Major-General Richard Lewis Clutterbuck CB OBE (22 November 1917 – 6 January 1998[1]) was a British Army officer and engineer who later became a pioneer in the study of political violence.

The army sent Clutterbuck to different hotspots, including Palestine (1947) during the Irgun Zvei Leumi's terrorist campaign.

As chief engineer Far East, 1966–68, Brigadier Clutterbuck put into practice in northeast Thailand the counter-terrorist philosophy he was gradually evolving.

Nicholas Shakespeare reports that Clutterbuck's secret visits to Lima, Peru in the early 1990s[2] transformed police and army operations against the Sendero Luminoso when the organisation appeared on the verge of overthrowing the government.

His advice that a forensic rather than militaristic approach be taken to counter-terrorist operations was successfully applied by police chiefs such as General Antonio Ketin Vidal[3] and led directly to the arrest of Abimael Guzman, leader of the Senderistas, and the winding up of his organisation.