Tamanna Salikuddin

Tamanna Salikuddin is an adjunct senior fellow with the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). She is also a senior advisor at Cambridge Global Associates with a focus on Indo-Pacific security. Salikuddin is a senior executive with over 20 years of experience advising U.S. leadership on national security, foreign policy, international relations, and counterterrorism.

Salikuddin was director of South Asia programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) from 2020 to 2025. She built an exceptional team of experts exploring drivers of conventional and nuclear escalation, maritime security, interstate competition, defense cooperation, and terrorism across the Indo-Pacific region. From 2018 to 2020, she worked as a USIP senior expert on peace processes.

Salikuddin served over 12 years in the U.S. government, focused on South Asia and conflict resolution. From 2014 to 2017, she was a senior advisor to the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the U.S. Department of State. During this time, Salikuddin led a team of experts pursuing a peace process between the Afghan Taliban and the government of Afghanistan. From 2011 to 2013, she served as director for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the National Security Council, focusing on U.S. security interests across South Asia. She has served as a political officer at the U.S. embassy in Islamabad and an intelligence analyst on South and Central Asia.

Salikuddin has extensive regional expertise in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, particularly in political and security trends in the region. Her primary focus has been examining conflicts and conflict resolution across the Indo-Pacific, South and Central Asia, and the Middle East, particularly those involving nonstate actors and militant groups.

Prior to joining the U.S. government, Salikuddin worked as an attorney on international law issues in South Asia. Salikuddin was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She has language capabilities in English, Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, and German. Salikuddin holds a bachelor of arts in economics from Northwestern University and a juris doctorate with a focus in international trade and security from the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.