Global and International Studies Building, 1004
Biography
Zachary Constantino is a Professor of Practice in the Department of International Studies at Indiana University. He served for twenty years in the United States government, occupying positions focused on international security, diplomacy, and intelligence. He was a senior advisor in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy, deepening bilateral and multilateral cooperation with partners in South Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific region in areas such as technology-sharing, maritime security, and co-production of platforms to address security gaps. Among his other policy roles, he served as advisor to the Department of State’s Special Representative for Afghanistan & Pakistan, joining an interagency team of U.S. officials to encourage a negotiated settlement to end the Afghanistan conflict.
Constantino also served in the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence & Research (INR). He rose to become a senior analyst specializing in South Asia’s geopolitics while forecasting near- and long-term challenges to U.S. interests. He produced a considerable body of original all-source analysis to inform the deliberations of U.S. policymakers, winning awards from the leadership of INR and DIA as well as the National Intelligence Council for generating timely and insightful assessments. In addition to being a seasoned analyst, Constantino was an executive briefer supporting the intelligence requirements of the Secretaries of State and Defense and their respective leadership teams. He also regularly represented the Intelligence Community in exchanges with diplomatic, congressional, academic, and foreign government audiences.
Among his non-government posts, Constantino was a Practitioner Fellow and Adjunct Professor with the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs (SPPGA). At SPPGA, he lectured on security competition in the Indian Ocean region, the craft of intelligence, lessons learned from the Afghanistan war, and the skills required for young professionals to succeed in a foreign affairs career. He also emphasized the imperatives of career readiness and practitioner experience among his students as an adjunct professor at George Washington University, where he taught graduate courses on U.S. national security and the fundamentals of intelligence.
Educational Background
- M.A., Security Policy Studies, George Washington University, 2009
- B.A., Political Science, American University, 2004
Regions of Interest
- South Asia
- Indian Ocean
- Indo-Pacific region
Research Topics
- Intelligence
- Statecraft
- Defense strategy
Representative Publications
- “Nuclear Powers, Conventional Wars: The Dangerous Erosion of Deterrence” (co-authored with Carter Malkasian) in Foreign Affairs, July 17, 2025.
- “India, Pakistan, and the Search for Peace” (chapter) in the Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Pakistan, Second Edition, ed. Aparna Pande (Routledge UK, forthcoming December 2025).
- Review of Paul McGarr’s Spying in South Asia: Britain, the United States, and India’s Secret Cold War (Cambridge University Press, 2024) in Pacific Affairs, Vol. 98 – No. 3, September 2025.
- “The India-Pakistan Rivalry in Afghanistan,” a Special Report of the United States Institute of Peace, No. 462, January 2020.