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Tom Smith - Academic Director

Tom leads the PME Team from the RAF College, managing the delivery of various courses for the RAF at Cranwell and Halton. Tom specialises in contemporary security and terrorism with a particular focus in Asia. In 2016, he was commissioned by the Ministry of Defence’s Defence Human Capability Science and Technology Centre to examine the role of ISIS and other jihadist social media in the Syrian War. Then again by DSTL in 2020 to examine the use of advanced technology in weapons in current and future conflict. His researched was published in both the leading terrorism academic journals and in 2020 edited the 2 volume account of Global Jihad bringing the worlds experts together for critical threat analysis. In 2022 he published work on election violence in the Philippines in the leading journal Pacific Affairs. He has given evidence before the All Parliamentary Group on Human Rights regarding human rights abuses in the Philippines, as well as speaking at the House of Lords.

Frank Ledwidge - Senior Lecturer

Frank began his career as a criminal barrister in his home city of Liverpool. He was called up as an RN Reserves officer in 1996 and served several tours as a human intelligence operator in the Balkans and Iraq. In civilian life he worked eight years with the OSCE as a senior human rights officer in the Balkans and the Former Soviet Union. Whilst in the Balkans he worked as an investigator for the International Criminal Tribunal. He was the first Justice Advisor for the UK PRT in Helmand and served as a stabilisation officer for the British Missions in Benghazi and Tripoli during the Libya War in 2011-12. He completed his PhD (at KCL) in 2015 and has since worked as senior lecturer at both Cranwell and Halton. He is the author of several books including the bestselling 'Losing Small Wars' (Yale 2011/2018) and Aerial Warfare (Oxford 2018) both of which were included on the Chief of the Air Staff reading lists for the relevant years. His interests are in contemporary conflict, space and military ethics.

Clare Stevens - Teaching Fellow

Clare Stevens is a cyber security expert leading on cyber related material in our courses. Her research expertise pertains to the contemporary security issues of digital technologies in international security, with a particular focus on cybersecurity politics and American security policy. Her doctoral research was on the strategic use and misuse of cyberspace by state and non-state actors in the United States. By using the idea of “boundary work” as an organising heuristic for her analysis, her PhD thesis analysed the fraught domestic political processes of defence and security policymaking in the US to show how the ways that state actors talk about cybersecurity and cyber operations are shaping or challenging understandings of “old” strategic concepts, social categories and boundaries. Her current research interests are about the role of government secrecy in cyber operations.

Veronika Poniscjakova - Senior Teaching Fellow

Veronika’s research focuses on the role of counter-culture, religion and right-wing ideology on perpetration of political violence and civil disobedience in Israel. She has 4 years teaching experience in air power, history and international relations. While working at the University of Nottingham she taught modules on the War in Iraq and Political Theory: From Ancient to Modern.