the extreme debt and losses due to the war on terror, China feels it can overtake the West, including the US (Campbell & Ratner, 2018, P.70). Today, China has emerged as an economic superpower that rivals the US in many ways and with the expansion of the Belt road which was opened in 2013, China’s road to overtaking the West is fast approaching, provided they they continue to make investments and increase their economy. 

Russia also capitalized on the US and Europe’s constant war in the Middle East by reasserting itself across the globe and its neighbors. While the US and the West were busy, Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, with the conflict over in a matter of days and Russia occupying parts of Georgia known as Ossetia. The International reaction against Russia was muted, with many of the EU states and Obama calling for a ceasefire, and it was the international reaction by the West which Russia saw as a sign of weakness, enabling them to invade Crimea and control large swaths of Donbass. In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, and three years later, the war between Russia and Ukraine has continued, with Russia controlling over 20% of Ukraine, and there is a chance at peace between Ukraine and Russia since Donald trump has returned to office, the war will likely end with Russia keeping it’s territories it conquered from Ukraine. 

Iran, a country with little to no influence within the Shia communities across the Middle East, due to Saddam Hussein’s bulwark against Iranian expansion, benefited greatly from the removal of Saddam. As Iran’s most significant regional enemy was now gone, it allowed Iran to expand within Iraq. With Iraq becoming a federal democracy, it meant that Sunnis significantly lost their power while Shias greatly expanded theirs in Iraq, which benefited Iran greatly as these changes allowed Iran to expand its strategic depth to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, forming what King Abdullah II of Jordan called a “Shia Crescent.”. 

Yes, it can be argued that due to the removal of Assad in Syria, Iran’s significant regional hegemony has decreased, as Damascus was the road to Tehran, according to Mehdi Taeb, and was also the 35th province of Iran but none of this expansion would have happened if the war on terror was conducted as two enemies of Iran, Both Iraq and Afghanistan were overthrown which allowed Iran to increase their presence across the middle east significantly. 

In his way, Osama Bin Laden achieved his intended goal, which was not only to weaken the West but also to enable its global adversaries to rise while the West was distracted. That’s not to say Osama Bin Laden was happy with either Iran or Russia’s rise, as both were enemies of Islam according to Al Qaeda, but it allowed them to rise so that the USA would be weakened, which was the main threat for Osama Bin Laden.

Conclusion: A Pyrrhic Victory for the West:

When Osama Bin Laden struck the USA on 9/11, he had many goals, which were first the removal of foreign armies in the Middle East and their corrupt influence. Osama Bin Laden knew he didn’t have the military capabilities to win in conventional warfare, so he struck, knowing a military response would happen, setting the bear trap for the West. Over two decades later, the results speak for themselves. 

America and the West itself are in a terminal decline, not just militarily but also spiritually and culturally. Before 9/11, everybody looked towards the West in awe, wanting human rights and democracy. Now in the UK which is the heart of democracy, A poll conducted showed that More than half (52 per cent) of Gen Z – those aged between 13 and 27 –  think the UK would be a better place if a strong leader “who does not have to bother with parliament and elections” was in charge. This would have been unthinkable years ago, but in truth, the Western world has slowly neglected freedoms and rights for safety under the name of fighting terrorism. 

Today, throughout the Western world, Cameras watch our every movement while individual liberties and freedoms have been curtailed. In addition, while the USA was busy fighting a war on terror, Rising powers like China, Russia, and Iran used that to their advantage to increase their global presence around the world at the expense of the West. The war on terror, which was supposed to make the Western world safer, has made it less safe as terrorism has grown profoundly across the Middle East and Africa. Before, there were maybe only 1000 Al Qaeda terrorists, but now, everywhere across the Middle East and Africa, there are Salafist terrorists who are waging war and insurgencies, like in Somalia or the Sahel states. 

The War on Terror was supposed to defend Western values and security, but instead, it helped erode both. In that sense, bin Laden didn’t just escape justice for years—he outmaneuvered a global superpower and reshaped the 21st century in his image.