Bilal Y. Saab is the Founder and Senior Managing Director of TRENDS US, the Washington, D.C. office of TRENDS Group. In addition, he is the International Security Advisor of UN Secretary General candidate Ambassador Ivonne A-Baki. Saab is also an Associate Fellow with Chatham House’s MENA programme, a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Forward Defense Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center, and a Member of the International Advisory Board of the Geneva-based Principles for Peace and Editorial Board of the War Studies Journal.
Saab is the author of Rebuilding Arab Defense: US Security Cooperation in the Middle East (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, May 2022). He is currently working on his second book, The Kingdom’s Shield: Saudi Arabia’s Defense Transformation and Quest for Military Power.
Saab was Senior Fellow in the Defense and Security Program of the Middle East Institute (MEI) in Washington, D.C, which he founded and directed for 6 years. Saab also founded and directed for 4 years the Middle East Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center. In addition, as an Adjunct Professor, he taught for 7 years (2018-2025) at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program in the School of Foreign Service, where he created a new course on U.S. defense policy in the Middle East.
Previously, Saab served as Senior Advisor for Security Cooperation (SC) in the Pentagon’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, with oversight responsibilities for U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). In his capacity as the Department of Defense’s lead on security cooperation in the broader Middle East, Saab supported the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy’s responsibility for SC oversight by leading prioritization and strategic integration of SC resources and activities for the CENTCOM Area of Responsibility.
Saab has held director, fellow, associate, and research positions at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, Clingendael Institute in the Netherlands, Council on Foreign Relations (International Affairs Fellowship 2018-2019), Atlantic Council, Middlebury Institute of International Studies’ James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Brookings, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and MEI. Saab is a term member (2016-2021) with CFR.
Saab has fluency in both written and spoken Arabic and French, and experience living in the Middle East for more than two decades. He has received various analytic and leadership awards throughout his career including the Thought Leadership Award from the Atlantic Council and the Abshire-Inamori Leadership Award from CSIS.
A prolific and widely published author in peer-reviewed academic and policy journals including the print editions of the Middle East Journal, Survival, Middle East Policy, The Washington Quarterly, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, American Interest, and The National Interest and the online editions of Military Review, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy. Saab is often called upon to brief and testify before various executive and legislative agencies in the U.S. government and other governments around the world. He has published op-eds with globally-recognized outlets including the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, the Guardian, TIME magazine, and Newsweek. He regularly provides commentary to international media including CNN, NPR, PBS Newshour, Reuters, BBC, CNBC, NBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.
Saab earned his BA from AUB, his MLitt from the University of St Andrews, and his MA from the University of Maryland, College Park.
