Paranoia and its associated billions and billions spent because of it is how the US will be weakened.
It's been said that one of the (many) reasons the Soviet Union collapsed was because of the spending on military hardware to keep up with the US - their economy just couldn't support it.
The US has no real reason, at least at this time, to spend billions and billions of hardware BUT security is another matter.
We're so paranoid, that we're searching each other to make sure that our neighbors aren't a threat - "They could be!" is the cry from the peanut gallery and politically connected businessmen who want to bleed the American taxpayer to line their own pockets.
Now we have this virus that will attack our NUCLEAR installations. GASP! It's NUCLEAR!!! Everybody panic. We need to do something!!!
Along will come politicians and businessman with a solution. Hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent on "protecting" us from this "threat".
Another threat will come. And another. And another. And hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent on each.
In the meantime, the Fed is "Quantitatively Easing" (*snicker*) our currency. We're running huge deficits.
We're considered to be Imperialistic by most of the World - OK, all of the World except for ourselves. And one of the best ways to take out a superior force is to have them take themselves out.
To quote from "Blade Runner" - "We are stupid."