General John R. Allen, USMC (Ret.)

Retired Marine Corps four-star general John R. Allen was the longest-Serving Leader of U.S. and NATO Troops in Afghanistan. Presented in partnership with Leading Authorities, he visits PMML to share awe-inspiring stories about the most important aspects of leadership, from the strategic level to the tactical combat level.

After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy, Allen spent his early career in Washington, DC, becoming an expert in Marine training and operational analysis and the first Marine Corps officer to be inducted as a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. From 1994–1996, he had field command during missions in the Caribbean and the Balkans. In 2002, Allen became the first Marine to serve as the commandant of midshipmen at the Naval Academy. He then served as the principal director of Asian and Pacific affairs for the office of the Secretary of Defense before heading to a command position and service in Iraq. Allen spent 13 months in the Anbar province, where he led efforts to persuade Sunni tribal leaders to stand against al-Qaeda militants. His success precipitated a shift in the nature of the war in western Iraq and across the entire theater. In 2008, Allen became deputy commander of U.S. Central Command. When General Petraeus became CIA director in 2011, Allen replaced him as commander in Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, Allen oversaw the strategic shift from troop-intensive counterinsurgency operations to the development of Afghan security forces. As he orchestrated that change, he managed the removal of 33,000 U.S. troops from the country, closing hundreds of bases as he handled the months-long closure of supply routes through neighboring Pakistan, and led the crisis response to a spate of attacks on coalition personnel by members of the Afghan security forces. 

Allen is currently affiliated with the Brookings Institution and a senior fellow at the Center for Naval Analysis and the Merrill Center of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.