People
Douglas Johnston
Strategic Religious Engagement Hub Advisory Board Member
Profile
Douglas M. Johnston is president emeritus and founder of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, a Washington, DC-based organization that works to address identity-based conflicts by including religion as part of the solution. He is a member of the Strategic Religious Engagement Hub Advisory Board, an initiative hosted by the Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. A distinguished graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he holds a master’s degree in public administration and Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. Johnston has served in senior positions in both the public and private sectors, including as deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy and as executive vice president and COO of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Among his notable publications are Religion, the Missing Dimension of Statecraft (1994); Faith-based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik (2003); and Religion, Terror, and Error: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Challenge of Spiritual Engagement (2011). Johnston is a captain in the Naval Reserve and at the age of 27 was the youngest officer in the U.S. Navy to qualify for command of a nuclear submarine.