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John Mueller in conversation with Åsne Seierstad and PRIO Director Kristian Berg Harpviken. Photo: PRIO
John Mueller in conversation with Åsne Seierstad and PRIO Director Kristian Berg Harpviken. Photo: PRIO

Professor John Mueller of Ohio State University gave the PRIO Annual Peace Address in 2015.

Comments/discussant: Åsne Seierstad, journalist and writer.

Mueller addressed the dangers of alarmism and what he argues is an excessive fear of terrorism. Mueller is currently the Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, and has been a leading critic of the post-9/11 "obsession" with counter-terrorism measures. In his book "Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them" he argues that the reaction to the threat of terrorism overshadows the threat itself.