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.
Collecting data on the number of terrorist attacks is a delicate task. The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT) developed a baseline Terrorism Threat Assessment. This assessment used open source data to present an assessment of terrorism in 32 countries across four categories: (1) Terrorist Attacks, (2) (Returning) Foreign Terrorist Fighters (RFTF), (3) […]
Introduction Academic research began to focus specifically on terrorism in the 1960s and 1970s, although it would take until the 9/11 attacks before the burgeoning field took on its current form and significantly increased output. From those early days in the mid-to-late twentieth century onwards, terrorism research has had a distinctly applied focus, with a […]
Introduction In Syria and Iraq, the general consensus is that Islamic State (IS) has been militarily defeated, but the terror group is now popping up elsewhere and breathing new life into its global caliphate. In an April 29 video, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi mentioned that pledges of allegiance from the Khorasan region had been […]