In reverence of the lives lost on September 11, 2001, we have lined Hudson's hallways with "Old Glory" to commemorate the loss, the bravery, and the hope that America still represents for so many. Please enjoy the short video we made and take time to read our President and CEO John Walters' reflections on the legacy of 9/11 and the dangers facing America today. His full letter can be found here and see below for a key excerpt.

One cannot visit Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery each year without feeling the pain and loss of our brave defenders and warriors. We owe them and the many, many more Americans who fought and lived, our deep admiration and gratitude.

They liberated Afghanistan and Iraq and destroyed our enemies around the world with a power and efficiency unique in military history. They also fought smarter and better than any forces in the past, limiting both the losses in their ranks and the killing of innocents. Never has a nation so carefully conformed its use of lethal force to the principles of civilized peoples—and all this while confronting an enemy that has been willfully and flamboyantly uncivilized from 9/11 onward.

However, the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks did embolden the enemies of the United States. The war on terror is now embedded in a larger conflict between even more dangerous anti-democratic forces arrayed against America and its allies. The most powerful and dangerous adversaries—Communist China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—are tyrannies and oligarchies. As such, they are inherently brittle, facing the constant danger of ambitious rivals within and the hostility of all those who desire freedom and justice.

The example of American democracy is an existential threat to these regimes. They can be damaged and weakened by smart American leadership using our economic, political, military, and moral strengths.

Twenty years after the 9/11 attack, America’s security problem is more complex. The U.S. still faces unthinkable threats—“not only the impossible and the improbable, but also the implausible, the unlikely, and the unproven,” as Herman Kahn, Hudson Institute’s founder, once wrote.

America and its allies now face multiple, dangerous adversaries regularly conducting attacks, which have not been deterred, weakened, contained, or overcome. America’s strategic situation is much more dangerous than it was twenty years ago. Once again, it is time to rethink the rules of war. This is Hudson’s most important and urgent priority.

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