Jaideep Saikia is a distinguished terrorism and conflict theorist with over 25 years of experience in security and strategic affairs. He has authored and edited several influential and bestselling books, including Terror Sans Frontiers: Islamist Militancy in North East India, Frontier in Flames: North East India in Turmoil, Terrorism: Patterns of Internationalisation, Bangladesh: Treading the Taliban Trail, Mind over Matter, and Point of Impact, contributing significantly to scholarship on insurgency, counterterrorism, and regional security.
Saikia was educated in the Royal Indian Military College, Dehra Dun, St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.
Jaideep Saikia has served the Governments of India and Assam in senior security advisory roles, including Adviser (Counter Insurgency) to the Government of Assam and as an Expert in India’s National Security Council. He has also been a Senior Fellow at the prestigious Vivekananda International Foundation.
He is currently also the Chief Professor of Practice (Honorary) at The Global University, Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh.
A participant in multiple Track II Dialogues with Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Japan, and Myanmar, Saikia was an International Visitor to the United States and contributed to a United Nations University project on peacebuilding and conflict resolution.
In 2022, he was selected as the sole Asian Irregular Warfare Fellow in West Point, USA.
The first civilian to receive the India’s Eastern Army Commander’s and the Director General, Assam Rifles Commendations, Jaideep Saikia lectures widely at leading defence and policy institutions in India and abroad. In early 2026, a section of the Indian media—endorsed by top former Indian officials, academicians, diplomats and law-enforcers—voted Saikia as the “Unsung Czar of India’s National Security.”
