Stephen Tankel is a nonresident senior fellow at the Transatlantic Security Initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He is a national security expert with twenty years of experience working across government, the uniformed military, academia, and nongovernmental organizations. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of US Foreign Policy and Global Security at American University.

Tankel recently served as the director of defense policy and strategy on the National Security Council staff, for which he was awarded the Defense Meritorious Service Medal. Stephen also served on two occasions in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Department of Defense, at the State Department, and on the House Foreign Affairs Committee majority staff. In addition to his government service, he is an intelligence officer in the US Navy Reserve.

His research interests include US defense policy and planning, defense industrial cooperation, security assistance and arms sales, and irregular warfare. Tankel is the author of two books and has been published in a wide array of peer-reviewed journals and popular outlets. He has also served in numerous editorial roles, including as a senior editor at War on the Rocks. Tankel received a PhD in war studies from King’s College London, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a BS from Cornell University.