Dr Colin D. Robinson lectures on contract for King’s College London, and is also affiliated with the Mashariki Research and Policy Centre, Nairobi, and Obuda University’s African Studies Institute in Budapest.

His research examines the challenges and opportunities for OECD states’ defence aims in the remainder of the world, as well as African armies, the African Standby Force, military command and control, and New Zealand defence issues.

Since 2017 he has been examining how liberal ideas both help and impede OECD progress in building partner armies, notably in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and for Liberia, where he did his doctoral fieldwork. He is currently finalizing a monograph for RUSI examining alternatives to large-scale expeditionary liberal-democratic counter-insurgency, Large Liberal Interventions Should End: Clues from Failure in Somalia.

He sits on the editorial boards of Defence and Security Analysis and the Journal of Central and Eastern European African Studies. He spent much of 2020-22 teaching on military decisions and strategy for the USAF Air University. He previously worked for the United Nations in Georgia, Liberia, and New York. He then worked for Cranfield University’s Centre for Defence Management and Leadership in 2024-25.

He completed his doctorate in 2012, worked for the University of Liberia 2016-17, and then spent two years in Kenya advising the European Union on support to the Somali National Army.

Research Interests

• Security and Justice
• Security Sector Reform
• African Armies
• NATO Main Defence
• Future Climate Wars
• African Standby Force

Publications

Chapters

•  “The Development of the National Security Strategy of Liberia,” in Felix Gerdes and T. Debey Sayndee (eds), Postwar Security Sector Reform in Liberia, Kofi Annan Institute for Conflict Transformation, Monrovia, 2021
•  “An Expectable Failure? The U.S. Government and the Rebuilding of the AFL,” in Felix Gerdes and T. Debey Sayndee (eds) Post-War Security Sector Reform in Liberia, Kofi Annan Institute for Conflict Transformation, Monrovia, 2021

Research Articles

• Why the Afghan and Iraqi armies collapsed: an allied perspective. The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters, 54(3), 2024
• The Bulgarian Land Forces in the Cold War, Bulletin of National Defence University Carol I, Vol. 12, No. 3, October 2023
• "Why Did Rebuilding the Afghan and Iraqi Armies Fail?." The RUSI Journal 167, no. 4-5 (2022): 26-39.
• “Why did the 2004-09 Liberia SSR programme not succeed in creating an accountable and effective army?” Comparative Strategy, Vol 35, No. 4, 2023 – with Colonel Chris Wyatt U.S. Army, retired.
• "Rising to the challenge of joint-warfare,” New Zealand International Review, Vol. 48, No.2, March 2023.
• “Addendum: The Sudanese Army’s History 1953–1970s." Journal of African Military History 6, no. 2 (2022): 142-149.
• “Sketching the Threads of the Sudanese Armed Forces’ First Quarter Century,” Journal of African Military History, first published online April 8, 2022, accessible via brill.com/jamh
•  “Are the OECD and the West Losing the Will and Ability to be Altruistic? Dawn of a New Darker Age,” The Horn Bulletin [Horn Institute for Strategic Studies, Nairobi] Vol. 5, Issue 4, July-August 2022
•  “Rebuilding Armies in Southern Somalia: What Currently Should Donors Realistically Aim For?,” Conflict, Security, and Development, published online 16 June 2021.
• “A Forgotten Decade? Politicking and War for the ANC/FAZ 1967-1977.” Small Wars & Insurgencies, March 2021, 1–21. 
• (with Jahara Matisek), “Military Advising and Assistance in Somalia: Fragmented Interveners Fragmented Somali Military Forces.” Defence Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2, 2021.
• (with Jahara Matisek), “Assistance to Locally Appropriate Military Forces in Southern Somalia: Bypassing Mogadishu for Local Legitimacy,” RUSI Journal, Vol. 165, No. 4, 2020.
• “Political and Military Obstacles to a North African Regional Capability,” Middle East Journal, Vol. 74, No. 4, Autumn 2020
• “Research Note: The U.S. Navy’s Task Forces 1-199,” Defense and Security Analysis, Vol 36, No. 1, January 2020

Commentaries

• “As ATMIS Looks to Withdraw, the Risk of Large-Scale al-Shabaab Success in Southern Somalia is High,” December 10, 2024, IPI Global Observatory, accessible at https://theglobalobservatory.org/2024/12/as-atmis-looks-to-withdraw-the-risk-of-large-scale-al-shabaab-success-in-southern-somalia-is-high/
•  (with Marcel Chirwa) “Lake Malawi or Lake Nyasa? Malawi–Tanzania Border Dispute Slips Into Limbo,” RUSI, 10 May 2023, accessible at https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/
• “The Creation and Evolution of HQ Joint Forces New Zealand,” Wavell Room, February 25, 2022, accessible at https://wavellroom.com/2022/02/25/hq-joint-forces-new-zealand/
• “New Name, but Little Sign of Change: The Revised Agreement on the African Union Mission in Somalia,” January 27, 2022, IPI Global Observatory, accessible at https://theglobalobservatory.org/2022/01/revised-agreement-on-african-union-mission-in-somalia/

Courses taught

• International Security Studies

PhD supervision

• African military affairs
• Peace operations