9/11 changed America's place in the world. What did Russia and China learn?

0:00It's Consider This, where every day we go deep on one big news story. This weekend, two American envoys traveled to Moscow and Kiev, trying to find a path toward ending the war between Russia and Ukraine. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner spent more than three hours behind closed doors with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Before those talks started, the tone was strikingly warm. So, first of all, President Putin, thank you so much for having us. We were sitting outside just now, me, Jared, and Carol, and then Yuri joined us, and we were all talking about when we retire, we'll have all these incredible stories and incredible memories and yours will be right at the top of it all.

0:43Witkoff also thanked Putin for temporarily stopping strikes on Kiev while the American delegation traveled through. I want to thank you for endorsing the no-shoot policy in Kiev and in Moscow for these three days that allowed us to be able to come here in a safe manner. After Moscow, Witkoff and Kushner traveled to Kiev for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But the sit-down with Putin says a lot about where the U.S. finds itself today. For years, the U.S. has helped Ukraine defend itself against Russia. American envoys are now sitting down with the man who ordered the invasion, thanking him and trying to convince him to end the war.

1:23It's an important pivot in a U.S.-Russia relationship that looked very different 25 years ago this week. Putin was one of the first foreign leaders to call then-President George W. Bush after the September 11th attacks. He offered Russia support in the fight against terrorism. China also saw reasons to work closely with Washington. For a time, the three countries seemed to be moving towards greater cooperation. But it didn't last. Over the next 25 years, Russia and China watched the choices made by the U.S. and drew some of their own conclusions about American power. Russian journalist and author Mikhail Ziger says the U.S.

2:01invasion of Iraq was a major turning point. Instead of being the showcase of democratic global leader, it started compromising its own values. And in a way, invasion of Iraq became one of the factors that led us to that world of instability we live in. And there were other moments. The financial crisis of 2008 raised questions in China about the economic strength of the U.S. And when the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, Ziggert says Putin saw weakness and a chance to make his move in Ukraine. Consider this. The September 11th attacks changed the way the U.S. saw its place in the world. But the wars in the aftermath of 9-11 also shaped the way Russia and China saw American power, especially its limits.

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4:07It's Consider This from NPR. As we approach the 25th anniversary of 9-11, we're looking at how the choices the United States made after the attacks helped reshape its relationships with Russia and China and the world we live in now. For more about how the dynamic has changed in the years since 9-11, I spoke with British-Chinese journalist Cindy Yu and Russian journalist Mikhail Ziger. I think that's very important to remember that that was almost the beginning of Putin's presidency. He became president in the year 2000, so he was just learning how to become the head of state, and he was trying really badly to become a friend of George W.

4:47Bush as well as to become an equal partner for his European leaders. He really wanted to, for example, to become a part of G8, to become a partner of the United States in the war against terror. He was trying to use it as the justification of his war in Chechnya. He was not that person we have now. He didn't have plans to run Russia. So yes, he was mostly sincere and he was pragmatic because he was trying to make a link between Al-Qaeda and Chechen warlords. But mostly he was just a very young leader who was trying to mimic what Western leaders did. He didn't share the values. That's important.

5:33He didn't really think that Western-style democracy was okay for Russia. He was trying to sell Russian oil and gas to the West. So initially, the 9-11 attacks then brought the U.S. and Russia closer together. Cindy, let me turn to you. Was that also the case with the U.S. and China? Yes, there was a similar phenomenon with the U.S. and China. President Jiang Zemin was one of the first people to call President Bush as well to offer his condolences. And the situation with China at the time is also, you know, as with Russia, is incredibly different to what it is now. China was the world's seventh largest exporter at the time.

6:14So nowhere near the economic giant it is today. And so you really needed America as an economic and diplomatic ally in order for Chinese economic growth to get to the next phase and to become what it has since become. There was also an element of the domestic politics in it in that the northwestern region of Xinjiang in China has been a region which has suffered from separatism, Islamic-driven separatism, and actually that war on terror driven by the Americans suited the Chinese who wanted to control those Islamic separatists as well. How did that dynamic for each of those countries change after the U.S.

6:54began sending troops abroad, first into Afghanistan and then later to Iraq? Because of the situation in Xinjiang, which borders Afghanistan, China was quite happy for the Taliban to be removed. But it did mean that American troops were very close to the Chinese border, and that made it very uncomfortable. But then in 2003, when America unilaterally went into Iraq, or at least in China's views, unilaterally in a sense of not respecting the U.N. Security Council decision, That was, I think, for China, an even bigger deal because they thought, OK, here is America behaving in a way that is disrespectful to international law.

7:29Again, China was happy to play nice because of that economic reward it was getting from friendship with America. But certainly, I think it was a teaching moment for people in China to think this is where and how America power gets executed. And what about Russia? How does the dynamic change there? I think it was amazingly similar to what Cindy just said. When the operation in Afghanistan started, Putin and Russia, Russian government, was really happy about that because Afghanistan and Taliban particularly was seen as a threat to Russia's security. Russia had its own history of the war against Mujahideen in Afghanistan, but everything changed with Iraq.

8:16That, in a way, became a very important turning point in relationships between Russia and the West. Because during so many years, when the United States were criticizing Russia for being non-democratic, for violation of human rights and for the bloody invasion of Chechnya, And probably that's why right now we often hear in Russian propaganda that the current Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the answer to American invasion of Iraq. So violence is a privilege of the superpower, they say, if America could invade Iraq, why Russia could not invade Ukraine. We've seen the 2008 financial crisis, the Arab Spring, and in more recent years, the U.S.

9:07withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. What lessons do you think Russia and China learned from the way the U.S. handled those moments? So I think when it comes to the first of those events, the 2008 financial crisis, China's economy recovered much quicker than the rest of the world, mainly because at that stage it still wasn't really interlinked with the global economy financially. So it was a bit more protected. Europe has really struggled with productivity gains since then, but China's economy has become more and more important. So that was a lesson for some people in China, certainly, especially the more liberal-minded economists who thought, oh, the American system of capitalism does not have all the answers.

9:48Then the Arab Spring comes, and that is a reminder to some figures in China that actually America is perhaps out there to foment democracy, as it were, because the prevailing understanding of the Arab Spring in China is that it was a color revolution fomented by American forces such as the CIA. And then when it comes to Afghanistan, China has had a very benign relationship with the Taliban since its return. But certainly all of these events, what they tell China is that actually the American way of doing things is not necessarily the right thing to do. That America is not necessarily the model to emulate or your ally in all of this.

10:23That China has to kind of forward its own route, as it were. Mikhail, how about what did Russia learn from these moments? You know, I don't know any political event in the world that affected Russia more than Arab Spring. Because when Arab Spring started, Putin was not even president of Russia. He resigned in 2008, and there were doubts if he was going to go back or not. And actually, Arab Spring convinced him that he was personally in danger. And if he doesn't take a country back under his control, he's going to be executed the way as Muammar Gaddafi was. So assassination of Muammar Gaddafi was probably the most important event in Vladimir Putin's life.

11:10And yes, he came back to power. He did everything to crush Russian protest rallies of 2011-2012. and actually his idea to make Russia great again is a consequence of Arab Spring because he saw that as a potential scenario for his own future. When American troops withdrew from Afghanistan, that was a very important signal for Vladimir Putin that America was not that strong and that was one of the real reasons for him to start planning invasion of Ukraine because he saw that as a unique historic opportunity when most of his international counterparts are so weak. So he just had to use that chance.

11:56When future historians write about this period, what are they going to say about how the U.S.'s role in the world has changed in these last 25 years? I think it would be considered a time when America overstretched its superpower capabilities. Of course, its superpower status is actually relatively new, only really being cemented after the Second World War. And so much of that, those decades that followed World War II were taken up with a Cold War. But really, I think the confidence of the end of the Cold War, of the idea of the end of history, and so on gave America almost a hubristic sense that it can go spread democracy in other places, or it can go spread its own power in other places.

12:38And that's what has led to so many of these, what Trump used to call forever wars, but now he is embroiled in one himself, taking up a lot of American resources. And I think that's the biggest lesson for China from all of this, is that actually don't overextend yourself in foreign places. Focus on your own situation at home. We've been speaking with both Mikhail Ziger and Cindy Yu as we approach the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks about how the relationships between the U.S., Russia and China have changed. Thank you to you both for your time and your perspective. Thank you. Thank you.

13:11This episode was produced by Daniel Offman and Catherine Fink. It was edited by Jenea Williams and Sarah Robbins. Our director is Alejandra Marquez-Honse. Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dornick.

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