WASHINGTON: Ashley Tellis, one of the highest-ranking Indian Americans in the Bush administration, has abruptly left the National Security Council (NSC) where he worked for just two months as special assistant to the president and director of Strategic Planning and Southwest Asia.
The Mumbai- born and-educated Tellis, considered one of the United States’s foremost strategic experts, has now joined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, as senior associate with the Global Policy Program.
He cited health reasons for his less-than-two-months stay at the NSC, where he was inducted on the recommendation of former ambassador to India Robert Blackwill.
“I had health problems and nothing else when I quit NSC. I actually quite enjoyed working with the NSC people, but then I had to take care of my health,” he told News India-Times in a telephone interview on Oct 27.
He agreed that the NSC job was a “taxing one” with long hours ----- “almost a 24-hour job, you may call it” ----- and he could not have done justice to what he had been doing if he had to devote more attention to his health problem, which, he said, includes a strict exercise regimen and regular medication over the next couple of years.
He also denied that there was any ill-feeling at the NSC or any parting of ways with Ambassador Blackwill. “I have excellent relations with the ambassador and if I get over my immediate problems concerning my health, and do get another chance to work with Blackwill, I would be more than happy to serve the ambassador in any way that I can,” Tellis said.
He also denied that there was any policy disagreement or personality clash at the NSC.
Tellis was appointed to the NSC on Aug. 18, three days after the White House announced that Blackwill would serve at the NSC as coordinator for strategic planning under Condoleezza Rice, who is National Security Adviser.
It may be recalled here that Ambassador Blackwill hand-picked Tellis to serve as his senior adviser when he was posted in New Delhi.
At Carnegie, Tellis said, he would be primarily into research. “Carnegie has left it fairlyfor doing my own research. Now, after two years stay in Delhi, I am going to devote time and energy to start work on India and its missile defense system.”
Before joining government service Tellis was a senior policy analyst at the Rand Corporation and professor of policy analysis at the Rand Graduate School.
Tellis, 40, took his master’s and doctorate degrees in political science from the University of Chicago. Prior to that he studied at the University of Mumbai, where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics.
His interests include international relations theory, military strategy and proliferation issues, South Asian politics, and U.S.-Asian security relations; and his research projects included those on weapons of mass destruction in North Africa, U.S. Army intervention in future intra-state conflicts, the future of U.S. security strategy in the Asia-Pacific region, and deterring regional adversaries in post-cold war conflicts. When last working with Rand Corp., he was said to be doing work on multiple projects relating to the impact of a rising China on Asia and nuclear stability in South Asia, sponsored by the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force.
He has authored two books: ‘India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture’ (Rand, 2001) and ‘Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future’ (with Michael Swaine, Rand, 2000). His academic publications have appeared in several edited volumes and journals, including the Journal of Strategic Studies, Asian Survey, Orbis, Comparative Strategy, Naval War College Review, and Security Studies.
At Carnegie he joins Swaine, Joseph Cirincione, Rose Gottemoeller, and George Perkovich to “further build our understanding of global security issues, with particular emphasis on China and South Asia,” Carnegie sources said.
