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How should we think about the 20-year response to the attacks of 11 September 2001? Afghanistan has fallen to the Taliban. Does that mean US counter-terrorism has failed? Osama bin Laden is dead, and al-Qaeda is a shadow of what it was. Does that mean US counter-terrorism has succeeded? Will al-Qaeda resurge and threaten us from an Afghan sanctuary? What should the future of US counter-terrorism strategy be? Answering these questions requires defining the goal of the post-9/11 response in a way America’s political leaders never did, examining the terrorist threat objectively and retracing the United States’ strategic drift as it responded. After two decades of reacting to threats, careening from alarmism to complacency and back again while the global context dramatically changed, Americans and their allies must reassess where they are with fresh eyes, and look ahead