General Sir Adrian Bradshaw KCB OBE DL

General Sir Adrian Bradshaw joined the 14th/20th King’s Hussars in 1980, serving as a junior officer in Germany, Northern Ireland, Africa, the Middle East, South East Asia and the Falkland Islands, first as a tank troop leader and Regimental Intelligence Officer, and then with the Army Air Corps flying helicopters. This was followed by a further troop-level command tour with the SAS, when he commanded both armoured and SAS squadrons, serving in Germany, Scandinavia, the Americas, and the Balkans. From 1994 to 1996, he commanded the King’s Royal Hussars (KRH), first providing the enemy force at the UK Armoured Training Area in Alberta, Canada, and then as Battlegroup Commander on operations in Bosnia.

After Regimental command he served in Military Operations in the MOD and with 3rd (US) Army in Kuwait. After other operational commitments in the Iraq region, he took command of the UK 7th Armoured Brigade in Basra. He then attended the Royal College of Defence Studies before taking command of UK Special Forces, promoting in-post to Major General in November 2007. In March 2009, he took command of 1st (UK) Armoured Division based in Germany, training brigades for operations in Afghanistan. He became Deputy Commander of the 140,000-strong NATO-led force in Afghanistan in late 2011 and Commander UK Land Forces in January 2013. He served in Mons, Belgium as NATO’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe from March 2014 to March 2017.

He is now Governor of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, Chairman of BLESMA - the charity for limbless ex-Service members, and has joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve to continue flying. He is Colonel of the Regiment of The King’s Royal Hussars and Honorary Colonel of the Artist’s Rifles. He is a Distinguished Fellow of RUSI and lectures at King’s College London and in other venues on Defence strategy. He is a strategic advisor for a Middle Eastern Head of State and has recently contributed to the House of Lords Select Committee paper on UK Foreign Policy in a shifting world order. He was a member of the King’s College London team which has recently published a paper on future Franco-British Security and Defence Policy in association with the Institut Montaigne in Paris.

He holds degrees in Agriculture (BSc Hons, Reading University 1979), Defence Studies (MA, King’s College London, 1991) and International Relations (MA, King’s College London, 2005). He has also been a Visiting Defence Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford (2011).