9/11 was to America what dropping of atom bomb was to Japan. The sight of burning twin towers in New York had a striking similarity with the rising columns of nuclear blasts on the twin cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The fallout of both the events was equally devastating. Both stunned and paralysed the two powers. Both attacks were unique and decisive in the history of warfare. The Americans called 9/11 an act of war, and ever since then they have been waging a War On Terror we have been sympathising sufficiently with our American friends but enough time has passed to look at 9/11 dispassionately. Since it was an act of war, then, as Art of War, was 9/11 a diabolical deviation or worthy warfare? Deliberate or accidental? Fit for emulation or abomination? The Americans gave negative connotations to 9/11 mainly because they said it was an attack on innocent civilians. Yes, 3,000 civilians were killed on that day but compare that with the Americans who killed 300,000 civilians in one go with the atom bombs, and then, more with napalms in Vietnam. In Iraq and Afghanistan they even bombed and killed wedding parties without remorse. Only recently they killed 82 students at a madrassah in Bajaur in Pakistan with Hellfire missiles fired from a CIA-operated drone and a number of men and women and children in our tribal areas. The civilian casualties in modern warfare are generally on the increase. To quote Gerard Challand, "The Mass Wars (which Clausewitz calls "absolute"), the advent of which was marked, by the French Revolution, reached there culmination in World War I and, especially, World War II. Such wars aim at the annihilation of the enemy's armed forces in battle and, increasingly, the collapse of civilian population through the massive use of terror (summery executions, mass deportations, bombardments). "World War II accentuated the total character of warfare. In the Spanish Civil War, the destruction of Guernica symbolically prefigured the reversal that was underway, with civilians becoming targets as much as, if not more then, soldiers, as Coventry, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki were subsequently to show. In fact, reverting to a tradition long abandoned in Europe, an attempt was made to terrorise civilian populations and destroy their morale, in addition to attacking purely military targets." Military historians have written books on the Art of War. These books contain the writings and campaigns of military philosophers, thinkers, empowers, kings and generals. Interestingly, Challand in his book titled The Art of War in the World History, has included the name of Mohandas Gandhi who practised non-violence and used the weapon of civil disobedience to win independence of India from Britain. It was no war really but because the unarmed movement won a unique victory against the most powerful colonial power of its time, it has a place in the history of the Art of War. The background of 9/11 was the hatred American arrogance had generated. The sole superpower of the world had become excessively imperious. 9/11 was the response to it. Although no weapons, no arms, no ammunition, no bombs, not even military fatigues were used it became an unparalleled action in the history of warfare. The creative planning and superb execution shook and unnerved the mighty America. The military power of America is exposed. It is already huffing and regretting going into Iraq. In Afghanistan they are without substantial results. Their economy is shattered. Their moral authority as world leader is gone by their conduct of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, depravity in dealing with the prisoners in Iraq and ignoring the Geneva Conventions in Guantanamo Bay, and revolutions. The world has not agreed with America who thinks 9/11 was terrorism and their response to it in the shape of war on terrorism was justified. So let 9/11 be given its place in the study of the Art of War and let it be a curriculum in the military schools for warfare and practised as "Alternate Wars" in future The writer is a retired major