Dr. Colin P. Clarke
Colin P. Clarke is a political scientist at the RAND Corporation, where his research focuses on terrorism, insurgency and criminal networks. At RAND, Clarke has directed studies on ISIS financing, the future of terrorism and transnational crime, and lessons learned from all insurgencies between the end of WWII and 2009.
In addition to his work at RAND, he is an associate fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT)-The Hague, in the Netherlands, a member of the network of experts at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, and a lecturer at Carnegie Mellon University where he teaches courses on terrorism, insurgency and the future of warfare.
Clarke has briefed his research at a range of national and international security forums, including the U.S. Army War College, US Air Force Special Operations School, Society for Terrorism Research International Conference, the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) and the Counter ISIS Financing Group (CIFG), which is part of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. Clarke has testified as an expert witness on terrorism before the United States Congress, including both the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee.
He appears frequently in the media, has been quoted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, and has published his research in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Politico, Lawfare, and numerous scholarly journals, including Small Wars & Insurgencies, Historical Methods, and Military Operations Research.
Clarke is the author of Terrorism, Inc.: The Financing of Terrorism, Insurgency, and Irregular Warfare, published in 2015 by Praeger Security International and is currently working on Terrorism: The Essential Reference Guide, also by Praeger and due to be published in 2018.
He received his Ph.D. in international security policy from the University of Pittsburgh.
Despite nearly two decades of a global counter-terrorism campaign waged by the United States and its allies, there may now be four times as many Salafi jihadist fighters as there were on September 11, 2001. The total number is currently estimated at 230,000 militants spread across approximately 70 countries, with the lion’s share currently located […]
With the collapse of the so-called caliphate and the morphing of the proto-state back into an insurgency, the virtual presence of Islamic State is now one the ways for the group to maintain a link with its international audience and supporters. Nevertheless, after a peak in the years 2014-2015, IS’ media production has also sharply […]
Most Preventing/Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) strategies assign a prominent role to counter or alternative narratives. The thinking behind these strategies goes something like this: groups like the so called Islamic State and Al Qaeda have been dominating the messaging war by reaching out over multiple platforms while culturally and individually tailoring their messages. The argument […]