Abstract
September 11, 2001 brought changes to the rules of the international system established at the end of the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union allowed the United States to reign at the top of the international area. It was able to dominate the world as the only superpower in possession of superior capabilities and was able to impose its particular interests in political, military, and economic issues. It seems that eventually one voice was strong enough to answer Washington and the new thing is that this voice does not emerge from a concrete actor, as the USSR used to be. The terrorist groups are this new voice and that creates a set of new rules as they cannot be precisely identified as a concrete state-enemy. They are informal groups which cannot be localized and without a direct interlocutor to negotiate with. Faced with these new asymmetrical difficulties, the Bush administration decided to enter in conflict against the states where these terrorist groups were supposed to be located with a focus in the Middle East, and went back to an offensive interventionist foreign policy, named The War on Terror. As we know, US interests in the Middle East did not begin after September 11. Middle East countries have been a US interest since decades for their energy resources and geopolitics situations. During the Cold War US had a geopolitical need to keep this region under its authority to keep a way of pressure in USSR.
