What is the 'national interest' of the United States in the post-September 11th world community? It is not simply difficult to determine the correct, concrete policy to achieve this goal in an international community filled with the fear of terrorism and political uncertainty. It is also difficult to simply define what constitutes 'a national interest,' where there are so many competing theories regarding how to define a nation's national interest in theories of international politics. For example, a realist perspective of international politics would suggest that after the attacks on the World Trade Center, the United States as a nation should rationally determine that its enemy, Al Qaeda must be eliminated, and go about seeking out the organization in Afghanistan in a highly systematized fashion, given that the terrorist cell possessed less armament capacity than the United States. If only the United States' intelligence-gather had been more comprehensive and better integrated in terms of communication between its bureaucracies, the attacks would have been prevented, concluded the bipartisan commission 9/11, in keeping with such a view, that the better the knowledge, the more rationally one can act in a nation's national interest.

             However, the determination that it is so easy to glean the national interest in such a perfect fashion flies in the face of the conclusion of the commission that the United States was unable to fully determine the level of threat posed by Al Qaeda to the nation partly because it was unaware of the depths of hatred in the Muslim world for the Untied States. Moreover, an inductive theory of international polices would remind the United States that the needs of the world community must be considered, as the loyalty or tolerance in the Muslim world of terrorism ties into the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. An inductive view would stress less military action, and put the focus on eliminating the root political causes of the existence of terrorism in the Muslim world, which the commission also endorses, but in far less detail.