Roby C. Barrett

Dr. Roby C. Barrett is former Foreign Service Officer with an intelligence and special operations background and served in North Africa, Yemen, the Levant, and Arabia. He was a Senior Fellow at the Middle East and North Africa Forum at Cambridge University and the author of MENAF’s “Series on Gulf Security” (2021–2023) in Manara magazine and a former member of the advisory board at the Defense Language Institute. Barrett is the author of numerous books and articles on the Middle East and Southwest Asia including The Cold War in the Greater Middle East: U.S. Foreign Policy under Kennedy and Eisenhower (2007) and The Gulf and the Struggle for Hegemony: Arabs, Iranians, and West in Conflict (2016).

Originally trained as a Russian and Soviet expert, Dr. Barrett is a was the Arab Gulf team leader in the Office of National Intelligence simulations on Russia in the Middle East and a keynote speaker at Joint Canadian-U.S. Intelligence Conference on Iran and Gulf Security in Washington, D.C. As a Senior Fellow with the Joint Special Operations University, U.S. Special Operations Command, he authored eight monographs on the Middle East and Islam as well as serving as an Instructor of Applied Intelligence. He also served as a briefer and subject matter expert for Special Operations-U.S. Central Command and for the Middle East Orientation Course at the Air Force Special Operations School where he was also a Senior Fellow. He has provided support to the Office of Secretary of Defense, the National Defense University, the Office of National Intelligence, the State Department, and other security and intelligence organizations.

Dr. Barrett was a visiting professor at the Royal Saudi Arabian Command and Staff School focused on Gulf security, specifically Yemen and Iran, and a featured expert on Iran at the German Council on Foreign Relations and with the Bundeswehr. He has spoken at numerous Middle East conferences including the Bahrain MOI Gulf Security Forum, the opening of the King Abdullah Special Operations Training Center, the Arabian Gulf SOF Conference as well as the UAE security conference. His business expertise focuses on technology integration in intelligence and security operations and applications. He was Vice President for Air Force and Special DOD programs at Electronic Data Systems and a Corporate Vice President for Special Programs at Science Applications International, where he also served as Special Assistant to the Vice Chairman of the Board. Barrett specializes in security operations technology and integration.

A recipient of the Eisenhower-Roberts Fellowship from the Eisenhower Foundation, Dr. Barrett held research and graduate fellowships at the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich and at Oxford University. He is a graduate of the two-year Middle East Studies and Arabic Language program at the Foreign Service Institute, Washington, D.C. and Tunis, Tunisia, and holds a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern and South Asian history from the University of Texas at Austin.

Education
B.A. in History and Government at Texas A&M University - Commerce; M.A. in History and Government at Baylor University; M.A. in Government at Texas A&M University - Commerce; Ph.D. in Middle East and South Asian History at University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Barrett was also an Eisenhower-Roberts fellow of the Eisenhower Institute in Washington D.C., a Rotary International fellow at the Russian and East European Institute at the University of Munich, and a Scottish Rite Research fellow at Oxford University.

Languages
Arabic, German

Countries of Expertise
Arabian Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Pakistan, India

Publication Highlights

• The Sultanate of Oman in the Historical Context March 9, 2022
• The Qaboos Era and the 21st Century April 12, 2022
• Kuwait: The Lynchpin in the Northern Gulf May 17, 2022
• Kuwait: Independence, State Formation, and Survival June 16, 2022
• “The Arab Gulf and the Joint Strike Fighter: Prestige versus Priorities,” Manara Magazine (January 27, 2022): https://manaramagazine.org/2022/01/27/the-arab-gulf-and-the-joint-strike-fighter-prestige-versus-priorities/.
• “The UAE: 21^st Century Realities and Indispensability” Manara Magazine (January 7, 2022): https://manaramagazine.org/2021/12/01/the-united-arab-emirates-the-british-indispensability-and-the-union
• “The United Arab Emirates: The British, Indispensability, and the Union,” Manara Magazine (December 1, 2021): https://manaramagazine.org/2021/12/01/the-united-arab-emirates-the-british-indispensability-and-the-union/
• “Gulf Security: Past as Present – Present as Future,” Manara Magazine (September 16, 2021): https://manaramagazine.org/2021/09/16/gulf-security-past-as-present-present-as-future/
• “Mohammed bin Salman and the “White Revolution,” Manara Magazine (June 11, 2021): https://manaramagazine.org/2021/06/11/mohammed-bin-salman-and-the-white-revolution/
• “Iran and the West: The Perennial Challenge,” Manara Magazine (March 30, 2021): https://manaramagazine.org/2021/03/30/iran-and-the-west-the-perennial-challenge/
• “The Inescapable Continuum: US Force and Diplomacy in the Biden Era,” Manara Magazine (February 2, 2021): https://manaramagazine.org/2021/02/02/the-inescapable-continuum-us-force-and-diplomacy-into-the-biden-era/
• The Gulf and the Struggle for Hegemony: Arabs, Iranians, and the West in Conflict, Middle East Institute 2017 [More Info]
• Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco: Change, Instability, and Continuity in the Maghreb, Joint Special Operations (JSOU) Press 2017: https://jsou.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=34134939
• “Zwischen Nation und Panarabismus: Die Innenpolitische entwicklung in Syrien and Irak von der Unabhängigkeit bis zum Jahr 2000” published in Irak und Syrien (Wegweiser zur Geschichte) Zentrum für Militärgeschichte und Socialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr, 2016. Edited by Dr. Bernd Lemke, Potsdam, Germany (91–105). (Guide on Iraq and Syria for Bundeswehr, Austrian, and Swiss Armies)
• "U.S. Policy and Iraq: Pragmatism and Progressive Ideals," NPEJ 2016
• The Collapse of Iraq and Syria: The End of the Colonial Construct in the Greater Levant, JSOU Press 2016: https://jsou.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=18599334
• Saudi Arabia: Modernity, Stability and the Twenty-First Century Monarchy, JSOU Press 2015: https://jsou.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=11383888
• Islam, Ideology, and Conflict, JSOU Press 2014: https://jsou.libguides.com/jsoupublications/2014
• Iran: Illusion, Reality, and Interests, JSOU Press 2012: https://jsou.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=2876916
• Yemen: A Different Political Paradigm in Context, Joint Special Operations University Press 2011: https://jsou.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=2876921
• Oman: The Present in the Context of a Fractured Past, Joint Special Operations University Press, https://jsou.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=2876924
• The Arabian Gulf and Security Policy, Joint Special Operations Press 2009, https://jsou.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=2876942
• "Intervention in Iraq, 1958-1959," The Middle East Institute 2008, [PDF]
• The Greater Middle East and the Cold War: U.S. Foreign Policy under Eisenhower and Kennedy 1958–1963, I.B. Tauris 2007