Does the absence of 9/11 really change anything significant?

Does the absence of 9/11 change anything significant?

  • Yes

    Votes: 210 86.4%
  • No

    Votes: 3 1.2%
  • Debatable

    Votes: 30 12.3%

  • Total voters
    243
one minor thing would be that Dave Matthews Band would of released as there third single off the album Everyday When the world ends instead of Everyday in October of 2001 instead they tabled it and released Everyday as the single and the music video in Nov of 01.
 
This. The US would more likely try to respond differently to the Hainan incident with the Chinese than try to attack Iraq even if W and some chickenhawks wanted to attack. There was no domestic appetite to go after some nebulous WMDs in 2001 especially since those WMDs surely couldn't be used on CONUS. [mild sarcasm on underlined statement]

Didn't Hainan Island happen before 9/11? How would 9/11 not happening impact how the Bush administration dealt with the incident differently from OTL?
 

nbcman

Donor
Didn't Hainan Island happen before 9/11? How would 9/11 not happening impact how the Bush administration dealt with the incident differently from OTL?
The incident did happen in the spring of 2001. However the US and the PRC could decide to continue to probe each other in the SCS later in 2001 as what has been happening since 2015 with the Freedom of Navigation operations there instead of keeping things calm due to the 9/11 attacks.
 
Bush gave Putin notice in December 2001 before his speech writer coined that term.
While the term "Axis of Evil" didn't exist until 2002, Cheney and Rumsfled frequently expressed the views that Bush was expressing in that speech throughout Clinton's Presidency. The Rumsfeld Commision comes to mind.
 
The people of Iraq, Afghanistan and many other places would have a lot to say about that

This thread seems extremely US-centric to me

Pro-tip: Most Americans do not acknowledge the rest of the world, except for when they are told by their media that their military should aggressively invade country X.
 
No 9/11 attacks or War on Terror changes international geopolitics significantly.

For one thing, the USA/NATO wouldn't blow away trillions of dollars on fighting an endless war, and Western society wouldn't become anywhere near as paranoid about Muslim immigration or terrorist attacks as they are now. Foreign policy is going to be much more focused on China and Russia.

Places like Afghanistan or Somalia are still going to be ravaged by their preexisting civil wars, only the American government and media aren't going to care so much about what goes on there. Other nations like Iraq and Syria will still have problems and would likely explode into conflict, but without American interference or the rise of AQ/ISIS, the results would be (relatively) less catastrophic for the rest of the Middle East.
 
From a pop-culture perspective, we probably wouldn't have all that "post-9/11" fiction, at least not the way we got it IOTL. We'd probably still have The Bourne Identity and 24, since those started production before 9/11, but they might not have had the reception they did.
 
Without 9/11, The middle-east would probably be more stable. Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence, terrorists exist to cause fear.
No terror = no war on terror = no Arab spring.
First gulf war was a triumph for western military technology above old soviet.
A more stable secular middle-east, cheaper oil, investors may gamble on different commodities that property, probably in Middle Eastern oil so maybe no recession in 2008.
Military spending reduced even greater as it only leaves North Korea as a ‘baddie’ and really v USA it hasn’t a hope. A set battle v any western power, you loose.
You never had it so good.
 

oberdada

Gone Fishin'
Without 9/11 and not another war on Iraq in the making, the German election 2002 swings the other way.
Chancellor Edmund Stoiber will have to do all the economic reforms, the SPD swings to the left and absorbs parts of the PDS that is reduced to a regional party.
In 2006 Red-Green wins, maybe even with Lafontaine as new chancellor. If the 2008 financial crisis hits, he declares "war" on financial capitalists.
The Euro is devaluated, and in 2010 the CDU comes back into power under Chancellor Merz.
Angela Merkel will never become chancellor in that TL.
The AfD does not form.
No GroKo.
Yes, very different as in OTL.
 
The Religious Right might be stronger as they wouldn't be seen as having overreached by calling gays, athiests, and pro-choice people "unpatriotic" and claiming that invading Iraq was God's will and they wouldn't be seen as hypocrites if they didn't preach against Islam.
religious right would be weaker without post-9/11 patriotic bandwagoning
 
one thing that would have to be dealt with... the no-fly zones in Iraq. Saddam was getting increasingly nasty about them, taking shots at US planes enforcing it. While the US invasion of Iraq was a disaster in most ways, it did fix this small issue. Without it... what happens eventually?
 
The question is where the POD is for 9/11 not to happen.
Is the 9/11 plot exposed / foiled? Is Al-Qaida weakened / destroyed?
Prior to 9/11 plots were carried out (embassy bombings, USS Cole) and some happened after 9/11 too (London bus, Spanish trains). Wiping out 9/11 does not solve the terror issue. Some other plot would still be probably attempted against the US.
 
The question is where the POD is for 9/11 not to happen.
Is the 9/11 plot exposed / foiled? Is Al-Qaida weakened / destroyed?
Prior to 9/11 plots were carried out (embassy bombings, USS Cole) and some happened after 9/11 too (London bus, Spanish trains). Wiping out 9/11 does not solve the terror issue. Some other plot would still be probably attempted against the US.

But again, it was the destruction of an American symbol that changed America so greatly.
 
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