Rob Geist Pinfold
Postdoctoral Researcher
Rob Geist Pinfold is a postdoctoral researcher at Peace Research Center Prague. He is also a Lecturer in Peace and Security at Durham University.
Rob is a scholar of international security whose research intersects the study of strategy and territorial conflict. Regionally, he focuses on wars and warfare in the Middle East.
His work engages with two key themes: (i) military occupation and exit dilemmas and (ii) grand strategy. His work has been published in academic journals, such as the Journal of Global Security Studies, International Studies Perspectives, the Journal of Strategic Studies, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Mediterranean Politics. 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 has published in Foreign Policy and War on the Rocks and has given regular commentary to France 24, al Jazeera, and the BBC.
Research focus
Rob's research intersects strategy and territorial conflict. He has worked on grand strategy in theory and practice, as well as territorial interventions and occupations, in both the Middle East and beyond.
Selected Publications
PINFOLD, Rob Geist. (2025). Myth Busting in a Post-Assad Syria. Middle East Policy.
PINFOLD, Rob Geist. (2023). Annexation Attempts as a Two-Level Game: Israel and the West Bank in 1967 and 2020. The Journal of Global Security Studies.
PINFOLD, Rob Geist. (2023) Understanding Territorial Withdrawal: Israeli Occupations and Exits (New York, NY: Oxford University Press).
PINFOLD, Rob Geist. (2022). Security, Terrorism, and Territorial Withdrawal: Critically Reassessing the Lessons of Israel's “Unilateral Disengagement” from the Gaza Strip. International Studies Perspectives
PINFOLD, Rob Geist (2021). ‘Territorial Withdrawal as Multilateral Bargaining: Revisiting Israel’s “Unilateral” Withdrawals from Gaza and Southern Lebanon’. The Journal of Strategic Studies.
PINFOLD, Rob Geist and M. L. R. Smith (2022). ‘Theorising Territorial Withdrawal: The Need to Think Strategically’. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism.
BACKGROUND
Rob is based primarily in the UK, from where he originates. He holds a PhD in War Studies from King’s College London.