The September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States ushered in a new way of looking at the world for Americans. For the first time since World War II, America's homeland had suffered an attack from outside forces. Unlike the attacks on military facilities in Hawaii, however, this act of violence was directed at civilians with the intent of spreading terror among them. The use of hijacked airliners as instruments of terror was a wake up call and it opened the nation's eyes to a sobering reality: the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans were no longer sufficient barriers to the scourge of transnational terrorism threatening the rest of the world. In the eyes of President George W. Bush and his administration, this new reality dictated a dramatic shift in thinking about the challenges of combating terrorism. Weapons of mass destruction, capable of wreaking even greater destruction and loss of life, were suddenly uncomfortably realistic possibilities - especially considering America's unmatched military superiority and the resultant probable use by future opponents of asymmetric means to attack the nation.
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