An expert on modern warfare analyses the qualitatively new forms of terrorism we all face today – and the responses to them. How effective will a ‘war on terror’ turn out to be, and what of international law?

In August 1993, at the bar of the Novotel in Libreville, Gabon, I had an encounter straight out of a Graham Greene novel. Julien Joo, an official of some rank at the French Ministry of “Cooperation” (in reality, Aid), offered me a drink and congratulated me on the courageous performance I had just given. The performance consisted of arguing in front of fifty officials from the energy ministries of francophone Africa that electricity sector privatization, on the British model, could and should be applied to sub-Saharan Africa. I argued for financial controls, for metering of power, and against the view that electricity is a human right that corrupt governments should supply poorly.

A war on terrorism will not succeed, but a historical awareness by the West of the temptations of dogma and intolerance would help avoid repeating the 20th century ‘age of extremes’ in even more terrible form. In short, making the world safe beyond 9/11 requires a memory that stretches back not just a year, but a millennium.

It is wrong to think that the tragedy of 9/11 confirmed the myth of American exceptionalism. Rather, it broke the identification of globalisation with ‘Americanism’ and pointed the way to brighter model for our global future.

The fundamental change in America was not 9/11, but the Bush election. The neo-conservatives have a mission to create the new century in the American image.

Some of us spoke out for the United States after 9/11. Have we been taken for a ride? Al-Qaida and the Bush regime share a language. Our survival depends on a different, global identity prevailing.

The West does share a common enemy with the US. But Al-Qaida is only the first of the terrorist threats we will have to tackle. Attacking Iraq is no way. We must deal with the failure of modernisation in the developing world.

As we remember the dead, we face a fundamental choice. We can feed our fears of the clash of civilisations. Or we can enter a new global era and build on our shared sense of the fragility, and diversity, of human life. Our grasp of the history of racism may play a crucial role.

They call themselves realists, but for White House gurus this isn’t a war of equals, it is a battle between the master and the slaves.

What happens if you introduce the idea of cost control into the handling of terror? The beginnings of an audit.

In America, self-reflection has been hijacked by belligerence and a return to cold-war thinking, pulling Britain’s government along too. We must resist the emotional blackmail.

In the West, the critical distance between citizens and the state has disappeared. This is nowhere truer than in Israel. We must reclaim it urgently.

A media re-run of the events of 11 September promises too little in the way of enlightenment. What is needed is a fundamental re-think.

The terrorist attacks against the US are indeed a new kind of threat to the civilised world. But for governments to respond by culling the freedom of citizens would be not just a monumental error, but self-defeating.

The reaction of people in Cuba was heartfelt and human. For Fidel and the TV schedulers, the line was less straightforward.