The cascading response to September 11th forever changed United States national security policy. In the two decades since that day, the Miller Center welcomed experts from a wide range of disciplines to examine American reaction to the attacks.

Journalist Evan Thomas reported extensively on 9/11 for Newsweek, which received the National Magazine Award for General Excellence for its coverage 2002. He visited the Center in July 2004 to look specifically at the Bush administration response. 

The Center has been lucky enough to have Fred Hitz as a regular member of its audience. Hitz enjoyed a long career in national security serving as inspector general of the CIA and legislative counsel to the Director of Central Intelligence. In November 2004, he stepped out of the audience to argue that the United States should vastly increase its knowledge of foreign languages, cultures, and history for more effective intelligence gathering and analysis.

Hitz returned eight years later (February 2012) to assess how the national security establishment had done in a talk entitled “The rise of the spy commando.”

As the United States approached the fifth anniversary of September 11th, the nation was deeply embroiled in a self-proclaimed "war on terror." The effort was the subject of journalist Ron Suskind's book The One-Percent Doctrine, which he discussed at the Center in June 2006.

Much of the American response to 9/11 raised questions about government surveillance of the U.S. population. James Bamford, the author of Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency and A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies visited the Center in November 2008 to share observations and insights from his latest book The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America.

Richard Ben-Veniste brought his experience as chief of the Watergate task force and a member of the 9/11 Commission to explore government transparency in the age of 9/11 to his book The Emperor’s New Clothes: Exposing the Truth from Watergate to 9/11. He discussed the book at the Miller Center in September 2009.

The effects of September 11th on U.S. national security policy lasted beyond the presidency of George B. Bush. In March 2016, as the Obama presidency entered its final months, the Miller Center welcomed journalist Charlie Savage of the New York Times to discuss his book Power Wars: Inside Obama's Post 9/11 Presidency.