Rob joined the Defence Studies Department and the School of Security Studies in 2025. Previously, he was a Lecturer in Peace and Security at Durham University. Rob was awarded his PhD in War Studies from King’s College London in 2018.

In addition to his role at King’s, Rob is a Research Fellow at the Peace Research Center Prague, based at Charles University in Prague, and an Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Rob’s work has been published in numerous academic journals, such as the European Journal of International Security, the Journal of Global Security Studies, International Studies Perspectives, and the Journal of Strategic Studies. His full-length book manuscript, Understanding Territorial Withdrawal: Israeli Occupations and Exits, was published by Oxford University Press in 2023.

Alongside his academic outputs, he publishes regularly in Foreign Policy and War on the Rocks and has provided regular commentary for the BBC, France 24, RTE News, Al Jazeera, and many others.

Research Interests

Rob is a scholar of international security. His work engages with several key themes:

• Israeli foreign and security policy
• The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states
• Contemporary Syria
• Iranian foreign and security policy
• Grand strategy
• Military occupation and exit dilemmas
• Territorial disputes

He would be happy to consider PhD supervision in any of these areas.

Publications

Research Articles

• ‘Grand Strategic Change After Critical Situations: Israel and Czechia After the October 7 Attacks and Russia’s Ukraine Invasion’, The European Journal of International Security (2026), online first
• ‘Failure of Containment: Israel’s Gaza Withdrawal After 20 Years’, Survival 67:5 (2025)
• ‘Israel and the Politics of Intelligence Failure on 7 October’, The RUSI Journal 170:3 (2025) [with Clive Jones]
• ‘The US Facing Israel: From Restrainer to Enabler’, Survival 67:2 (2025)
• ‘Collision Course: How Iran and Israel Brought the Middle East to the Brink of War’, Global Policy 16:2 (2025) [with Clive Jones and Anoush Ehteshami]
• ‘Myth Busting in a Post-Assad Syria’, Middle East Policy 32:3 (2025).
• ‘Annexation Attempts as a Two-Level Game: Israel and the West Bank in 1967 and 2020’, The Journal of Global Security Studies, 9:2 (2024) [with Ehud Eiran]
• ‘Security, Terrorism and Territorial Withdrawal: Critically Reassessing the Lessons of Israel’s “Unilateral Disengagement” from the Gaza Strip’, International Studies Perspectives 24:1 (2022).
• ‘Theorizing Territorial Withdrawal: The Need to Think Strategically’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 45:4 (2022) [with M. L. R. Smith]
• ‘The Limits of Israel’s Periphery Doctrine: Lessons from the Caucasus and Central Asia’, Mediterranean Politics 26:1 (2021) [with Joel Peters]
• ‘Territorial Withdrawal as Multilateral Bargaining: Revisiting Israel’s “Unilateral Withdrawals” from Gaza and Southern Lebanon’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 44:3 (2021)
• Consolidating Right Wing Hegemony: The Israeli General Election of 2015’, Mediterranean Politics 20:3 (2015) [with Joel Peters]

Recent Media and Policy Articles

• February 2026, ‘Does guaranteeing Israel’s qualitative military edge still serve US interests?’, War on the Rocks
• January 2026, ‘Discord in the Gulf’, Foreign Policy
• December 2025, ‘Netanyahu is still following the same failed Gaza strategy’, Foreign Policy
• November 2025, ‘Can the Gulf rebuild the Middle East?’, Foreign Policy
• September 2025, ‘Israel’s Gaza disengagement worked far too well’, Foreign Policy
• August 2024, ‘How Syria’s government risks undermining itself’, The Middle East Council on Global Affairs
• August 2025, ‘Israel isn’t a regional hegemon yet, but it’s a revisionist power now’, Foreign Policy
• July 2025, ‘Israel is sowing chaos to secure displacement in Gaza’, Foreign Policy
• July 2025, ‘Despite Netanyahu’s claims, Iran war pushed the Saudis away from normalization’, Haaretz
• June 2025, ‘How Israel’s dangerous new grand strategy has set the Middle East on fire’, The Middle East Council on Global Affairs
• June 2025, ‘Iran and Israel have a common goal in Syria’, The National
• June 2025, ‘Cold peace or hot mess? Israel, Syria and the risk of normalization’, Haaretz
• June 2025, ‘Syria’s foreign fighter dilemma’, Foreign Policy
• May 2025, ‘The strategic illogic of Israel’s actions in Syria’, The New Arab
• March 2025, ‘The March Massacres Show that Syria Urgently Needs Solutions, Not Sanctions’, War on the Rocks
• February 2024, ‘Hamas is Returning to Northern Gaza Because Israel has no Plan for “the Day After”’, War on the Rocks
• December 2023, ‘Israel’s Ground Invasion and the Return of Strategic Depth’, War on the Rocks

Books

• Understanding Territorial Withdrawal: Israeli Occupations and Exits (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023)
• The Routledge Handbook on Israel’s Foreign Relations (Oxon: Routledge, 2024) [co-edited with Joel Peters]
• Understanding Israel: Political, Security and Societal Challenges (Oxon, Routledge, 2018) [co-edited with Joel Peters]

Book Chapters

• ‘Israel, the Caucasus and Central Asia’, in Joel Peters and Rob Geist Pinfold (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook on Israel’s Foreign Relations (Oxford: Routledge, 2024)
• ‘Warfare in the Middle East’, in Michael Charney and Kaushik Roy (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Global History of Warfare (Oxford: Routledge, 2024)
• ‘Security in the Israel-Palestine Conflict’, in Asaf Siniver (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to the Israeli-Palestine Conflict (Oxford: Routledge, 2023)
• ‘Israel: A Nation of Contrasts and Cleavages’ in Joel Peters and Rob Geist Pinfold (Eds.), Understanding Israel: Political, Security and Societal Challenges (Oxford: Routledge, 2018) 

Research Centres and Groups

• The Centre for Statecraft and National Security (CSNS)
• Institute of Middle Eastern Studies