James Clad

Senior Adviser, Center for Naval Analyses

James Clad is a senior adviser at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) in Arlington, Virginia. He is also an advisor to IHS Jane’s and Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA).

From 2002 to 2010, Mr. Clad served as U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asia, senior counselor and director for Middle Eastern affairs at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and senior counselor at the Agency for International Development. From 1995 to 2002, he was a faculty professor of Asian Studies at Georgetown University and Director/Asia-Pacific Energy at CERA.

Trained as a lawyer in New Zealand, Mr. Clad’s career has concentrated on commercial and security affairs in Asia and, after 2002, the Middle East. He has served in New Zealand’s diplomatic service.

In the 1980s and 1990s, he wrote for the Far Eastern Economic Review. His first book, Behind the Myth: Business, Money and Power in Southeast Asia (Grafton Books, 1991) critiqued Asia’s crony capitalism. In 1996, he co-authored (with Jonathan Clarke) After the Crusade: American Foreign Policy for the Post-Superpower Age (Madison Books).