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Dr Rod Thornton

Senior Lecturer in Defence Studies Education

  • RAF Division Academic Director

Research interests

  • Conflict
  • Security

Contact details

Biography

Dr Rod Thornton specialises in the study of the Russian military, particularly its emphasis on sub-threshold warfare activities – such as cyber and psychological operations.

He originally served for nine years in an infantry regiment of the British Army (1980-88). During his time, he spent four years in Germany and three years in Northern Ireland. He left to go to university in 1988. After a degree in Russian and Serbo-Croat, he subsequently rejoined the Army to serve as an interpreter in Bosnia (1992-93). He then began a career in academia after time spent living in both Moscow and Kiev (Kyiv). He went on to teach, firstly at King’s and then at the University of Nottingham and at the University of Hewler in Erbil, Kurdish Region of Iraq. He returned to King’s in 2013 where he was seconded to teach at the Qatari Staff College. Down the years, Rod has taught on a wide variety of topic areas – including international affairs, guerrilla warfare, counter-insurgency, terrorism, the Pakistan-Afghanistan region, Russian history and the history of the Middle East.

Research Interests

  • The Russian armed forces
  • Russian sub-threshold warfare
  • Russian cyber capabilities
  • UK homeland resilience
  • Russian military high-tech systems

Along with a series of articles and book chapters, Rod has written a book entitled ‘Asymmetric Warfare’ with Polity Press (2007). He is currently working on a book about the Russian armed forces.

This encompasses the study of its army, navy and air force but also its activities in the sub-threshold space. Recently, Rod’s research concentration has been on Russian cyberspace operations. In light of Russian sub-threshold warfare activities, his research also encompasses homeland resilience capacity in the UK. He recently received a British Academy grant to look at UK homeland resilience capacity during the COVID-19 crisis.

Teaching

Rod teaches across a broad range of subject areas related to international affairs and defence and security issues. He is based at the UK Defence Academy, Shrivenham.

PhD students

  • Andrea Rebora (AI and cyber)
  • Ewa Cholewa (Insurgents in Nigeria)
  • Andrew Jensen (Russian and Chinese cyberspace operations)
  • Keng Meng Tan (Offensive cyber)
  • Muhammet Serif (Baltic States state resilience)
  • Joe Cheravitch (Russian psychological warfare)

Dr Thornton is not in a position to accept more PhD students. 

Publications

And Marina Miron, ‘Learning the lessons of COVID-19: homeland resilience in the United Kingdom - is it now time for both a dedicated civil defence organisation and a paramilitary force?’ Defence Studies, Summer 2022. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14702436.2022.2110481

And Marina Miron, ‘Winning future wars: Russian offensive cyber and its vital importance in Moscow’s Strategic Thinking,’ Cyber Defense Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, Summer 2022. https://cyberdefensereview.army.mil/Portals/6/Documents/2022_summer_cdr/09_Thorton_Miron_CDR_V7N3_Summer_2022.pdf?ver=0LhzDv4-cUkzkAqiTz401g%3d%3d, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14702436.2022.2110481

And Marina Miron, ‘The Role of "Aktivnost'' Today in Russian Military Strategic Thinking and the Crucial Target of the "Protest Potential of the Population",’ in Pentti Forsstrom (ed), Russian Concept of Deterrence in Contemporary and Classic Perspective, National Defence University (Finland), December 2021. https://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/182808/Russian%20deterrence%20Seminar%202021_web.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y

And Marina Miron. ‘Emerging as the ‘Victor’(?): Syria and Russia’s Grand and Military Strategies’, in Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 34/1 (June 2021). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13518046.2021.1923991?tab=permissions&scroll=top

And Marina Miron, ‘Rethinking homeland resilience’, Reform (October 2020). https://reform.uk/research/building-resilient-state-collection-essays

‘Covid-19: How a pandemic shows the flexibility of the new Russian military’, Russland-Analysen, Issue 387, 30 May 2020. https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.laender-analysen.de%2Frussland-analysen%2F387%2Fflexibilitaet-des-neuen-russischen-militaers%2F&data=01%7C01%7Crod.thornton%40kcl.ac.uk%7C5e752ef09ac146b5ebb808d804b036de%7C8370cf1416f34c16b83c724071654356%7C0&sdata=PR9wx8E4zZ7yXo%2FQyjPQJeqgKIUzZlWVt5uwzx%2Fl%2Fks%3D&reserved=0.

And Marina Miron, ‘Towards the “Third Revolution in Military Affairs”: The Russian military’s use of AI-enhanced cyber warfare’, RUSI Journal, 165/3, 2020. https://rusi.org/publication/rusi-journal/towards-%E2%80%98third-revolution-military-affairs%E2%80%99-russian-military%E2%80%99s-use-ai

And Marina Miron, ‘Deterring Russian Cyber Warfare: The Practical, Legal and Ethical Constraints Faced by the United Kingdom’, Journal of Cyber Policy, 4/2, (2019). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23738871.2019.1640757

‘Countering Prompt Global Strike: The Russian Military Presence in Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean and its Strategic Deterrence Role’, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 32/1 (2019). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13518046.2019.1552655

Dr Rod Thornton PURE Profile

 

 

Research

MilEthicsplayingcards
The Centre for Military Ethics

The Centre for Military Ethics fosters ethical awareness and decision making in military environments.

cyberculture
King's Cybersecurity Centre

King's Cybersecurity Centre is an EPSRC-NCSC Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research (ACE-CSR). It provides expertise on most areas of cyber security, it has a critical mass of researchers working on three main research themes and their interrelationship.

it-security-cyber
Cyber Security Research Group

CSRG promotes research into cyber security bringing together experts from diverse disciplines.

ESRChero
Environmental Security research group

The Environmental Security research group brings together scholars from the security community and scholars working on issues of environmental security.

News

King's continues to share crucial insights on the war in Ukraine

As the war in Ukraine enters its third year, academics from across the School of Security Studies at King’s College London continue to use their expertise to...

Ukrainian soldier wearing backpack with Ukrainian flag

Features

Will the Ukraine war go nuclear?

ROD THORNTON & MARINA MIRON: Is there a risk of nuclear war breaking out over the Ukraine crisis?

MicrosoftTeams-image (8)

What are the chances of a "palace coup" in Moscow?

ROD THORNTON: With mounting Russian casualties and supposed ‘tip-offs’ to Ukraine, pressure on Putin is increasing.

Putin2

What happens when the Russians' "two-day" war drags on?

ROD THORNTON AND MARINA MIRON: It seems that the Putin’s war in Ukraine was supposed to last just two days. The fact that it is still dragging on has...

war studies online 1

Why the UK needs to rethink homeland resilience in the wake of Covid

Covid-19 has revealed UK civil defence to be weak and overly reliant on the armed forces

Covid army

What Covid-19 reveals about the UK's capacity to deal with the changing character of warfare

Resilience capacity in the UK has withered substantially since the Cold War. National crises highlight the importance of building it back up again.

Social Distancing at a London pharmacy, March 2020

Informing the public debate on COVID-19

Academics from across the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy are helping us all better understand the huge societal shifts created by the COVID-19...

Newspapers Image

Understanding the impacts on society of COVID-19

How the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy is helping us understand the huge societal shifts created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

empty stores hero sized

Research

MilEthicsplayingcards
The Centre for Military Ethics

The Centre for Military Ethics fosters ethical awareness and decision making in military environments.

cyberculture
King's Cybersecurity Centre

King's Cybersecurity Centre is an EPSRC-NCSC Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research (ACE-CSR). It provides expertise on most areas of cyber security, it has a critical mass of researchers working on three main research themes and their interrelationship.

it-security-cyber
Cyber Security Research Group

CSRG promotes research into cyber security bringing together experts from diverse disciplines.

ESRChero
Environmental Security research group

The Environmental Security research group brings together scholars from the security community and scholars working on issues of environmental security.

News

King's continues to share crucial insights on the war in Ukraine

As the war in Ukraine enters its third year, academics from across the School of Security Studies at King’s College London continue to use their expertise to...

Ukrainian soldier wearing backpack with Ukrainian flag

Features

Will the Ukraine war go nuclear?

ROD THORNTON & MARINA MIRON: Is there a risk of nuclear war breaking out over the Ukraine crisis?

MicrosoftTeams-image (8)

What are the chances of a "palace coup" in Moscow?

ROD THORNTON: With mounting Russian casualties and supposed ‘tip-offs’ to Ukraine, pressure on Putin is increasing.

Putin2

What happens when the Russians' "two-day" war drags on?

ROD THORNTON AND MARINA MIRON: It seems that the Putin’s war in Ukraine was supposed to last just two days. The fact that it is still dragging on has...

war studies online 1

Why the UK needs to rethink homeland resilience in the wake of Covid

Covid-19 has revealed UK civil defence to be weak and overly reliant on the armed forces

Covid army

What Covid-19 reveals about the UK's capacity to deal with the changing character of warfare

Resilience capacity in the UK has withered substantially since the Cold War. National crises highlight the importance of building it back up again.

Social Distancing at a London pharmacy, March 2020

Informing the public debate on COVID-19

Academics from across the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy are helping us all better understand the huge societal shifts created by the COVID-19...

Newspapers Image

Understanding the impacts on society of COVID-19

How the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy is helping us understand the huge societal shifts created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

empty stores hero sized