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Our book manuscript was completed before the horrific terrorist strikes against the
United States on September 11, 2001, and was only slightly modified for publication to account
for some of the immediate reactions to the attacks. Whether or not one believes the oft-repeated
maxim that the 9/11 attacks “changed everything,” certainly enough has changed about the post-
9/11 world to give skeptics good reason to challenge our book’s central conclusions about the
ongoing democratization of global politics. The global “war on terror” has almost certainly not
reflected consensual decisions made in open and inclusive global political processes. Rather,
post-9/11 security decisions have generally been made privately by states, acting in their own
foreign policy interests. Since the 9/11 attacks, in fact, the US government has often reserved for
itself the authority to make critical decisions about peace and security even though numerous
other nation-states view them as matters for the international community. In Section I to follow,
we discuss how America’s unilateral exercise of power has fomented a legitimacy crisis. Then,
in Section II, we discuss why the ongoing “war on terror” cannot readily address this legitimacy
crisis, even though the US government claims that its strategy aims to spread freedom, liberty
and democracy. Section III discusses the potential for deliberative democracy to legitimize
American foreign policy. As was our earlier work, this section is informed by the discourse
ethics of Jürgen Habermas. While we are very concerned about the ongoing anti-democratic
practices summarized in the second section, we are also somewhat optimistic about the role
global democratic forces might play in the longer term.
I. America’s Legitimacy Crisis
Within a day after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and
Washington, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for the first time in its history
invoked Article V, providing for collective defense. On September 12, the United Nations
Convention