Iain King

Iain King took up his post as Counsellor Defence Policy & Nuclear (SCS1 – SES 1) in the British Embassy in Washington, DC, in July 2016. He is responsible for Defence Policy, Strategy, and Nuclear issues within the British Defence Staff – United States.

On behalf of the UK’s Ministry of Defence, Iain leads policy engagement on regional strategy (including Europe, Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific), operational policy, and force management with American stakeholders. As DPN Counsellor, Iain also leads work on UK-US nuclear co-operation, strategic deterrence, ballistic missile defence, and CBRNE threat reduction. Iain also manages the reputation of UK Defence in the United States, and oversees Congressional, think tank, and media engagement on matters of defence.

Following seven years work on the Northern Ireland Peace Process in the 1990s,where he was one of the first people to engage with republican and loyalist groups after their respective ceasefires, Iain worked for the EU and UN in Kosovo. There, he oversaw the transfer of authority from international to elected officials, and mapped out the first direct talks between Pristina and Belgrade.

He was subsequently Director of Programmes at the UK’s overseas democracy promotion agency, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy; led stabilisation efforts in several forward operating bases in Afghanistan, where he was deployed to more frontline bases in Helmand Province than any other civilian; ran the planning team at Britain’s cross-government Stabilisation Unit; and coordinated international stabilisation work in Benghazi during the 2011 war. Shorter stints have taken him to Iraq, Syria and several countries in Africa. Most recently, he directed the UK’s research portfolio on conflict and development, based at the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID). In 2013, he became one of the youngest people to be made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for his work supporting governance in Libya, Afghanistan and Kosovo.

Iain was educated at KLB Comprehensive School in Gloucestershire, and read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Pembroke College, Oxford University (1989-1992). In 2004 he became a Research Fellow at Wolfson College, CambridgeUniversity, where his studies led to two non-fiction books: an acclaimedchronicle and analysis of the Kosovo intervention, and a jargon-free introduction to philosophy. He has since co-written a book on Helmand, and two novels rooted in military history. In 2015, he was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA).

Iain is married to Victoria, a US diplomat, with two children –Myles (10) and Verity (6) –whose penchant for worrisome experiments takes up much of his spare time.