Indian-American security expert S. Paul Kapur was sworn in as US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs.

Kapur has directed an annual United States-India Track 1.5 strategic dialogue as well as other U.S.-India engagements for the Department of Defense.

He succeeds Donald Lu who had served as Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs until January 20 this year.2025.

Kapur was on leave from the United States Naval Postgraduate School, where he was a professor in the Department of National Security Affairs and sworn in on October 22.

Previously, Kapur was a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, served on the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, and taught at Claremont McKenna College, according to the US Department of State.

Kapur is author of Jihad as Grand Strategy: Islamist Militancy, National Security, and the Pakistani State (Oxford University Press); Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia (Stanford University Press); co-author of India, Pakistan, and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia (Columbia University Press); and co-editor of The Challenges of Nuclear Security: U.S. and Indian Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan).

His work has also appeared in leading academic journals, in popular news outlets, and in a wide variety of edited volumes.

He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and his B.A. from Amherst College.