On 18th March 2025, the Centre for War and Diplomacy (CWD) and Royal Air Force Museum (RAFM) co-hosted the Lancaster Air Power Lecture. Dr Dominika Kunertova spoke on 'Innovate, Integrate, Repeat: The Changing Character of Drone Warfare'.

Dr Dominika Kunertova is a research scientist with over a decade of transatlantic professional experience in academic, think tank, and international organization settings. Her research covers military applications of emerging and disruptive technologies and their impact on international security and transatlantic defence cooperation. She is a non-resident senior fellow at the Transatlantic Security Initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, and a NATO partner country director of a project on future drone warfare and technology, funded by the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme. Kunertova’s research has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Contemporary Security Policy, Defence Studies, European Security, the Journal of Contemporary European Research, Military Review, the Naval War College Review, and more. She has also authored numerous policy reports and briefs on drones, missile technology and arms control, hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, and European security in the NATO context. Her public affairs commentary has appeared in outlets including the RUSI Newsbrief, The Conversation, Le Rubicon, and War on the Rocks.

Dr Kunertova's lecture addressed the changing character of drone warfare. Most drone warfare has been associated with sophisticated airborne platforms fighting international terrorism. Contemporary drone warfare, however, is less remote and less exquisite. Over the past few years, consumer drones have mutated from a security nuisance into combat assets. The spread of cheap drones across borders and types of actors has altered cost and risk calculations on the battlefield. Most notably, Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine has led to exponential innovation-adaptation cycles in drone technology and tactics. Inexpensive and replicable drones demonstrate their utility in high-intensity warfare by providing a live-feed of the battlefield and becoming ammunition themselves. Armed forces are rethinking their appreciation of uncrewed systems in terms of both platforms and functions. While drone diversity has highlighted the vertical dimension in land operations, its impact on reinventing airpower and transforming the Air Force remains more difficult to grasp. Will the era of artificial intelligence show the way forward?

The Air Power Lecture is an annual event at Lancaster. Previous speakers have included:

• 2024: Dr Sophy Antrobus (King's College London), 'Risk and Resilience in UK Air Power',
• 2023: Dr Tony Cowan, 'The German air force and combined arms battle, 1916-1917',
• 2022: Dr Maria Ewa Burczynska (University of Wolverhampton), 'Challenges of multinational operations encountered by small air forces'
• 2021: Dr Mauro Gilli (Center for Security Studies of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich): 'Why China Has Not Caught Up Yet: The Case of Stealth Jet Fighters'
• 2020: Professor David Edgerton (King's College London), '"No more Concordes"? Aviation, industrial policy and the future of the British Nation, 1945-1980'

The Air Power Lecture is one element of the CWD's ongoing research and engagement partnership with the RAFM, which also includes a Collaborative Doctoral Award from the North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership, for the project entitled 'The Europeanisation of British Defence Procurement in the Cold War: The RAF and the Panavia Tornado', held by Samuel Hollins.