Desmond Bowen CB CMG Visiting Professor University of Reading Department of Politics & International Relations

Desmond Bowen was a career civil servant with a focus on defence and international security

issues. He completed his career as the UK MOD’s Director General of Policy in 2008; he is

now the (part-time) Staff Counsellor for the intelligence and security services, and is a

member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters.

He has had a very wide range of policy responsibilities covering arms control and

disarmament, personnel policy for the Services, the export of defence equipment, British

military engagement overseas, operations at home and abroad, nuclear deterrence, and

relations with NATO and the EU. He also had responsibility for the operation of the central

government crisis management machinery. Although much of this work was done in London,

he was posted to the Embassy in Paris for industrial and arms cooperation purposes and to the

Arms Control Delegation in Vienna for the CFE treaty negotiations. He was also the Private

Secretary to the Permanent Secretary of the MOD. Latterly, he was the Director of the private

office of the NATO Secretary General (1999-2001), in Brussels; Director of Operational

Policy in the MOD (2001-2); Deputy Head of the Overseas and Defence Secretariat in the

Cabinet Office (2002-2004); and Director General of Policy in the MOD (2004-8).

Desmond Bowen was educated at Oxford and was a fellow at Harvard’s Centre for

International Affairs. Before joining the MOD as a civil servant in 1973, he served in the

British Army. He has had articles in Conflict and Terrorism, Survival and RUSI's Afghan

Papers. He is a visiting Professor at the University of Reading. He is married with two adult

children and lives in London.