Joshua T. White is Professor of Practice at SAIS Europe


Joshua T. White is Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and serves as the inaugural director of the U.S.-ASEAN and U.S.-Pacific Institutes for Rising Leaders. He is also a Nonresident Fellow in the Foreign Policy program at The Brookings Institution. He previously served at the White House as Senior Advisor & Director for South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, where he staffed President Obama and the National Security Advisor on the full range of South Asia policy issues pertaining to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Indian subcontinent, and led efforts to integrate U.S. government policy planning across South and East Asia.

Prior to joining the White House, Dr. White was a Senior Associate and Co-Director of the South Asia program at The Stimson Center and, previously, Senior Advisor for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, a position he held in conjunction with an International Affairs Fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations. While at the Pentagon he supported Deputy Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in advancing the U.S.-India Defense Technology and Trade Initiative, and advised on a broad set of defense issues related to the department’s rebalance to the Asia-Pacific.

Dr. White has spent extensive time in Asia, and has written on a wide range of issues including defense policy, electoral politics, Islamic movements, and nuclear deterrence. He has held short-term visiting research fellowships at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, the International Islamic University in Islamabad, Pakistan’s National Defence University, and the Institute for Defence and Strategic Analyses in Delhi; testified before Congress; and served on U.S.-sponsored election observer delegations to both Pakistan and Bangladesh. He is the author of Vigilante Islamists: Religious Parties and Anti-State Violence in Pakistan (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2025) and is currently writing a book on India's defense technology ambitions. He graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Williams College with a double major in history and mathematics, and received his PhD with distinction from Johns Hopkins SAIS.