Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chief of Staff General Martin E. Dempsey testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 7, 2013, about the September attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya and the response of the Defense Department. Panetta's and Dempsey's prepared remarks and video of the hearing are available on the Committee's website.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 23, 2013, about the September attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya and the response of the State Department.

In the wake of the deadly attacks on U.S. diplomatic missions in Egypt and Libya, Bobby Ghosh writes that the newly-formed democratic governments which replaced long-standing dictatorships, as a result of the Arab Spring, has contributed to greater instability and a more chaotic and unstable Middle East.

The 9/11 attacks on the United States catalyzed effective counterterrorism efforts worldwide and demonstrated the ongoing need for public resilience, says CFR President Richard Haass.

In this United States Institute of Peace special report, freelance journalist Andrew Walker explains the history of Boko Haram, an extremist Islamic sect in Nigeria, that has created havoc across the north of the country and its violent attacks on government offices, the United Nations, and churches.

Daniel Markey says tough talk is not enough as the United States places demands on Islamabad to deal with the Haqqani network.

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, James M. Lindsay, Senior Vice President, Director of Studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair at the Council on Foreign Relations traces the shifts in the balance of power in American politics following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "What we witnessed in the months after the attack was a political dynamic as old as the American republic. When the country feels imperiled, the White House gains in power and Congress loses it," says Lindsay. However, ten years after the attacks, "the era of terrorism has given way to the era of fiscal austerity," Lindsay argues, and "we now have American politics that looks more normal, that is much more focused inward, and features much more heated battles between Capitol Hill and the White House."

Richard N. Haass argues that 9/11 was a terrible tragedy by any measure, but it was not a historical turning point that heralded a new era of international relations in which terrorists with a global agenda prevailed, or in which such spectacular terrorist attacks became commonplace.

While we can contain terrorism, we can't afford the costs of trying to eliminate it and will have to learn how to live with the chronic threat of low-level attacks, says CFR's Stephen Biddle.

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, Stewart M. Patrick, senior fellow and director of the International Institutions and Global Governance Program at the Council on Foreign Relations, identifies the successes and lasting challenges in the international community's response to global terrorism since the attacks of September 11, 2001. "The world has made a lot of progress," says Patrick, "but it still has quite a bit of a ways to go to achieve real consensus and real solidarity in this fight."

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, Isobel Coleman, Senior Fellow and Director of CFR's Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative, discusses how the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2011 influenced a debate over social and economic challenges and opportunities in the Middle East.

Missing from the body of literature about 9/11 and the anthrax scare that followed is a sense of what 2001 felt like for those that experienced the events in a very personal way. This book bridges the divide and offers new insights into the period, presenting its profound implications for public health, mass psychology, governance, scientific integrity, social resilience and cohesion, criminal justice, and America's sense of itself.

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, Elliott Abrams, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, discusses how the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2011 transformed the Bush administration. Abrams says 9/11 led then-president Bush to conclude that "bringing democracy and good governance to the Middle East was going to be critical in terms of fighting the sources of Islamic terrorism."

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.

Michael L. Baker discusses the seventh anniversary of the terrorist bombing in Istanbul.

Max Boot discusses suicide bombings and their ineffectiveness at achieving the attackers' larger goals.

Liz Fuller of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty profiles veteran Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov, who has claimed responsibility for the March 29 suicide attacks on Moscow metro system in a video address.

The suicide attacks in Moscow, whether or not the work of North Caucasus extremists, are a reminder that Russia must work to reform local administration, promote economic development, and end abuses by security forces in the region while cracking down on extremists, writes CFR Russia expert Jeffrey Mankoff.

India faces the real prospect of another major terrorist attack by Pakistan-based terrorist organizations in the near future, an event that would jeopardize important U.S. security interests in South Asia. This Center for Preventive Action Contingency Planning Memorandum examines the factors that would condition India's response; the consequences of Indian military retaliation and Pakistani counterretaliation for the United States; and Washington's policy options for preventing and containing the crisis.

CFR fellows, Edward Alden and Steven Simon, discuss the Christmas day bomb plot and the U.S. government's response to terror threats.