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, and geopolitical risk. He is currently a Visiting
Scholar at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies (ISCS), Elliott School of
International Affairs, and a Professorial Lecturer at the Department of Political Science,
George Washington University, as well as a Nonresident Fellow with the Atlantic
Council’s Global China Hub.

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, in 2023. 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 4 chapters in edited volumes on
international relations and international security. He has also published extensively in
policy and scholarly publications, including Global Security Review, H-Diplo, The Duck
of Minerva, New Atlanticist, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, and several policy
blogs. His policy commentary has been featured in various outlets, including War on the
Rocks, This American Life, Czech State Television, Deutsche Welle, TVP World
(Poland), Aljazeera, New York-based RTVi, Forbes Magazine, and The South China
Morning Post.

He is also an Associate Research Fellow at the Hungarian Institute of International
Affairs and a Nonresident Fellow at the John Lukacs Institute for Strategy and Politics at
Ludovika University of Public Service – Hungary.

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