Stephen Flynn

Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations

Stephen Flynn is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former member of the National Security Council.

Mr. Flynn is a retired U.S. Coast Guard commander, and an expert on homeland security and border control. He is also the director of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Hart-Rudman independent task force on homeland security.

Prior to his work at the Council on Foreign Relations, Mr. Flynn served as U.S. Commission on National Security from 2000 until 2001. During the Clinton Administration, he served as Director of Global Issues on the National Security Council Staff.

Previously, Mr. Flynn spent 20 years as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Coast Guard and served in the White House Military Office during the George H.W. Bush Administration. He was also an Associate Professor at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in the late 1990s — and a Guest Scholar and Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institute from 1991 until 1994.

Mr. Flynn is the author of "America the Vulnerable: How Our Government is Failing to Protect Us From Terrorism." In addition, he is the lead author of the report, "America: Still Unprepared, Still in Danger." Many of his articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs.

He received a Ph.D., M.A.L.D. from Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he was awarded the Distinguished Graduate award and a B.S. from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

His professional awards include the Legion of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Coast Guard Commendation Medal and the Coast Guard Achievement Medal. In 1999, he received the Coast Guard Academy’s Distinguished Alumni Achievement award.