In AAAS Address, Influential Security Expert Urges U.S. to Get Past “Paranoia”

The leader of an influential U.S. security think tank urged the nation to renew its commitment to constructive international engagement, and told scientists at a recent AAAS forum that they are important partners in efforts to craft a security strategy for a new era.

John Hamre, president and chief executive officer of the non-partisan Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said that since the terror attacks of 11 September 2001, the U.S. has slipped into a state of “turbocharged paranoia.” The result, he said, is manifest in an outdated Cold War approach to current security threats, a strong impulse to isolationism and crude fears about immigrants and foreign port operators.

“I’m alarmed at how these last five years have turned us into a frightened, cowering country,” Hamre said on 21 April, during the 31st annual AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy. “We are now a nation that’s no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave, but the home of the afraid.”

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