← ContributorsLydia KhalilFollow @arcanakhalilLydia Khalil is Program Director of the Transnational Challenges Program at the Lowy Institute. She manages the Digital Threats to Democracy Project.Lydia has spent her career focusing on the intersection between governance, technology and security. She has a broad range of policy, research and private sector experience and has a professional background in international relations, national security and strategic intelligence analysis, with a particular focus on terrorism and other forms of political violence.Lydia is also a Senior Research Fellow at Deakin University’s Alfred Deakin Institute, where she is the co-convener of the Addressing Violent Extremism and Radicalisation to Terrorism (AVERT) Research Network. Lydia is a research member of the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies (CRIS), where she leads the Crisis Points project on the intersection of disasters, extremism and disinformation. She serves as an editorial board member of the academic journalStudies in Conflict & Terrorism.Lydia has held previous appointments as an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and Macquarie University. She has previously served as an adviser with the US Department of Defense and as a senior policy and intelligence adviser to the Boston Police Department. She has also worked as a senior counter-terrorism and intelligence analyst for the New York Police Department.Lydia is a frequent media commentator and has published widely in both popular and academic publications on her areas of expertise. She holds a BA in International Relations from Boston College and a Master’s in International Security from Georgetown University.She is the author of the bookRise of the Extreme Right: The New Global Extremism and the Threat to Democracy(Penguin, 2022).Articles by Lydia Khalil (45)Lydia Khalil7 Oct 2024Trump would put personality over policy in the Middle EastDonald Trump’s overarching impulse towards the Middle East can be boiled down to: look strong, but don’t do too much.Lydia Khalil15 Jul 2024Trump attack will bolster his dark vision of AmericaFor a candidate that has themselves incited violence while playing the victim, Trump now clearly is the victim.Lydia Khalil17 Apr 2024Iran-Israel: The escalation calculusIran’s weekend strike against Israel was thwarted, but how should we calculate its impacts?Lydia Khalil25 Mar 2024Islamic State terror attack in Moscow a grim acknowledgement of global power status Russia seeksOne of Moscow’s goals in the Middle East was in many ways similar to that of the United States – to prevent the spillover of extremism.Lydia Khalil9 Feb 2024Gaza: The domestic politics of a regional warExpanding the conflict provides both US and Iranian allies a unique opportunity to consolidate their own political positions.Lydia Khalil20 Nov 2023The war in Gaza has not destroyed normalisation … for nowDespite deepening hostilities, common strategic interests still bind Israel and most of the Arab states.Lydia Khalil2 Nov 2023Artificial Intelligence: The regulatory race to ensure a democratic futureAuthoritarian governments have their own designs for AI in this new arena for strategic rivalry.Lydia Khalil12 Oct 2023Israel–Palestine conflict once more the overriding issue of regional securityThe Palestinian cause remained, but for the region had become a second or third-order issue among diplomatic normalisation and other pressing challenges.Lydia Khalil13 Sep 2023The Fix: A realist take(s) on ChatGPTYour weekly Interpreter feature to rake up resources and reads you might otherwise miss.Load More