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Expert Bio

Javid Ahmad is a ¼ø»Æʦapp Visiting Fellow, a research scholar at the Middle East Institute, and an adjunct professor at George Washington University. His work focuses on counterterrorism, identity intelligence, threat finance networks, and risk management involving disruptive technologies.

 From 2020 to 2021, he was Afghanistan's ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. Previously, he was a senior fellow for South/Central Asia at the Atlantic Council from 2017 to 2025, where he focused on militant/criminal networks, threat finance, regional security, and U.S. engagement. He also served on the board of advisors for GardaWorld Federal Services, a federal contractor supporting U.S. government security operations.

Earlier, he was a fellow at the Modern War Institute at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he produced assessments on insider threats, policing reform, and counter-threat financing across South Asia and the Middle East. He has also worked with the U.S. defense community, including General Dynamics, providing security analysis to U.S. government clients. His earlier roles included South Asia-focused work with the Pentagon’s Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands program, the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and the German Marshall Fund in Washington. 

His writing and analysis have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, New York Times, Foreign Policy, The National Interest, The Hill, The Cipher Brief, Financial Times, CNN, BBC, and Fox News. He is the author of the Threat Leadership Tracker, an identity intelligence repository mapping over 1,500 individuals across decentralized terrorist and criminal networks in South Asia. A 2026 Presidential Leadership Scholar, he holds an MA from Yale University and a BA from Beloit College.