John R. Allen
General, USMC (Ret.)
General John Allen
US Marine Corps (Retired)
General John R. Allen is a retired US Marine Corps four-star general. During his nearly four-decade military career, Allen served in a variety of command and staff positions in the Marine Corps and the Joint Force. Allen commanded the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and United States Forces in Afghanistan from July 2011 to February 2013. As such, he was the first Marine Corps general officer to command a theater of war.
Allen’s extensive contingency and combat operations include the Caribbean in 1994, the Balkans from 1995 to 1996, Iraq from 2007 to 2008, and Afghanistan from 2011 to 2013. From 2008 to 2011 he served as the Deputy Commander of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), the combatant command charged with the strategic responsibility for Central Asia and the Middle East.
Immediately following his retirement from the military, Allen served as the Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Defense on Middle East Security, and in that role, he led the security dialogue with Israel and the Palestinian Authority for 15 months within the Middle East peace process. At the request of President Obama, Allen subsequently served as Special Presidential Envoy to the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, growing the international coalition to 65 members in the face of the onslaught of the so-called Islamic State.
Allen is a Strategic Advisor to The Microsoft Corporation, a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a permanent member of the Council On Foreign Relations and was appointed by President Biden to be a member of the Naval Academy’s Board of Visitors. He was President of The Brookings Institution from 2017 to 2022.
Allen is a global thought leader when it comes to the future of warfare and the onboarding of AI and other emerging technology. He is the co-author of the book Turning Point: Policymaking in the Era of Artificial Intelligence alongside Dr. Darrell M. West (Brookings Press, 2020). He is also the co-author of Future War and the Defence of Europe alongside LTG (Ret.) Frederick “Ben” Hodges and Professor Dr. Julian Lindley French (Oxford University Press, 2021). General Allen is one of the originators of the term “hyperwar.” As a co-inventor, Allen shares five AI-related patents. He advises several tech start-ups.
John Allen is a reader of history, particularly about the American Civil War, and is an enthusiastic, but by no means expert, cyclist. He has two rescue hounds, Buttons and Cammie, and while he’s certain they’re dogs, he’s uncertain of their lineage.