Professor Andrew Stewart is a military historian who also researches and contributes to discussions on contemporary security and defence issues. A student at King’s College London from 1991 to 2001, where he completed his undergraduate degree and doctorate within the Department of War Studies, he spent nearly twenty years teaching in the university's Defence Studies Department.

From 2014 to 2017 he was seconded as the Director of Academic Studies at the Royal College of Defence Studies acting as adviser to the three-star civilian commandant and was subsequently appointed Professor of Modern Conflict History. In 2020 he was appointed as Professor of War Studies at the Australian National University (ANU) and Principal at the Australian War College in Canberra. Returning to Europe following the global pandemic, he most recently taught at the Royal Danish Defence College in Copenhagen. An Honorary Professor in the ANU’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, his current role is Head of Conflict Research at the Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research (CHACR), the British Army's think-tank. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Higher Education Academy and the Chartered Management Institute. He is married to Joanne, who is a Senior Civil Servant, and lives in Oxford.

Research Interests

Professor Stewart's research examines war and conflict, military history, diplomacy and international relations and he has published widely. A historian by background, his ‘The First Victory: The Second World War and the East Africa Campaign’ was runner-up for the Society for Army Historical Research’s prestigious Templer Medal. His most recent book – Superpower Britain: The 1945 Vision and Why it Failed (co-written with Ashley Jackson) – was published in February 2025 by Oxford University Press. He is currently working on several projects including examining the private papers of Field Marshal Lord Ironside.

Professor Andrew Stewart PURE Profile

Publications

Books

• Storm Proofing: Preparing Armies for a Future War [edited with Andrew Sharpe and Matthias Strohn] (Solihull: Helion and Company, 2025), 208pp, ISBN: 9781804517635
• Superpower Britain: The 1945 Vision and Why it Failed [with Prof Ashley Jackson] (Oxford University Press, 2025), 464pp, ISBN: 978-0192863706
• The Royal College of Defence Studies, 1927-2017 (Solihull: Helion and Company, 2017), 140pp
• The First Victory: The Second World War and the East Africa Campaign (London: Yale University Press, 2016), 336pp, ISBN: 978-0-30020-855-9
• The King’s Private Army: Protecting the British Royal Family during the Second World War (Solihull: Helion and Company, 2015), 136pp, ISBN: 978-1-91077-728-2

Book chapters

• ‘Thinking about the Nuclear Battlefield: Lessons for the British Army from the Early Cold War?’, in Andrew Sharpe, Andrew Stewart, Matthias Strohn (eds.), Storm Proofing: Preparing Armies for a Future War (Solihull: Helion and Company, 2025), 66-75, ISBN: 9781804517635
• ‘The Battle of Britain: Britain and the British Empire Alone’, in G. Kurt Piehler and Jonathan Grant (eds.), Oxford Handbook of World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023), 138-153, ISBN: 978-0-19934-1795
• ‘The Cost of Victory: Some Thoughts on the British Experience of the Second World War’, in Ashley Jackson (ed.), National Perspectives on the Global Second World War (Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge, 2023), 151-162, ISBN: 978-0-3676-7953-8
• ‘“The despicable fighting qualities of the Wops”: The East African Campaign and the British Commonwealth’s Victory over Italy’, in Marco Maria Aterrano and Karine Varley (eds.), A Fascist Decade of War? 1935-45 in International Perspective (Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge, 2020), 95-106, ISBN: 978-1-13857-4151
• ‘“Necessarily of an Experimental Character”: The Inter-War Period and the Imperial Defence College’, in Douglas E. Delaney, Robert C. Engen and Meghan Fitzpatrick (eds.), Military Education and the British Empire, 1854-1945 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018), 192-211, ISBN: 978-0-7748-3754-5

Research articles

• ‘An Active Edge: The British Army, NATO and the Cold War’, The British Army Review (Issue 186; Spring 2024), 28-33
• ‘Defeat at Gallabat: Brigadier Bill Slim's Formative Learning Experience’, International Journal of Military History and Historiography (2023), 560-581, ISSN: 2468-3299
• ‘Churchill and the Imperial Defence College’, Finest Hour: The Journal of Winston Churchill and His Times (No.174; Autumn 2016), 18-21, ISSN: 0882-3715
• ‘Where was Canada?: The Canadian Military Contribution to the British Commonwealth Second World War Campaign in North Africa’, Canadian Military History (Vol.25, Issue 2, Article 14; Fall 2016), ISSN: 1195-8472
• ‘At War with Bill Jordan: The New Zealand High Commission in Wartime London’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (Vol.40, Issue 1; 2012), 67-86, ISSN: 0308-6534

Policy papers

• ‘Still Special?’, CHACR Commentary (May 2024), 1-4
• ‘Views from the North’, CHACR In-Depth Briefing #74 (May 2024), 1-6
• ‘Time to Talk “Total Defence”’, CHACR Commentary (Apr. 2024), 1-4
• ‘The Deterioration of Deterrence’, CHACR Commentary (Feb. 2024), 1-4
• ‘A Decade Done: What Next for the Joint Expeditionary Force’, CHACR Commentary (Nov. 2023), 1-4