Michael Knights, the Jill and Jay Bernstein Fellow at The Washington Institute, specializes in the military and security affairs of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and the Persian Gulf states. Knights has worked in and on Iraq since the late 1990s, traveling into the country each year since 2003. For six years, he worked in Iraq alongside the Iraqi security forces, operating on the ground in every province and most of the hundred-plus districts. He took part in the 2015 Operation Inherent Resolve campaign assessment in Iraq and advises a range of coalition commands and diplomats in the country. In recent years, he has written comprehensive studies on Iraq's security forces, the Popular Mobilization Forces, and the U.S. alliance with the Syrian Democratic Forces. He holds a doctorate from the Department of War Studies, King's College London.

Alex Almeida is the head security analyst at a leading risk advisory firm, specializing in security and insurgency issues in Iraq, Yemen, and the Gulf states. His research focuses on Gulf military forces, local partner force development, and trends in contemporary irregular warfare. He earned his master's degree at the Department of War Studies, Kings College London, with a dissertation on South African mobile warfare doctrine.