Chris Parry | |
---|---|
Born | 29 November 1953 |
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Service/ | Royal Navy |
Years of service | 1972–2008 |
Rank | Rear Admiral |
Commands held | Amphibious Task Group HMS Fearless HMS Gloucester |
Battles/wars | Falklands War |
Awards | Commander of the Order of the British Empire Mentioned in Despatches |
Rear Admiral Christopher John Parry, CBE (born 29 November 1953[1]) is a British retired Royal Navy officer who was the first chair of the British Government's Marine Management Organisation until November 2010.
Parry was educated at Portsmouth Grammar School, Jesus College, Oxford, where he read modern history, and the University of Reading,[2] where his Doctor of Philosophy degree was awarded in 2017 for a thesis titled "Do Norman Dixon's theories about incompetence apply to senior naval commanders?"[3]
Since June 2008, Parry has worked in the private sector and as a writer, broadcaster and speaker.[13] He served as the first chair of the British Government's Marine Management Organisation from April 2010 to November 2010.[14]
On 12 June 2010, in an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he described the planning for the UK's 2006 deployment of 3,300 troops to Helmand Province in Afghanistan as flawed, relying too much on lessons from Borneo, Malaya and Northern Ireland. The subsequent BBC News article quotes him as saying that senior commanders had obdurately resisted "ditching the lessons from the past", preferring these to the "radical and progressive ideas" which were needed.[15]