It is clear that power relations in the global system have been severely tested since the events of September 11, 2001, so much so that it has become fashionable these days for people to argue that the world has irrevocably changed with those events. The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on September 11th, 2001 were calculated moves to test the standing and political and economic positions of the world's sole superpower. They were aimed at delivering a blow that could carry several messages around the world at once. Indeed, it is clear that this fateful event was a manifestation of the contradictions of the modern world system since its foundation some five hundred years ago, and the messages the attacks were calculated to transmit were intended to convey to all and sundry those contradictions.