Tech Policy Institute
Cornell Brooks School
Research hub
The future of military drone technologies across air, land, and sea, and the policy needed to meet them.
This hub drives research into the future of military drone technologies across domains. We investigate Full Spectrum Drone Warfare and its global implications, and provide strategic policy insights to NATO members and partner states. Our publications address the urgent need for new technologies and strategies for addressing emerging drone threats in a world of record drone proliferation.
This year, Director Dr. Sarah Kreps and Executive Director Dr. James Patton Rogers released 'Drones: What Everyone Needs to Know,' a new book with Oxford University Press. The book traces the evolution of drone technology and explains how unmanned systems across air, land and sea continue to transform modern warfare. Their work has led to briefings at the Department of State, the Pentagon's Joint Staff, the United Nations, Doctors Without Borders, and the World Economic Forum.
Non-Resident Senior Fellow Dr. Paul Lushenko and Dr. Jennifer Spindel of the University of New Hampshire conducted a pioneering TPI study, 'America's Skies: Public Support for Homeland Counter-Drone Operations,' offering the first experimental data on how Americans view domestic counter-drone activities. Their findings were presented to the National Security Council at the White House.
Within this hub
The Full Spectrum Drone Warfare node analyzes the Third Drone Age, which is defined by the seamless, autonomous integration of drones across air, land, and sea. Developed from a 2024 NATO funded Advanced Research Project, it is an operational concept requiring both a military-civil technology fusion and the doctrinal reform of allied forces to embrace cross-domain machine-teaming.
Team
Publications
Op-ed
The boundary between commercial and military technology is drawn largely by the firms being regulated. That is an accountability problem, not a technical one.
Report
Published with the Icelandic think tank Varda, on drone threats and the governance gaps facing Arctic defence.
Policy brief
A whole-of-government approach to countering the domestic drone threat.
Policy brief
Criminal drone incursions over correctional facilities, and the governance gaps they expose.
Policy brief
Public support for homeland counter-drone operations.
News
News
The institute and the Icelandic think tank Varða publish Detect and Deter, on drone threats, governance gaps, and the future of Icelandic defence.
News
Junior Fellow Sumajja Denysiuk argues that the boundary between commercial and military technology is set largely by the firms being regulated, and that this is an accountability problem.
News
From Hamas on October 7 to Ukraine's Operation Spider Web, drones now open wars. Paul Lushenko and Joseph Amoroso argue the U.S. must defend against them everywhere and all the time.
Event
Director's Fellow John Miller on how drone warfare has evolved over the past decade, and what it means for future conflict.
News
Executive Director James Patton Rogers delivered the keynote at the Cyber and Tech Retreat, a forum bringing senior diplomats from more than 25 countries to Silicon Valley.
News
A new book from Oxford University Press on the past, present, and future of military and civilian drones.
News
Dark Skies reviews the escalating use of drones by organised crime against His Majesty's Prison Estate, and the legislative gaps that leave the response unclear.
Interview
BTPI Fellow Basim Ali sat down with Suresh Kumar, a senior Indian civil servant and former Chief Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister of Punjab – a northern Indian state with significant administrative and geopolitical relevance –...
News
Basim Ali sat down with Suresh Kumar, a senior Indian civil servant and former Chief Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister of Punjab, to discuss the interplay between internal security, digital governance, and participatory policymaking in a border state.
News
The first experimental evidence of how much cadets trust AI-enabled military technology, testing the common assumption that junior personnel are trusting "digital natives".
News
Policymakers fear a backlash over counter-drone operations at home. New experimental evidence from Paul Lushenko and Jennifer Spindel suggests Americans broadly support them.
Event
Defence experts convened at Cornell for Full Spectrum Drone Warfare 2050, a workshop on drone deployment across all domains, funded by the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme.
News · Cornell Chronicle
Defence experts gather at Cornell to consider the future of drone warfare and its impact on the security and stability of NATO members and partners.
News
The NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme awarded $65,000 to analyse the development and use of military drone technologies across air, land, and sea.
News · Cornell Chronicle
Armed drones are neither a magic bullet that wins wars nor an inconsequential tool, according to two Cornell scholars writing in Defense & Security Analysis.
News · Cornell Chronicle
A first-of-its-kind survey finds Americans consider military drone strikes conducted with the consent of other nations to be the most morally legitimate.
