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[We are mostly talking about terrorism and not the economy.
I am talking about 9/11. Was it worth it?]

Of course it was worth it. It’s a given that new enemies arise once old enemies collapse. No one expected a band of pickup terrorists to take the Twin Towers down, but it’s the kind of thing that brigands have been doing since the beginning of recorded history. It was something new, tactically, but it failed, and it took down with it Saddam Hussein, as well as the Taliban. By the way, helping the Soviets beat the Nazis was also worth it, despite the fact that the Soviets helped kill 100K Americans during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Similarly, helping China beat the Japanese was also worth it, despite the Chinese helping to kill 100K GI’s* during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The difference between the Russian and Chinese involvement in GI deaths and the Saudi involvement in the 9/11 casualties is that the Russian and Chinese governments were behind those deaths, whereas the Saudi terrorists were rebels who wanted to put themselves in power at the expense of the Saudi royals.

Now, Russians think of the Saudi royals as the sponsors of the Chechen rebels who caused big problems in Chechnya and that’s certainly true. But they weren’t the sponsors of the 9/11 Saudi terrorists, whose leader, bin Laden, wanted to overthrow the Saudi royals and put himself in their place. Think of the Saudi government sponsorship of the Chechens as payback for the Soviet sponsorship of Yemeni rebels back in the 60’s, not to mention the Soviet takeover of Afghanistan in the 70’s. Of course, when Chechens started participating in al Qaeda and attacking Americans, the Saudi royals pulled back, which is why Chechnya has been relatively peaceful since 9/11. Money is the lifeblood of all war, including guerrilla campaigns. No money, no guerrilla war.

I agree that Russia is not like Saudi Arabia - Russia is poorer and less well-managed, despite having abundant natural resources and superior human resources, in the form of a higher IQ population. Russia’s average IQ, at 97 is just one point lower than the US (98). Saudi Arabia’s is 84. And yet, despite far superior mineral resource wealth and a far smarter population vs Mexico’s 88 IQ average, Russia’s nominal per capita GDP is similar to Mexico’s. Heck, Russia’s GDP per capita is lower than Poland’s, whose principal natural resource is *coal*.
https://brainstats.com/average-iq-by-country.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita