Zoltán Fehér

Dr. Zoltán Fehér is a diplomat-scholar and a geostrategist with more than twenty years of experience working in government, academia, and the private sector on international relations, foreign policy, grand strategy, great power competition, and geopolitical risk. He is currently a Professorial Lecturer at the Department of Political Science and a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies (ISCS), Elliott School of International Affairs, both at George Washington University.

He also works as a Nonresident Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, where he currently co-leads the research project “The Geopolitics of European Policies on China and Their Implications for U.S. Strategy and Transatlantic Unity.”

Previously, he served as a professional diplomat for Hungary for 12 years, working as foreign policy analyst at the Hungarian embassy in Washington DC, and as Hungary’s Deputy Ambassador and Acting Ambassador in Turkey. He has taught International Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Summer School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tufts University, and leading Hungarian universities. He worked as an assistant to Joseph Nye at the Harvard Kennedy School.

He earned his PhD in International Relations from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. His doctoral dissertation, The Sources of American Conduct: U.S. Strategy, China’s Rise, and International Order, focuses on the origins of U.S.-China strategic competition and examines the evolution of U.S. strategy toward China in the early post-Cold War period. He has served as an America in the World Consortium Predoctoral Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin, a Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow at the Notre Dame International Security Center at the University of Notre Dame, a Mason Fellow and a Ferenc A. Vali Scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a World Politics and Statecraft Fellow with the Smith Richardson Foundation.

To date, he has authored 5 journal articles and 5 chapters in edited volumes on international relations and international security. He has published extensively in policy and scholarly publications, including The National Interest, The Diplomat, Carnegie Europe, Global Security Review, H-Diplo, The Duck of Minerva, New Atlanticist, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, and several policy blogs. His diplomatic work has been highlighted in Washington Times, Washington Diplomat, Diplomatic Courier, The Daily Iowan, and AnkaraScene. His policy commentary has been featured in various outlets around the world, including War on the Rocks, This American Life, Deutsche Welle, Czech State Television, TVP World (Poland), Al Jazeera, RTVi (New York), Forbes Magazine, Il Post (Italy), To Vima (Greece), Radio Free Europe Hungary, Balkan Insight, and The South China Morning Post.

He holds a Master in Public Administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, a Master of Arts in Political Science and a Master of Arts in American History from Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest), and a Law degree (J.D.) from Pázmány Catholic University (Budapest).