Ali Bakir

Ali Bakir is a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, and Research Professor of International Affairs, Security, and Defense at Qatar University (QU).

He was A Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and a Task Force member at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Before joining QU, Bakir served as a Senior Political Adviser at Qatar’s Embassy in Ankara. Earlier roles also include Head of the Gulf Studies Program at ORSAM, Senior Researcher at ISRO’s Center for MENA Studies, and Senior Editor and Researcher at the AIWA Group on defense and the economy.

With two decades of professional experience advising governments, think tanks, and private-sector institutions, Bakir is regularly consulted by foreign officials and diplomatic missions on Gulf Security, MENA Geopolitics, Türkiye, and Great Power Competition.

Bakir is editor, lead editor, and co-editor of forthcoming 2026 volumes: “The GCC States amid the Iran–Israel Rivalry” (Springer), “The GCC States’ Strategic Pathways to Defense Industry Localization”, and “Contemporary Saudi Arabia” (Routledge). He is also lead editor of two 2026 forthcoming Special Issues in Q1 & Q2 journals on “Energy Geopolitics” and “GCC States in Transition: Defense, Security, and Military Adaptation in an Era of U.S. Decline.”