Peter Rough

Peter Rough has been a fellow at Hudson Institute in Washington, DC, since 2014. He writes and comments on U.S. foreign policy toward Europe and the Middle East and edited Hudson’s journal, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology. Prior to joining Hudson, Peter collaborated on a social history of World War I in the Middle East, A Land of Aching Hearts, published by Harvard University Press in fall 2014. A former associate director in the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, he also served as director of research in the Office of George W. Bush, assisting the former president with his memoir, Decision Points.

Peter has completed stints as a policy analyst at the U.S. Agency for International Development and as an advisor to U.S. Army Special Operations Command. He also helped direct foreign policy working groups for the Romney and Rubio presidential campaigns, focusing on Russia and the Middle East, respectively. A proud native of Des Moines, Iowa, he is a graduate of the George Washington University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where he was a Cabot Corporation Scholar. He is a native German speaker.

He was a 2017-2018 participant in AGI’s project “A German-American Dialogue of the Next Generation: Global Responsibility, Joint Engagement,” sponsored by the Transatlantik-Programm der Bundesrepublik Deutschland aus Mitteln des European Recovery Program (ERP) des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWi).