This video is part of a special Council on Foreign Relations series that explores how 9/11 changed international relations and U.S. foreign policy. In this video, Foreign Affairs Editor Gideon Rose argues that the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States "unleashed U.S. power on the world." Rose says this resulted "not just in the Afghanistan campaign, but in the Iraq campaign eventually, in the Global War on Terror, and in the massive deployment of American resources, in power projection, and in an activist world role that wouldn't have been conceivable without the immediate trigger of a threat in the previous decade." He says the end of this decade saw a "chastened, less hubristic" U.S. attitude and a country confronting a host of domestic challenges.

Linda Robinson discusses new attributes that have characterized Special Operations Forces (SOF) operations since 9/11 and their consequences or implications for the future.

This public law, 107-40 [S. J. RES. 23], was passed by Congress on September 14, 2001 and signed by President George W. Bush on September 18, 2001. The law authorized U.S. armed forces to use "all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001".