The early 21st century saw escalating intra - and international strife in the Near East and Afghanistan , stimulated by vast economic disparities , by dissatisfaction with governments dominated by Western interests , by inter-ethnic and inter-sectarian feuds , and by the longest war in the history of the United States , the proximate cause for which was Osama bin Laden 's provocative 2001 destruction of New York City 's World Trade Center . The Arab Spring , a revolutionary wave of uprisings in North Africa and the Near East in the early 2010 's , produced power vacuums that led to a resurgence of authoritarianism and the advent of reactionary groups like the Islamic State
2001 destruction
September 11 attacks
History of the world