Introduction

Dr Zahid Shahab Ahmed is a Professor of Strategic and Security Studies at the National Defence College in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. Previously, he served as a Senior Research Fellow at the Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, Australia (2016-2023), and as a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California (2017-1019). From 2013 to 2016, he was an Assistant Professor at the Centre for International Peace and Stability, National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan.

Professor Ahmed specialises in peace and conflict studies, with a particular focus on peace and security and the foreign policies of South Asia and the Middle East. He has established a strong record of high-quality, policy-relevant research, supported by research funding and reflected in more than 2,200 citations on Google Scholar. His work has appeared in leading international journals, including Politics and Religion, Democratization, Asian Studies Review and Territory, Politics, Governance.

He is the author of Identity in Pakistan’s Foreign Policy: The Umma and Beyond (Manchester University Press, 2027) and Regionalism and Regional Security in South Asia: The Role of SAARC (Routledge, 2013), and lead author of Iran’s Soft Power in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Edinburgh University Press, 2023).

Areas of Interest and Expertise

• Pakistan’s Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy
• South Asian Geopolitics, Regionalism and Security
• Violent Extremism and Terrorism
• Political Islam