Jona Welle

Reaction Paper

In reaction to the events of September 11^th we can begin to see how our world is interconnected, and realize how a terrorist act in New York affects the world as a whole. Even though the destruction of the World Trade Center towers and the crippling of the Pentagon (not to mention the [people killed in the commercial airliners) seemed to be an attack on the U.S., the people of the world realized that it was an act of terrorism that would touch aspects of their lives also. In this paper I will give examples of how an event in the U.S. can have lasting repercussions around the world.

An immediate reaction of other nations around the world was that of support to the U.S. and also to the families of the victims of the terrorist attacks. Those countries that were not the aggressors chose to back the U.S.’s policy on no tolerance for terrorism, and not differentiating between the terrorists and the countries that harbor them. This showed that the world exists as a global economy, and when an attack happens against innocent people (of this scale), the whole world mourns and feels the scar that these events have left. Along with feeling the blow emotionally, other countries also chose to move towards stricter policies regarding terrorism, and taking measures to prevent another attack of this magnitude against their nation. This clearly shows that other countries choose not to see themselves as isolated countries, but as citizens in a global community.

Economically other countries were affected by the terrorist attacks on the U.S. Over seas, stock markets suffered as they began to prepare for the economic backlash that a global event like this could bring (in terms of bringing about a war). Also in Singapore they had no scale by which to measure the worth of their agricultural products in global trade because the U.S. had not participated in the grain market trading for a short amount of time. In the U.S., as well as the rest of the world, airports beefed up security, and getting into a country as a foreigner became increasingly harder. Things like this were global adjustments to a global tragedy, and as a world community we suffered and adjusted together.

Now in time of war, we continue to act globally. All heads of state are supporting the actions of the U.S. (at least on the need to act, perhaps not on the means of attacking), and other countries are offering aid in the form of military men, arms, food and supply, air space, etc. This just goes to show that the world is acting in a unified fashion to end a global problem that if left out of check could quite possibly result in a large-scale terrorist attack in another country.