In Memoriam Vice Admiral (ret) Sir Clive Johnstone, Royal Navy

Obituary of the ISPK (Institute for Security Policy at the University of Kiel)

By Dr Sarah Kirchberger and Dr Sebastian Bruns

We mourn the loss of Vice Admiral (ret) Sir Clive C. C. Johnstone KBE, CB, Royal Navy, who died suddenly and unexpectedly on 12 May 2024 at the age of 60. As a British naval officer, he was most recently Commander of NATO Maritime Command (MARCOM) in Northwood near London until 2019. He then worked as Director of Strategy at the maritime consulting firm BMT Group Ltd (formerly British Maritime Technology), was a Distinguished Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and served as President of the Royal British Legion, the British veterans' organisation, from 2023.

We got to know him in his role as COM MARCOM in 2016 - thankfully, he was the keynote speaker at the event organised by the ISPK together with the Center of Excellence for Operations in Confined and Shallow Waters (COE CSW), which is also based at the fjord. Kiel Conference 2016 on the topic of "High North". His magnificent speech at this conference was only the prelude to the intensive contact that subsequently developed: Admiral Johnstone was highly interested in exchanging ideas with experts beyond the armed forces and, over the following years, increasingly became our mentor, friend and important supporter of our institute's work - especially in Germany. Before the turn of the century, it was often not easy for a civilian to conduct empirical security policy research and teaching outside of peace research, which was often narrowly focussed in terms of content. Admiral Johnstone supported us by writing an enthusiastic letter as COM MARCOM to the city leaders of Kiel and the Kiel University management, in which he emphasised the great value of an open discussion forum such as the Kiel Seapower Series for his work at NATO Maritime Command. This inspired him to establish a similar annual Seapower conference format in London and the surrounding area for professional exchange between navies, MARCOM and the academic community, together with the University of Plymouth, in which we were regularly involved. When he visited the NATO Standing Maritime Group 1 in Helsinki in August 2017, he used the regional knowledge of the Finn Sarah Kirchberger as "POLAD for a day", as he often jokingly put it later. And when he left office in 2019, Sebastian Bruns and Sarah Kirchberger had the great honour of being his personal guests at the handover of command in Northwood.

Sir Clive was always ready to give his full support to initiatives that seemed to make sense to him. For his part, he consulted us over the years whenever it made sense to him - on issues such as the Finnish NATO partnership, the development of China as a geostrategic actor or on maritime strategy issues in general. His openness to diverse points of view and his personal appreciation showed us again and again that he saw maritime security policy academics as team players, not as critics or even opponents of the navy. This may also be due to his own academic training as an anthropologist, which presupposes curiosity about foreign points of view beyond one's own cultural background. Or perhaps it was simply a defining trait of his own character, which was always expressed in his warm friendliness and appreciative interest in his human counterparts. "This is a well-run ship," he once said appreciatively at a dinner in the helicopter hangar of a German task force provider. When asked what he thought that meant, he said: "Look at the faces of the crew members: they are obviously proud of their ship and try to do a really good job with shining eyes and a smile on their faces. That's all you need to see to know that the morale of this crew is good."

Clive Johnstone was educated at Shrewsbury School and Durham University, where he studied anthropology. His military career in the Royal Navy began in the mid-1980s. Among other things, he served in later assignments on board the famous royal yacht "Britannia". He took part in the handover of the crown colony of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China in 1997. He then spent a further two years on the light aircraft carrier HMS Invincible. In 1999 he became commander of the frigate HMS Iron Duke, and in 2005 he was given command of the large landing ship HMS Bulwark. Following these various shipboard assignments, he moved to the British Ministry of Defence and, after further assignments, became Commander of Allied Maritime Command from October 2015 to May 2019 - now as Vice Admiral. In 2019, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II (Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, KBE).

We owe Admiral Johnstone an inestimable debt and we are deeply saddened by his unexpected loss. Our condolences go out to his family, especially his wife Alison and two daughters, as well as his closest friends and colleagues. We cherish the many fond memories of him and will always honour his memory.

Kiel, 15 May 2024