Peter Rough

Senior Fellow and Director, Center on Europe and Eurasia

Peter Rough Hudson Institute

At A Glance:

Peter Rough is a senior fellow and director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia at Hudson Institute.

Biography

Peter Rough is a senior fellow and director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia at Hudson Institute. In that capacity, he writes and comments on US foreign policy and regularly briefs official delegations, news media, public intellectuals, academics, and business leaders from around the world. Mr. Rough also convenes several track 1.5 dialogues.

Mr. Rough is a regular commentator on major radio and television and speaker in public forums. While at the institute, he has been named a next generation leader at the Munich Security Conference, Atlantik-Brücke, the Center for New American Security, and the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies. He has also helped edit Hudson’s journal, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology.

Mr. Rough is also principal and founder of Hilltop Solutions, a limited liability company that performs writing and research services for academics, executives, and political professionals. Previously, as director of research in the Office of George W. Bush, Mr. Rough assisted the former president with his memoir, Decision Points. In 2014, his highly acclaimed collaboration with Leila Fawaz on a social history of World War I in the Middle East, A Land of Aching Hearts, was published by Harvard University Press.

From 2007 to 2009, Mr. Rough served as associate director in the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, where he helped coordinate political strategy and outreach to key stakeholders. He has also completed stints as a policy analyst at the US Agency for International Development, where he was staff briefer to Administrator Henrietta Fore, and as an advisor to US Army Special Operations Command, where he analyzed unconventional warfare doctrine for the commanding general’s Strategic Initiatives Group. In 2012, he was responsible for US-Russia bilateral relations as a member of the Romney for President Russia Working Group. In 2016, he served as a member of the Rubio for President Middle East Working Group.

Mr. Rough began his career at the Republican National Committee specializing in political research. A proud native of Des Moines, Iowa, he holds his BA, summa cum laude, from the George Washington University and MA in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he was a Cabot corporation scholar.

He is a member of the board of the Bastion Institute and the American Main Street Initiative and previously served as a commissioner of the Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) Commission in Berlin. Mr. Rough is also a member of the Friends of Ukraine Network’s (FOUN) Task Force on National Security and vice chair of the Reagan Institute’s Forum for American Leadership Europe group.

Mr. Rough is a native German speaker.

Events
01
August 2024
Past Event
Iran and Hezbollah vs. Israel: Full-Scale War?
Featured Speakers:
Michael Doran
Peter Rough
Smoke ascends after an Israeli air raid on the town of Shamaa (Chamaa) in southern Lebanon on August 1, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. Israel's Prime Minister said on August 1, that Israel was prepared for any "aggression" against it following threats of retaliation for the killings of top Hamas and Hezbollah figures. (Photo by KAWNAT HAJU / AFP) (Photo by KAWNAT HAJU/AFP via Getty Images)
01
August 2024
Past Event
Iran and Hezbollah vs. Israel: Full-Scale War?

On the evening of August 1, Hezbollah launched a massive rocket barrage at Israel. Is this the beginning of an all-out war between Israel and an axis comprising Iran and Hezbollah?

Smoke ascends after an Israeli air raid on the town of Shamaa (Chamaa) in southern Lebanon on August 1, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. Israel's Prime Minister said on August 1, that Israel was prepared for any "aggression" against it following threats of retaliation for the killings of top Hamas and Hezbollah figures. (Photo by KAWNAT HAJU / AFP) (Photo by KAWNAT HAJU/AFP via Getty Images)
Featured Speakers:
Michael Doran
Peter Rough
09
July 2024
Past Event
A Conversation with Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis ahead of the Washington Summit
Featured Speakers:
Gabrielius Landsbergis
Peter Rough
Tomas Janeliūnas
Gabrielius Landsbergis speaks during a press conference in Warsaw, Poland, on March 20, 2024. (Photo by Foto Olimpik/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
09
July 2024
Past Event
A Conversation with Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis ahead of the Washington Summit

Please join Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis as he sits down with Senior Fellow Peter Rough on the eve of the Washington summit to discuss the prospects for Ukraine and the outlook for Lithuanian security. He will be introduced by Hudson Visiting Fellow Tomas Janeliūnas of Vilnius University.

Gabrielius Landsbergis speaks during a press conference in Warsaw, Poland, on March 20, 2024. (Photo by Foto Olimpik/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Featured Speakers:
Gabrielius Landsbergis
Peter Rough
Tomas Janeliūnas
09
July 2024
Past Event
The Iran Threat to US-NATO Security
Featured Speakers:
Michael Doran
Congressman Ted Deutch
Moderator:
Peter Rough
An Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps member carrying a Palestinian flag in downtown Tehran on April 29, 2022. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
09
July 2024
Past Event
The Iran Threat to US-NATO Security

Former Congressman Ted Deutch, the CEO of the American Jewish Committee, will join Hudson to discuss what NATO militaries can learn from Israel’s fight against Iran-backed militias, the implications of a nuclear Iran for Europe, Tehran’s role in the rise of antisemitism in the West, and why aiding Israel is an important step to dismantle the China–Russia–Iran–North Korea axis.

An Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps member carrying a Palestinian flag in downtown Tehran on April 29, 2022. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Featured Speakers:
Michael Doran
Congressman Ted Deutch
Moderator:
Peter Rough
08
July 2024
Past Event
Maritime Security and Next-Generation Technologies: A Platform for Cooperation between NATO and Its Asia-Pacific Partners
Featured Speakers:
Benedetta Berti
Tsuneo Watanabe
Peter Rough
Kenneth R. Weinstein
Moderator:
Liselotte Odgaard
An Italian explosive ordnance disposal team operates an unmanned underwater vehicle in NATO Exercise Dynamic Messenger in Portugal on September 29, 2022. (NATO via Flickr)
08
July 2024
Past Event
Maritime Security and Next-Generation Technologies: A Platform for Cooperation between NATO and Its Asia-Pacific Partners

Hudson’s Liselotte Odgaard will moderate a panel discussing how NATO and AP4 can cooperate on meeting future challenges in maritime warfare.

An Italian explosive ordnance disposal team operates an unmanned underwater vehicle in NATO Exercise Dynamic Messenger in Portugal on September 29, 2022. (NATO via Flickr)
Featured Speakers:
Benedetta Berti
Tsuneo Watanabe
Peter Rough
Kenneth R. Weinstein
Moderator:
Liselotte Odgaard
A Swedish CB90-class fast assault crafts approaches the well deck of the Whidbey Island-class dock landing ship USS Gunston Hall (LSD 44), during small boat operations in support of Steadfast Defender 24, March 6, 2024. (US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Danielle Serocki)
Caption
A Swedish CB90-class fast assault craft approaches the well deck of the Whidbey Island-class dock landing ship USS Gunston Hall during exercise Steadfast Defender 24 on March 6, 2024, in the Norwegian Sea. (US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Danielle Serocki)
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This aerial photograph taken on February 1, 2024, shows residential buildings destroyed by shelling in Izyum, Kharkiv region, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP) (Photo by ROMAN PILIPEY/AFP via Getty Images)
Caption
Residential buildings destroyed by shelling in Izyum, Kharkiv, on February 1, 2024. (Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images)
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