Policy Analyst, Homeland Security Policy Institute
The George Washington University
Email: jrclark@gwmail.gwu.edu
Dr. Joseph R. Clark is a policy analyst at HSPI. His primary research interests include military doctrine, national security strategy, and organizational learning. Clark serves as the research director for HSPI's Counterterrorism and Intelligence Task Force. In addition, he leads HSPI's Counterterrorism Intelligence Survey Research (CTISR) project.
Clark has written on counterinsurgency doctrine, the need to engage moderate members of the Taliban in political dialogue, piracy, and the US Army's ability to innovate doctrine in the face of strategic failure in Vietnam and Iraq.
In the spring of 2011, Dr. Clark was selected as one of twenty-two up-and-coming scholars to attended the Summer Workshop on the Analysis of Military Operations and Strategy run by Columbia University. The two week program was held at Cornell University during July 2011 and included intense study of national strategy, military doctrine, the procurement process, budgetary issues, as well as campaign and tactical analysis.
Before joining HSPI, Clark spent ten years in the US Army as a psychological operations soldier. During this time he had the opportunity to work as an advisor to the commanding officers of the 3/7th Special Forces, 1st Armor Division, and 4th Infantry Division. In addition to his military service, Clark has been engaged in state and local politics. He helped establish The Dayton Foundation, a tax-exempt non-profit political education organization in his hometown of Fayetteville, Arkansas, conducted a study of that town’s firefighting capabilities and response times, and has worked with civic groups in Northern Virginia on issues related to affordable housing and access to health care.
Clark taught at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and Columbia College of Arts and Sciences, at the University of Arkansas, the Northwest Arkansas Community college, and starting in the fall of 2011 will teach at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Clark graduated from the University of Arkansas with a BA in history and an MA in political science, and from the George Washington University with a Ph.D. in political science.
