This 20th issue of Per Aspera ad Veritatem went to press on August 31th, 2001.
While the Magazine was being printed the tragic events of New York and Washington occurred and made, with their announced consequences, international terrorism the top priority in the security agenda.
But there's much more.
We share with many observers the view that the nature and the significance of those terrorist attacks call for a re-definition of priorities as well as of the scenarios and the strategies according to new national security intelligence targets.
Keeping this in mind, in order to provide our readers with a continuous and punctual service, we have chosen to leave the original project for this 20th issue unchanged. In the meantime we are already reflecting on the current dramatic world developments which will be examined in future issues. Still, we would like to draw our readers' attention to the contributions by our qualified collaborators Christopher Andrew, John Gannon and Valeria Piacentini included in the present volume. Even though they were written before the 11th of September, still they are of specific relevance as they touch upon aspects which are at the core of the current ongoing international debate.

Rome, 15th September 2001