Samir Puri grew up in 1980s London in a family that had traversed three continents in three generations, from Asia to Africa to Europe. He later completed a PhD at Cambridge University in International Relations, worked at RAND, and then the Foreign Office, where his assignments covered counter terrorism, and a year in east Ukraine monitoring the onset of war in 2014. After government service, Dr Puri became a lecturer in War Studies at King's College London, and also taught at Cambridge and Johns Hopkins.