Dr Tahir Mahmood Azad

Dr Tahir Mahmood Azad is a scholar-practitioner in defence and strategic studies with over fifteen years of international research, policy analysis, and academic experience spanning Europe, North America, South Asia, and the Middle East.

Dr Azad has concluded his second doctorate in Politics and International Relations at the University of Reading, UK, where his dissertation examined the strategic implications of China’s hypersonic weapons programme for deterrence stability and nuclear strategy. His first doctorate, awarded by the National Defence University (NDU) of Pakistan, specialised in strategic and nuclear studies. He also holds a Post-doctorate from the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester, UK.

Dr Azad’s research expertise spans nuclear politics and arms control, missile proliferation, China’s military modernisation, hypersonic weapons and emerging military technologies, strategic stability and deterrence theory, and security dynamics in the Indo-Pacific, South Asia, and the Middle East. He brings a rare combination of technical depth and theoretical rigour, consistently bridging academic international relations and applied policy analysis.

He has held competitive research fellowships and visiting positions at some of the world’s most distinguished security studies institutions, including King’s College London (CSSS), Sandia National Laboratories (USA), University of Bristol, CRDF Global / University of Georgia, Graduate Institute Geneva, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), and the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP) Stockholm.

Prior to his international research career, Dr Azad served as a Research Fellow and Programme Coordinator at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI), one of Pakistan’s foremost foreign policy think-tanks. He has also served as visiting faculty at Quaid-i-Azam University, Bahria University, and the National Defence University in Islamabad.

Dr Azad has an extensive record of peer-reviewed publications and policy contributions addressing strategic competition, hypersonic and missile technologies, nuclear deterrence, and the shifting dynamics of great-power rivalry. He has working knowledge of Mandarin and brings a genuinely multilingual, cross-regional perspective to his analysis.