Stephen Coughlin

Stephen C. Coughlin, Esq., is an attorney, decorated intelligence officer and noted specialist on Islamic law, ideology and associated issues as they relate to terrorism and subversion.

Mr. Coughlin integrates experience in international law, intelligence, strategic communications and high-level project management in both the national defense and private sector to develop unique perspectives, assessments and training packages relating to the intersection of national security and Islamic law. He emphasizes evidentiary-based analysis.

In September 2001, Coughlin was mobilized from his private sector career and assigned to the Directorate for Intelligence, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Targeting (JCS-J2T).

Over time, his responsibilities evolved into intelligence support to information operations and strategic communications from a targeting perspective. Other assignments included the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center, the National Military Joint Intelligence Center, and the National Security Council’s Interagency Perception Management Threat Panel before demobilizing in 2004.

In 2006, Coughlin was sought out “by name” and requested to support the Joint Staff J2 in counterterror threat analysis as a lead consultant. In 2007, Coughlin was awarded a Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence from the Joint Military Intelligence College / Defense Intelligence Agency on the threat analysis aspects of Islamic law and related doctrines.

As a Major in the United States Army (res.), Coughlin was later assigned to USCENTCOM where he served in both an intelligence and strategic communications / information operations role. He has since retired from the Reserves.

Until recently, Coughlin also supported Irregular Warfare Support activities.

Recognized as the Pentagon’s leading expert on Islamic law as it relates to national security, Coughlin was in demand as a lecturer at leading senior service staff institutions, including the National Defense University, the Army and Navy War Colleges, Marine Corps HQ-Quantico, the Joint Forces Staff College, and others, as well as at the FBI (the Counterterror and the Behavioral Analysis Units for example) and associated agencies and private sector groups.

Coughlin’s private sector career focused on international law, competitive intelligence and the development and provision of open source, classified and proprietary commercial data and information products and programs at leading information publishing houses.

Stephen Coughlin is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy and a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute. His book Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad was released in 2015.

Author of:

Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad by Stephen Coughlin

Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad by Stephen Coughlin is a comprehensive assessment of Islamic law and doctrine known to form the basis of hostile threat strategies directed against America and the West, the challenges they present, and the ideologically induced breakdown of fact-based decisionmaking that is nothing short of professional malpractice by our national security elites.

Contributor

Shariah: The Threat To America: An Exercise In Competitive Analysis (Report of Team B II)

Shariah: The Threat To America: An Exercise In Competitive Analysis (Report of Team B II) is the result of months of analysis, discussion and drafting by a group of top security policy experts, including Stephen Coughlin, concerned with the preeminent totalitarian threat of our time: the legal-political-military doctrine known within Islam as “shariah.”