John Bew

John Bew CMG is Professor of History and Foreign Policy at the War Studies Department at King’s College London, distinguished senior fellow at the Hoover institution and senior advisor to the Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft. He is a Senior Fellow of the AJI partner centre, the Centre for Statecraft and National Security (CSNS). The centre has an outward-facing role, working with policymakers on pressing issues of real-world significance. It will use historical and other innovative approaches to better understand the immense challenges of our current age – on issues from terrorism and extremism to great power competition and the rapid pace of technological change.

He was the penholder on the last three UK national security strategies and was closely involved in the shaping of the most recent NATO Strategic Concept. In 2025 he was appointed Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George for his services to British foreign policy.

Bew is the author of five books, including Realpolitik: A History, Castlereagh: A Life, and numerous academic articles and edited collections. His best-known work is his biography of Clement Attlee, Citizen Clem, which won three national awards, including the prestigious Orwell Prize. In 2012, he became the youngest ever holder of the Henry A. Kissinger Chair at the Library of Congress and in 2015 he won the Philip Leverhulme Prize for International Studies. He is a senior advisor at the Australian College of National Security and fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

In 2019, Bew joined No10 Downing Street as Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister. He held that position for over five years and through successive administrations, serving through two general elections and for four Prime Ministers. As the chief foreign policy advisor in No10 for more than half a decade, he was intimately involved in the key decisions on UK national security policy in this period. He also negotiated several international agreements and travelled round the world with the Prime Minister, attending successive summits and meetings of the UN General Assembly, NATO, G7 and G20.

While in No10, Bew led the team which produced the Integrated Review of Foreign Policy, Defence and Security in 2021 and the Integrated Review Refresh of 2023. During this time, he also served as the UK’s official representative in the NATO Secretary General’s Reflections Group. Following his return to academia, he was re-appointed by the Labour government again to lead work on National Security Strategy 2025: Security for the British people in a dangerous world.