Tom West is no longer with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Tom West was a nonresident scholar in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an associate vice president at the Cohen Group.
West served for ten years in the U.S. Department of State and at the White House, working on South Asia and Middle East issues. From 2012 to 2015, he served on the National Security Council (NSC) as director for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and as a special adviser to Vice President Joseph Biden. He served a concurrent stint as the NSC’s director for Yemen. From 2011 to 2012, West served as the State Department’s senior diplomat in the Kunar province of Afghanistan, where he managed the civilian staff of a U.S.-led provincial reconstruction team. He worked at the State Department in Washington on a variety of issues, including the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Initiative, Washington’s response to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and U.S.-Pakistan relations. He also served as a political officer in Islamabad and Karachi.
West received his BA in international studies from the Johns Hopkins University and an MA in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
The India-U.S. strategic partnership is still hobbled by parallel bureaucracies that do not yet move in sync. A few important steps could help advance security cooperation further.
While calling for an “integrated” approach to the region, Trump left to others the arduous task of shaping and implementing diplomatic and military details.
Sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan is a risk worth taking in the U.S. national interest, so long as it is as part of an integrated strategy for Central and South Asia.
