National Intelligence Council

What We Do

Within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the NIC carries out its mission under the direction of the Deputy Director for Intelligence Integration and the Chairman, Vice Chairman, and Counselor, who lead a corps of National Intelligence Officers.

The NIOs serve as the “analytic arm” of the National Intelligence Manager teams and are responsible for producing finished intelligence analysis.

They support the NIMs’ efforts to integrate US intelligence and develop and implement Unifying Intelligence Strategies to address the nation’s most pressing national security concerns.

Mission Areas

The NIC’s core missions are to:

• The NIC promotes exemplary use of analytic tradecraft and standards, including alternative analysis, new analytic tools and techniques, and wider collaboration within the IC.
• Provide senior policymakers with coordinated views of the entire Intelligence Community, including National Intelligence Estimates.
• Prepare IC principals and represent the IC at National Security Council Principals and Deputies Committee meetings.
• Tap non-USG experts in academia and the private sector to broaden the IC’s knowledge and perspectives.

Although most of the NIC’s work is classified, the NIC also produces or commissions unclassified reports, many of which can be found in the documents section of this page.

Global Trends

Every four years the NIC publishes an update of its Global Trends series that identifies key drivers and developments likely to shape world events a couple of decades into the future. The most recent Global Trends report, Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds was released on December 10, 2012.