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Creative Destruction: 9/11, Enron, and American Bitcoin | by Whitney Webb & Mark Goodwin | November 09, 2026 | UNLIMITED HANGOUT | 104 min. read

“The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.” — REBUILDING AMERICA’S DEFENSES: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century by The Project For The New American Century, September 2000

Controlled demolition is a phrase often used in some circles when discussing the events of September 11, 2001. However, this is usually reserved for theories regarding the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, and is less often applied to the political, economic, and technological pillars that upheld the world before these attacks. As this piece will attempt to outline, both the physical and “creative destruction” that occurred on that day have had cascading and compounding effects on society as we knew it then, and especially as we know it today.

While the term creative destruction is typically associated with the Marxist school of thought, specifically based on analyses of Karl Marx’s work via Joseph Schumpeter and Werner Sombart, in the context of conspiracy, the phrase refers to the intentional demolition of markets, technological structures and regulations due to a deliberately triggered event. The goal of that event is to intentionally and purposefully bring about a specific, wanted change to the aforementioned pillars of the status quo — leading to an advantaged consolidation by the very conspirators of the event.

The players in this act of creative destruction that occurred at the onset of the new millennia are hardly limited to the usual cast of characters often brought up when discussing September 11, 2001 (9/11). They include members of the various businesses affected and crucially involved in the events surrounding the terrorist attacks; notably, security broker giant Cantor Fitzgerald, led by Howard Lutnick; the infamous American energy pioneer Enron, led by Ken Lay; investment bank and underwriter Alexander Brown & Sons, led by Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard and his deputy Mayo Shattuck III; and stalwarts of the public-private “revolving door” such as Dick Cheney and James Baker, as well as the lesser known Thomas Barnett.

Thomas Barnett, a former strategist, professor and researcher at the Warfare Analysis & Research Department at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, RI, was selected to join members of the government, Cantor Fitzgerald, and various other public, private and intelligence sector partners atop the World Trade Center to “war game” in the years that preceded the 9/11 attacks. Specifically, these war games were part of the “New Rule Sets Project,” which “explore[d] how the spread of globalization alters the basic ‘rules of the road’ in the international security environment” with a focus on “how these changes redefine the US Military's historic role as ‘security enabler’ of America's commercial network ties with the world.”

The aforementioned concept of creative destruction is immaculately laid out by Barnett in his post-“war game” book, The Pentagon’s New Map. Barnett posits that the American national security state properly understood that there was a very real and looming danger downstream from the 1990’s Clinton-era, which saw a booming economy due to the “Information Revolution.” The country could not simply rest on its laurels, despite their immense success in distributing their state-funded technological developments across the globe. As Barnett and his national security state benefactors saw it, both globalization and digitalization must be achieved on their geopolitical terms, not just on their technology stacks.

Barnett explains:

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