Area of Expertise

terrorism, South Asia, transnational threats, Islamist militancy, U.S. foreign policy, U.S. defense policy, Algeria, Bangledesh, India, Lebanon, Pakistan, Balkans, Lashkar e Taiba, Asian and Pacific Security

Additional Information

Stephen Tankel is an assistant professor in the School of International Service at American University and a non-resident scholar in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Tankel specializes in international security with a focus on political and military affairs in South Asia, transnational threats, Islamist militancy, and U.S. foreign and defense policies related to these issues. He has published widely on these topics and conducted field research on conflicts and militancy in Algeria, Bangladesh, India, Lebanon, Pakistan, and the Balkans. Columbia University Press published his first book, Storming the World Stage: The Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba, in summer 2011, and will publish his next one in 2015. Provisionally titled The Jihadist and the State, Professor Tankel’s second book explores the role of local states in, and the implications of jihadist-state dynamics for, U.S. counterterrorism efforts. In addition to his writing, Professor Tankel is on the editorial board of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism and is a senior editor of the web magazine War on the Rocks. He is frequently asked to advice U.S. policymakers and practitioners on a range of security issues, and spent 2014 serving as a senior advisor in the Office of Asian and Pacific Security Affairs at the Department of Defense.