Lieutenant General (Retd) Waheed Arshad

Lt Gen (Retd) Waheed Arshad is a retired three-star general in the Pakistan Army who served as the Chief of General Staff (CGS) at the General Headquarters from 2010 to 2013. His previous appointments at the GHQ include IG Training and Evaluation (IGT&E;), Vice Chief of General Staff (VCGS) and DG Planning at COAS Secretariat. Arshad also served as the chief Army spokesman heading the Inter Services Public Relations from 2007 to 2008.

Gen Arshad was commissioned in the Armoured Corps of Pakistan Army in October 1975 in the 52nd PMA Long Course. He is a graduate of Command and Staff College Quetta; Turkish War College, Istanbul, Turkey; and National Defence College, Islamabad. He holds master's degrees in War and Strategic Studies from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad and diploma in Turkish Language from National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad.

During his career, he served as Brigade Major of an Independent Armored Brigade Group and remained on the faculty of Pakistan Military AcademyKakul, School of Infantry and Tactics, Quetta and National Defence College, Islamabad. He has also served as Director Military Operations at Military Operations Directorate. In 2007, Gen Arshad succeeded Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan as DG Inter Services Public Relations. In January 2008 he was appointed as the DG Planning at COAS Secretariat, heading the army's think-tank.

In October 2008, Waheed Arshad was appointed as the Vice Chief of General Staff (VCGS) of the Army. He was promoted as lieutenant-general in April 2010 and took over as IG Training and Evaluation (IGT&E;). In October 2010 he took over as Chief of General Staff (CGS), the most coveted posting in Pakistan Army.

Lieutenant General (Retd) Syed Ata Hasnain

Lieutenant General (Retd) Syed Ata Hasnain, PVSM, UYSM, AVSM, SM,VSM & BAR is a retired Indian Army Officer and a former Commander-in-Chief of the 16th Corps. A second generation Army officer, Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain,, has extensive experience in the handling of turbulent situations throughout his career which gave him hands on insight at different ranks in diverse environment such as Sri Lanka (as part of IPKF), Siachen, North East India , Punjab, Mozambique and Rwanda (as part of UN Forces) and most frequently in Jammu & Kashmir where he served seven tours of duty ending as the Commander of the Srinagar based 15 Corps.

Educated at Sherwood College Nainital, St Stephen’s College, Delhi and Kings College, London General Hasnain has had varied exposure abroad long having undergone the Royal College of Defense Studies (RCDS) program, London and at the Asia Pacific Centre for Security Studies (APCSS), Hawaii. He has an MA in International Studies from Kings College, University of London and an M Phil in Defense and Management Studies from the Indore University.

General Hasnain uses his vast experience to research, speak and write on conflict and strategic issues focusing on Kashmir, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, Middle East, Religious Radicalism, Internal Security Issues and Terrorism. He is the winner of the Capital Foundation Society’s Award for Excellence in Military Leadership and is a leading contributor to famous media houses of India. His repertoire of knowledge of Jammu & Kashmir is based upon his boots on ground experience spread across various ranks and appointments. He writes for a number of media houses, several online news websites, besides a host of journals and magazines. A regular participant in National TV debates he is associated with Vivekanand International Foundation as Visiting Fellow and the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS). He is also a member of the India Afghanistan Foundation set up by MEA andtill recently the Eminent Persons Panel on Indonesia.

Lieutenant General (Retd) Vinod Bhatia

Lieutenant General (Retd) Vinod Bhatia, PVSM, AVSM, SM, is a retired Indian Army Officer and currently the Director of the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CENJOWS). He superannuated after 40 years of distinguished service in the Army as the Director General Military Operations (DGMO), one of the most important functionaries of the Army. As the DGMO, he was directly responsible for talks with his counterpart in Pakistan to ensure sustained ceasefire, a first of its kind and was much appreciated by the National Polity. His advisory skills in strategic arena haveplayed an inseparable part in designing and implementing numerous policies for the Indian Army. He was instrumental in giving the much needed focus to capability development and capacity enhancement along our Northern borders and effective management of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and the LC. Gen Bhatia is a graduate of Defence Services Staff College, College of Defence Management and the prestigious National Defence College. He was commissioned into the Parachute Regiment in June 1974.

Gen Bhatia has wide ranging experience in command, staff and instructional appointments. His higher command assignments include that of Mountain Brigade in North Bengal, Infantry Division on the Line of Control and an operational Corps along the India – China border. His operational experience is varied , as he has actively been part of Ops Rakshak, Vijay ,Rhino, Hifazat, Orchid, Falcon , All Clear and Cactus (Maldives).

The Lt General has also vast experience in Disaster Management. As the Corps Commander he was responsible for the planning, deployment of resources and execution of rescue, relief and rehabilitation operations during the Sikkim Earthquake of 18 Sep 2011. As the Director General Military Operations he was also responsible for the planning and execution of rescue and relief operations during one of the worst ever disaster (Uttarakhand floods in Jun 2013) wherein nearly 35,000 people were evacuated under the most challenging and difficult circumstances.

Lt General Vinod Bhatia was The Colonel of The Parachute Regiment from 01 Dec 2010 to 28 Feb 2014, a period which saw the growth of the Special Forces of India enhancing their Operational capabilities. He was also the Co-chair of The India- US Executive Steering Group on Defence Cooperation He has written on wide ranging subjects such as Regional and National Security, International Relations, Special Operations, Human Resource Development, Human Rights, Psychological & Information warfare and Operational Philosophy in the course of his career and post superannuation.

Nicole Waintraub

Nicole Waintraub is a founding partner of the Ottawa Dialogue, a suite of South Asia Track 2 projects based at the University of Ottawa. As a long time manager and facilitator with the Ottawa Dialogue, Nicole’s portfolio covers a range of India-Pakistan and India-Pakistan-Afghanistan issues including: conventional military-to-military relations, strategic relations, regional economic cooperation, and intelligence cooperation.

In addition to her work on South Asia, Nicole manages a number of Middle East and North Africa initiatives.

Nicole is also a Senior Research Associate at the University of Ottawa, where her work centres on security arrangements and ceasefire management.

Ambassador Aziz Ahmad Khan

Ambassador (Retd.) Aziz Ahmad Khan joined the Pakistan Foreign Service in 1969, and served as Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Malaysia (1995 to 1996) and Ambassador to Afghanistan (1996 to 2000). He has also served as the Spokesman for Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2001 to 2003), Additional Foreign Secretary (2000 to 2002), and Director General of the Foreign Service Academy (2002 to 2003). He then proceeded to serve as Pakistan's High Commissioner to New Delhi (2003 to 2006). Ambassador Khan has served in various capacities in Pakistan Missions in Buenos Aires, Brasilia, Maputo, Vienna, and Lisbon. He currently serves as Honourary Vice President at Jinnah Institute, and is a member of the Board of the recently-established Regional Peace Institute.

Moeed Yusuf

Moeed Yusuf is the Associate Vice President of the Asia center at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Yusuf has been engaged in expanding USIP’s work on Pakistan/South Asia since 2010. His current research focuses on youth and democratic institutions in Pakistan, policy options to mitigate militancy in Pakistan and the South Asian region in general, and U.S. role in South Asian crisis management. His latest book, Brokering Peace in Nuclear Environments: U.S. Crisis Management in South Asia, is being released by Stanford University Press in 2018.

Before joining USIP, Yusuf was a fellow at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, and concurrently a research fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center at Harvard Kennedy School. He has also worked at the Brookings Institution. In 2007, he co-founded Strategic and Economic Policy Research, a private sector consultancy firm in Pakistan. Yusuf has also consulted for a number of Pakistani and international organizations including the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and the Stockholm Policy Research Institute, among others. From 2004-2007, he was a full-time consultant with the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Pakistan’s premier development-sector think tank.

Yusuf taught in Boston University's Political Science and International Relations Departments as a senior teaching fellow in 2009. He had previously taught at the defense and strategic studies department at Quaid-e-Azam University, Pakistan. He lectures regularly at the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute and has also lectured at the Pakistan Military Staff College and at NATO’s Center of Excellence-Defense Against Terrorism in Ankara, Turkey.

He has published widely in national and international journals, professional publications and magazines. He writes regularly for Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English daily. He also frequently appears as an expert on U.S. and Pakistani media. His books South Asia 2060: Envisioning Regional Futures (Adil Najam and Moeed Yusuf, eds.) and Getting it Right in Afghanistan (Scott Smith, Moeed Yusuf, and Colin Cookman, eds.) were published by Anthem Press, UK and U.S. Institute of Peace Press respectively in 2013. He is also the editor of Pakistan's Counter-terrorism Challenge (Georgetown University Press, 2014) and Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in South Asia: From a Peacebuilding Lens (U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 2014).

Yusuf has served on a number of important task forces, advisory councils, working groups, and governing boards, both in the U.S. and Pakistan. In 2013, he was selected to Nobel laureate, Pugwash International’s ‘Council’ (governing body) and subsequently became the youngest member ever to be included in its global executive committee to serve a six-year term.

He holds a Masters in International Relations and PhD in Political Science from Boston University.