Arif Rafiq is president of Vizier Consulting, LLC, a political risk advisory company focused on the Middle East and South Asia. He is also a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. Rafiq’s research interests include economic connectivity, great power competition, political reform, religious extremism, and terrorism in South Asia. He is the author of grant-funded studies on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Sunni-Shia sectarian violence in Pakistan. Rafiq has written for numerous publications, including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Los Angeles Times, POLITICO Magazine, The New York Times, and The New Republic. He is regularly quoted by major news outlets, including the Financial Times and The New York Times, and has appeared on Al Jazeera English, the BBC World Service, and WNYC radio. Rafiq received an MA in Arab Studies from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.