John Malchase David Shalikashvili (Georgian: ჯონ მალხაზ დავით შალიკაშვილი, romanized: jon malkhaz davit shalik'ashvili, IPA: [ʃalikʼaʃʷili]; 27 June 1936 – 23 July 2011) was a United States Army general who served as Supreme Allied Commander Europe from 1992 to 1993 and the 13th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1993 to 1997.

[1] He was born in Warsaw, Poland, in the family of émigré Georgian officer Dimitri Shalikashvili and his naturalized-Polish wife Maria Rüdiger-Belyaeva.

His father, Prince Dimitri Shalikashvili (1896–1978), born in Gurjaani,[5] served in the army of Imperial Russia and his wife, Countess Maria Rüdiger-Belyaeva.

Dimitri then joined other Georgian exiles in Poland, where he met and married John's mother, Maria; she was Polish and of part German ancestry,[6] and the daughter of Count Rudiger-Bielajew (Rüdiger-Belyaev), a former Tsarist general.

As the Red Army approached Warsaw in 1944, the family fled to Pappenheim, Germany, being reunited with Dimitri along the way.

They were sponsored by Winifred Luthy, the wife of a local banker, who was previously married to Dimitri's cousin.

The Luthys and the Episcopal Church helped the Shalikashvili family get started, finding jobs and a home for them.

Immediately after his Vietnam service, he attended the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.

There he oversaw a "high technology test bed" tasked to integrate three brigades—one heavy armor, one light infantry, and one "experimental mechanized"—into a new type of fighting force.

[11] Shalikashvili achieved real distinction with his considerable success as the commander of Operation Provide Comfort, the peacekeeping and humanitarian activity in northern Iraq after the Gulf War.

This assignment involved intense and complex negotiations with the Turkish government, and tough face-to-face meetings with the Iraqi military.

Shalikashvili was appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, effective October 25.

He served as a director of Russell Investments, L-3 Communications, Inc., Plug Power Inc., United Defense, Inc., the Initiative for Global Development,[13] and the National Bureau of Asian Research.

Shalikashvili was married to Joan and had one son, Brant, a graduate of Washington State University, and a daughter, Debra.

Shalikashvili died at the age of 75 on 23 July 2011, at the Madigan Army Medical Center in Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, from a stroke.