Joseph H. Felter III

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Joseph H. Felter III
Felter in 2017
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania
In office July 2017 – September 2019
President	Donald J. Trump
Preceded by	Amy Searight
Succeeded by	Reed B. Werner
Personal details
Education	United States Military Academy (BS) Harvard Kennedy School (MPA) Stanford University (PhD)
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch/service	United States Army
Years of service	1987–2012
Rank	Colonel
Unit	3rd Ranger Battalion 1st Special Forces Group ISAF Combating Terrorism Center
Battles/wars	Operation Just Cause Operation Iraqi Freedom Operation Enduring Freedom

Joseph "Joe" H. Felter III is an American defense policy expert, academic, former senior defense offical and former United States Army Special Forces officer whose work spans U.S. defense policy, military operations, and the empirical study of conflict. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia and Oceania from 2017 to 2019, a senior civilian position in the U.S. Department of Defense.i Since 2021, Felter has served as the founding Director of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University.

Notability and impact

Felter is notable for his combined influence on U.S. defense policy, military operations, and academic research on conflict and counterinsurgency. As Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, he oversaw defense policy and security cooperation across South and Southeast Asia and Oceania, a role that placed him at the center of U.S. regional defense strategy during the late 2010s.

During his tenure, Felter played a key role in the diplomatic and logistical effort to return the historic Bells of Balangiga to the Philippines, an issue that had been a point of contention in U.S.–Philippine relations since the Philippine–American War. The return of the bells in 2018 was covered by international media, including Al Jazeera, which described the event as the resolution of a century-old historical grievance. In 2021, the Senate of the Philippines passed a resolution formally expressing gratitude to Felter and other U.S. officials for their role in facilitating the return and strengthening bilateral relations.

In academia, Felter's research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals including the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, and Journal of Conflict Resolution, where his work on insurgency, development, and political violence has been widely cited. His work on defense innovation and civil–military collaboration has also been discussed in independent media coverage of changing career preferences among students and professionals in the national security field.

Early life and education

Felter graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1987. He later earned a Master of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School and received a PhD from Stanford University. Under his advisors James Fearon, David Laitin and Simon Jackman, Felter's doctoral thesis was entitled Taking Guns to a Knife Fight: A Case for Empirical Study of Counterinsurgency.

Military Career

Felter served in the U.S. Army from 1987 to 2012, retiring at the rank of colonel. From 1989 to 1991 he served as a platoon leader in 3rd Ranger Battalion. During this assignment, he participated in the 75th Ranger Regiment's combat parachute assault into Rio Hato during Operation Just Cause, the 1989 invasion of Panama.

Felter subsequently qualified as a Special Forces officer, serving as an A-Team leader and company commander in the 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group from 1992 to 1996. In this role, he led teams conducting foreign internal defense and security assistance missions across East and Southeast Asia.

As a Foreign Area Officer, Felter served as the Military Attaché to the Philippines from 1999 to 2002. From 2005 to 2008, he served as the Director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. In 2006, he was assigned to the Defense Attaché Office in Kabul, Afghanistan, to assess the readiness of the Afghan National Police. He later deployed to Iraq with a Joint Special Operations Task Force and returned to Afghanistan, where he commanded the COMISAF Counterinsurgency Advisory and Assistance Team (CAAT), reporting directly to Generals Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus.

Civilian Career

Initial academic, research and founding roles

Following his military service, Felter held academic and research appointments focused on conflict, political violence, and national security policy. He has held an adjunct appointment at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and has been affiliated with Stanford University through research, teaching and fellowship roles, including work connected to the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Hoover Institution. In 2011, Felter co-founded BMNT, a defense-focused innovation company that works with U.S. national security organizations on technology transition, capability development, and collaboration between operators, engineers, and government stakeholders. He later co-founded the Empirical Studies of Conflict (ESOC) Project with Jacob N. Shapiro to support data-driven research on civil war, insurgency, and other forms of politically motivated violence, including the development of open-source conflict datasets used by researchers and policymakers. In 2016, he co-founded Hacking for Defense with entrepreneur Steve Blank and Pete Newell, a Department of Defense–sponsored academic curriculum focused on defense innovation and problem-driven collaboration with national security partners, which has been taught at universities across the United States.

U.S. Department of Defense

From 2017 to 2019, Felter served as the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. In this role, he served as the principal advisor for defense policy matters in the region, including the development and implementation of defense strategies and plans, management of bilateral security relationships, and Department of Defense engagement with multilateral institutions.

Return of the Balangiga Bells

During his tenure as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Felter was a primary architect of the multi-year diplomatic and logistical effort to repatriate the Bells of Balangiga to the Philippines. Working under the direction of Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Felter coordinated with the Philippine government and the U.S. Congress to resolve a century-long historical grievance stemming from the Philippine–American War.

In December 2018, Felter accompanied the bells on a U.S. military aircraft to Manila and participated in the official handover ceremony at Villamor Air Base alongside U.S. Ambassador Sung Kim and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. For his "tireless efforts" in facilitating the return, the Senate of the Philippines passed a resolution in 2021 expressing its profound gratitude and recognition of his role in strengthening the bilateral alliance.

Return to academia and defense innovation work

Following his service in the U.S. Department of Defense, Felter returned to Stanford University, where his work has focused on applied national security innovation and strengthening collaboration between academia, government, and industry. His research and public statements have emphasized defense adaptation and technology competition in the context of Great Power Competition.

Since 2021, Felter has served as the founding director of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation (GKC) at Stanford. The "Hacking for Defense" (H4D) curriculum, which he co-founded at Stanford in 2016. applies Silicon Valley lean startup methodologies to solve Department of Defense challenges, has since expanded to over 60 universities internationally.

Felter has been a primary organizer for various Stanford-hosted defense innovation forums, including the INDUS-X conference (India-U.S. Defense Acceleration Ecosystem). and Stanford DEFCON, a student-led network and annual conference focused on technologies critical to national security. His work in this area has been cited as part of a growing "mission over money" trend, where students increasingly prioritize high-impact national security careers over traditional private sector roles.

Publications

Books

• Berman, Eli; Felter, Joseph H.; Shapiro, Jacob N. (2018). Small Wars, Big Data: The Information Revolution and Modern Conflict. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691177076. Search this book on

Reports and monographs

• Felter, Joseph H.; Fishman, Brian (2008). Iranian Strategy in Iraq: Politics and "Other Means" (Report). Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.
• Felter, Joseph H.; Fishman, Brian (2007). Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar Records (Report). Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

Journal articles

• Crost, Benjamin; Felter, Joseph H.; Johnston, Patrick (June 2014). "Aid Under Fire: Development Projects and Civil Conflict". American Economic Review. 104 (6): 1833–56. doi:10.1257/aer.104.6.1833.
• Berman, Eli; Shapiro, Jacob N.; Felter, Joseph H. (August 2011). "Can Hearts and Minds Be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq". Journal of Political Economy. 119 (4): 766–819. doi:10.1086/661983.
• Berman, Eli; Callen, Michael; Felter, Joseph H.; Shapiro, Jacob N. (August 2011). "Do Working Men Rebel? Insurgency and Unemployment in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Philippines". Journal of Conflict Resolution. 55 (4): 496–528. doi:10.1177/0022002710393920.
• Crost, Benjamin; Felter, Joseph H.; Mansour, Hani; Rees, Daniel I. (October 2020). "Narrow Incumbent Victories and Post-Election Conflict: Evidence from the Philippines". The World Bank Economic Review. 34 (3): 706–724. doi:10.1093/wber/lhz018.
• Felter, Joseph H.; Shapiro, Jacob N. (Winter 2017). "Limiting Civilian Casualties as Part of a Winning Strategy: The Case of Courageous Restraint". Dædalus. 146 (1): 44–58. doi:10.1162/DAED_a_00422.
• Crost, Benjamin; Duquennois, Claire; Felter, Joseph H.; Rees, Daniel I. (March 2018). "Climate Change, Agricultural Production and Civil Conflict: Evidence from the Philippines". Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. 88: 210–224. doi:10.1016/j.jeem.2018.01.004.
• Drozdova, Katya; Felter, Joseph H. (Fall 2019). "Leaving Afghanistan: Lessons from the Soviet Experience". Journal of Cold War Studies. 21 (4): 31–62. doi:10.1162/jcws_a_00910.
• Berman, Eli; Felter, Joseph H.; Shapiro, Jacob N. (January 2015). "Aid for Peace: Does Money Buy Hearts and Minds?". Foreign Affairs.

References

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