Jonathan Panikoff is director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, where he leads the organization’s work on pan-regional Middle East politics and security in addition to directing the South Asia portfolio. He is concurrently a senior fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Geoeconomics Center, focusing on foreign investment and national security issues.

A former career US intelligence officer, Panikoff served from 2015 to 2020 as deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East at the National Intelligence Council, overseeing Intelligence Community analysis on the Levant and the Gulf. He later led analytic support for the 2020 US presidential transition and, in his final Intelligence Community role, served as director of the Investment Security Group, overseeing efforts related to foreign investment reviews, including matters involving the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and Team Telecom.

Panikoff’s work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Politico, Time, Newsweek, and Just Security, among others. He is a frequent media commentator and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg, BBC, PBS, NPR, C-SPAN, and Fox Live, and is regularly cited by major publications including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Reuters, and AP.

He holds a JD from Syracuse University College of Law, an MA in international relations from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, and a BA from the George Washington University. He is admitted to the New York and Connecticut bars and lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and two daughters.