Johnny Walsh is a senior expert on Afghanistan, focusing on the Afghan peace process. Mr. Walsh previously spent 10 years as a diplomat with the U.S. Department of State, most recently as lead advisor on the Afghan peace process in the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs. From 2014-16, he was the senior policy advisor for South Asia, the Middle East, and counterterrorism at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. From 2010-14, he worked on Afghanistan and Pakistan in various capacities at State, including an assignment in Kandahar at the height of the U.S. troop surge.

Mr. Walsh has extensive additional experience on Iraq (including a year at U.S. Embassy Baghdad), Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula, and North Africa. He holds a Masters in Middle Eastern Studies and a Bachelors in International History, both from Harvard University. He is also an accomplished musician who joined with Afghan-American virtuoso Qais Essar to compose an opera entitled Tear a Root From the Earth, which uses Afghan and American folk music to chronicle the two countries’ history together.