{"id":77503,"date":"2023-05-31T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-31T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2023\/05\/31\/has-loneliness-become-a-national-security-issue\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T15:06:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T15:06:26","slug":"has-loneliness-become-a-national-security-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/opinion\/2023\/05\/31\/has-loneliness-become-a-national-security-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"Has loneliness become a national security issue?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last month, we learned that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2023\/04\/13\/fbi-arrests-air-national-guardsman-in-connection-with-dod-intel-leak\/\" target=\"_blank\">top-secret military documents, which provided insight into Russian moves within Ukraine, were leaked<\/a> on the internet \u2014 straining relationships with American allies and compromising our intelligence collection assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The culprit was not a foreign spy or ideology-driven digital warrior. It was a socially awkward airman first class in the Air National Guard with low self-esteem, attempting to show off for a group of teenage gamers on a chat platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The breach calls into question the standards the national security community applies in determining who gets top secret clearance. We must move beyond the current vice-based criteria that look for people who are vulnerable to blackmail, have a connection to \u201cbad actors,\u201d or have highly recognizable psychological issues. Loneliness, low self-esteem, and narcissism must be added to the list of red flags to look for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This month, the surgeon general of the United States announced an \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/05\/02\/health\/murthy-loneliness-isolation\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">epidemic of loneliness and isolation<\/a>\u201d affecting the country, and he laid out a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hhs.gov\/surgeongeneral\/priorities\/connection\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">framework for a \u201cNational Strategy to Advance Social Connection,\u201d<\/a> as part of a plan to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hhs.gov\/about\/news\/2023\/05\/03\/new-surgeon-general-advisory-raises-alarm-about-devastating-impact-epidemic-loneliness-isolation-united-states.html\" target=\"_blank\">mend the social fabric of our nation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While the full impact of the mental health issues associated with pandemic isolation will not be fully understood for some time, a survey published by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nimh.nih.gov\/health\/statistics\/mental-illness#:~:text=Prevalence%20of%20Serious%20Mental%20Illness%20(SMI),-Figure%203%20shows&#038;text=This%20number%20represented%205.5%25%20of,50%20and%20older%20(2.5%25).\" target=\"_blank\">National Institute of Mental Health<\/a> identified that the prevalence rate for mental health illness \u2014 which includes mental, behavioral or emotional disorders \u2014 was highest among 18-25 year-olds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moreover, in the Air National Guard, where Jack Teixeira served, directors of psychological health across <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalguard.mil\/News\/Article\/3381921\/psychological-health-directors-discuss-readiness-impacts\/\" target=\"_blank\">90 wings reported 109,000 in-person encounters<\/a> with service members and their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These revelations present us with several challenges, chief among them, calling into question how security clearances are vetted. According to the Office of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dni.gov\/index.php\/ncsc-how-we-work\/ncsc-security-executive-agent\/ncsc-reform-effort\/ncsc-security-vs-suitability\" target=\"_blank\">Director of National Intelligence<\/a>, which determines the eligibility for access to classified information, \u201ca security clearance investigation is an inquiry into an individual\u2019s loyalty, character, trustworthiness and reliability to ensure that he or she is eligible for access to national security information.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mental health issues <a href=\"https:\/\/www.military.com\/veteran-jobs\/security-clearance-jobs\/psychologial-conditions-and-security-clearances.html\" target=\"_blank\">raise concerns about eligibility<\/a> because they may cause poor judgment or unreliable, untrustworthy, or dysfunctional behavior. Mental health will influence how a person perceives the world and makes their decisions. Because of this, there are lists of disqualifying conditions, indicators, and behaviors used to determine suitability for a security clearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Absent from these lists are loneliness, poor self-esteem, and social anxiety, narcissism which are the traits exhibited by Teixeira \u2014 as well as most mass shooters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Clearly, there were red flags overlooked or missed by those who approved Jack Teixeira\u2019s top-secret clearance, and it appears that a number of oversight responsibilities failed. The current FBI and DoD investigations will sort this out, this disgraced airman likely will go to jail for a long time and a number of people should and will lose their jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moving forward, however, there must be a comprehensive review of our current security vetting and monitoring. We must move past the legacy perception of people who represent a \u201csecurity risk,\u201d and develop new screening criteria that quickly identifies people who exhibit loneliness, poor self-esteem and grandiose narcissism (as displayed by Teixeira), remove them from access to classified information, and provide them with the support and tools to address these issues before they become toxic and make bad decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Jack Hammond is a retired U.S. Army Brigadier General with multiple combat commands, and he currently serves as the chief executive for the <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/homebase.org\/\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Home Base National Center of Excellence for Mental Health and Brain Injuries<\/i><\/a><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Have an opinion?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>This article is an Op-Ed and as such, the opinions expressed are those of the author. If you would like to respond, or have an editorial of your own you would like to submit, please <\/i><a href=\"mailto:opinions@militarytimes.com\"><i>email us<\/i><\/a><i>. Want more perspectives like this sent straight to you? <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/link.militarytimes.com\/join\/5b9\/sign-up-opinion\"><i>Subscribe to get our Commentary &amp; Opinion newsletter<\/i><\/a><i> once a week.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recent revelations about the prevalence of mental health issues in America present challenges, including questioning how security clearances are vetted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":107218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":14,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[78,100,23,93,25,14],"tags":[],"coauthors":[6899],"class_list":["post-77503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-daily-news-roundup","category-home","category-middle-column","category-newsletters","category-opinion"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"GAUSVUO2CBD3ZKHAEDYDBKMOE4","arc_canonical_url":"\/opinion\/2023\/05\/31\/has-loneliness-become-a-national-security-issue\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Has loneliness become a national security issue? - Army Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Recent revelations about the prevalence of mental health issues in America present challenges, including questioning how security clearances are vetted.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Has loneliness become a national security issue?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Recent revelations about the prevalence of mental health issues in America present challenges, including questioning how security clearances are vetted.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/opinion\/2023\/05\/31\/has-loneliness-become-a-national-security-issue\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Army Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-05-31T10:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-08T15:06:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brig. 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