Ashley J. Tellis is a Senior Advisor at The Asia Group and a leading expert on critical strategic and commercial trends shaping South Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific region. He holds the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he is a Senior Fellow specializing in international security and U.S. foreign and defense policy.
As Senior Advisor, Ashley brings to bear decades of experience as a scholar, policy practitioner, and thought leader on U.S.-India relations, having played a critical role in the growth of the modern bilateral relationship. Notably, during the Bush administration, Ashley served as Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and was intimately involved in negotiating the landmark U.S.-India civil nuclear agreement.
Previously, Ashley was commissioned into the Foreign Service, where he served as Senior Advisor to the Ambassador at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi. He also served on the staff of the National Security Council as Special Assistant to President George W. Bush and Senior Director for Strategic Planning and Southwest Asia. Prior to his government service, Ashley was a Senior Policy Analyst at the RAND Corporation and a Professor of Policy Analysis at the RAND Graduate School.
In addition to his role as Senior Advisor, Ashley is a Counselor at the National Bureau of Asian Research, the Research Director of its Strategic Asia program, as well as an Advisor to the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations. He is also a member of several professional organizations related to defense and international studies including the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Institute of Strategic Studies, the United States Naval Institute, and the Navy League of the United States.
Ashley is the author of India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture (2001) and a co-author of Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future (2000). In addition to numerous Carnegie and RAND reports, his academic publications have appeared in many edited volumes and journals.
Ashley earned his PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago. He also holds a master’s degree in political science from the University of Chicago and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics from the University of Bombay.