About AiSS Intelligence
AiSS Intelligence is an independent journal providing strategic analysis of drones, counter-drone systems and AI-enabled autonomous technologies. We examine how these capabilities are reshaping defence, national security, industry and the resilience of critical infrastructure—and what they reveal about the future of conflict.
We serve an international readership of defence and security professionals, policymakers, industry leaders, researchers and critical infrastructure operators. Our purpose is to help readers understand emerging capabilities, assess their practical limits and make informed decisions about protection, procurement, investment and policy.
Our Focus
Drone Spear and Drone Shield are the journal’s two defining pillars. Drone Spear examines how drones and autonomous systems are changing offensive capability. Drone Shield explores the evolving means of detection, protection and defence. Together, they provide a framework for understanding a contest shaped by artificial intelligence, data, operational adaptation and industrial capacity.
This contest extends beyond the battlefield. Ports, airports, industrial sites, maritime corridors and offshore energy infrastructure face security challenges involving unmanned systems. We examine their implications for public safety, commercial continuity and essential services, alongside their military and strategic consequences.
Our Strategic Horizon
Our long-term concern is the changing character and expanding reach of conflict. Whether humanity welcomes these developments or not, technological progress is widening the environments in which power can be exercised, essential systems disrupted and security contested. Strategic judgement must account for that expansion.
Our horizon therefore extends from today’s unmanned systems to the interaction of autonomous, cyber, maritime, airborne and space-based capabilities. Space must form part of this inquiry: the protection of orbital infrastructure, the resilience of services that depend on it and the possibility of conflict extending beyond Earth all demand sustained strategic attention.
Scenarios once encountered mainly in science fiction—including conflict involving autonomous systems in space—deserve disciplined examination as the relevant capabilities develop. Their timing, scale and form remain uncertain. That uncertainty makes careful inquiry, early policy debate and consideration of restraint all the more necessary.
AiSS Intelligence seeks to act as a catalyst for strategic understanding and policy development. Our contribution lies in analysis rather than direct technology development: identifying emerging questions, connecting technical developments with their strategic consequences and helping practitioners, researchers and policymakers consider how to prepare, protect and govern.
Our Approach
Our analysis begins with a practical question: what can a capability deliver under real operating conditions? We assess technological maturity, operational relevance, system integration, cost, scale and sustainment. We examine whether a promising demonstration can become a dependable capability—and whether industry can produce and support it in sufficient numbers.
We connect individual developments to the structures that determine their wider effect: procurement systems, regulation, supply chains, industrial partnerships and the capacity to adapt. We also explore how these structures may need to evolve as technologies advance and the boundaries of conflict expand.
Our Editorial Principles
AiSS Intelligence was founded on a simple conviction: capability alone does not create security; understanding does. Judgement must keep pace with capability, particularly as systems operate faster and the time available for human decisions grows shorter.
We offer analysis that is calm, exacting and attentive to the forces beneath events. We distinguish verified facts from our own assessments, test claims against available operational evidence and make uncertainties explicit. When examining future scenarios, we distinguish established capabilities, emerging possibilities and longer-term conjecture.
Our perspective is international, and our commitment is to the public good. Understanding the future of conflict should strengthen preparedness, inform responsible policy and help preserve the conditions for peace.
Clear thinking is the foundation of credible defence and lasting resilience. AiSS Intelligence is dedicated to that discipline.
What We Do
From battlefield innovation to industrial strategy, AiSS Intelligence tracks the technologies, policies and markets shaping the global drone and counter-drone ecosystem.
Drone & Unmanned Systems
Platforms, payloads, autonomy, command-and-control, swarming, ISR and dual-use applications.
Policy & Regulation, Procurement
Defence policy, regulation, public procurement, export controls, standards and institutional adoption.
Counter-Drone & Air Defence
Detection, tracking, identification, electronic warfare, kinetic interceptors and integrated air-defence solutions.
Industry & Markets, Investment
Companies, supply chains, partnerships, market opportunities, investment trends and commercial strategy.
Our Editorial Approach
AiSS Intelligence brings together open-source research, industry engagement and analysis informed by real operational experience. We draw a clear line between verified fact and professional assessment, acknowledge uncertainty where it exists, and avoid the promotional language that too often obscures technical reality.
Our purpose is to offer independent, practical intelligence that helps decision-makers understand not only what is changing across the AI-driven defence and security landscape, but why those changes matter — for national security, for industry, and for the resilience of critical infrastructure.
AiSS Intelligence is founded and published by Ambassador Woon-Ki Lyeo, a Dublin-based professional in international affairs and strategic partnerships. He currently serves as Representative and Advisor for Foreign Business to K-Defence Sung Nam — the defence SMEs cluster in Pangyo Techno Valley near Seoul — while continuing his research as a Visiting Research Fellow at Trinity Business School.
During his diplomatic career, Ambassador Lyeo served as the Republic of Korea’s Ambassador to Ghana, with concurrent accreditation to Togo and Benin, and later as Ambassador to Ireland, his final posting in the foreign service. His earlier assignments spanned a wide range of multilateral and security roles, including service with the United Nations, work in security-policy and international cooperation divisions within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a term as Political Adviser to the Secretary General of the OSCE. He also served as Director for Research and Planning at the Institute of National Security and Foreign Affairs, where he helped shape policy analysis on emerging strategic issues.
Following his retirement from diplomatic service, he was appointed President of the Korea–Africa Foundation, where he played a significant role in deepening South Korea’s diplomatic, economic and industrial engagement with African nations, strengthening partnerships across both public and private sectors.
Drawing on diplomatic, institutional and field experience across Europe, Africa and Asia, he now leads AiSS Intelligence as an independent platform that connects technology, policy, markets and strategic cooperation across the emerging landscape of AI-driven defence and security. His aim is to ensure that the journal serves as a bridge between innovation and judgement — a place where complex developments are interpreted with clarity, and where their implications for national security, industry and critical infrastructure can be understood with the seriousness they demand.
Founder & Publisher
