James Cowan (British Army officer)

Major-General James Michael Cowan CBE DSO is a British Army officer who commands 3rd Mechanised Division.

Military career
Educated at Wellington College, Cowan joined the British Army as a private soldier in 1982. He was deployed to Northern Ireland during The Troubles and then studied at Pembroke College, Oxford before being commissioned into the Black Watch in 1987. He became commanding officer of The Black Watch in July 2003 and in that role was deployed to Iraq for Operation Telic in Summer 2004 seeing action during the Second Battle of Fallujah. He became Chief of Staff for 3rd Mechanised Division and was deployed to Iraq as Chief of Staff for Multi-National Division (South East) from July 2006 until January 2007. He became Commander of 11th Light Brigade in October 2007 and in that role he led his brigade during the Helmand province campaign. He had hoped that Operation Moshtarak would mark "the start of the end of this insurgency". At the very least it would become a test of whether the Afghan forces would be able to make their country peaceful and safe.

Cowan went on to be head of Counter Terrorism & UK Operations in the Operations Directorate at the Ministry of Defence in 2010 with responsibility for the military contribution to the London 2012 Olympics. On promotion to major general he became General Officer Commanding 3rd Mechanised Division in April 2013.

Already Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), Cowan was advanced to Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 Birthday Honours.