Future of Intelligence

While no one can predict the future with certainty, a primary function of the Intelligence Community (IC) is to “look ahead” to forecast potential threats and challenges. This includes identifying potential “black swan” events-those that are unlikely but that could have a significant impact on the world, such as a “cyber Pearl Harbor.” In this chapter, four potential “drivers” of future change are discussed: technology, demographics, economic trends, and politics/governance. Through the National Intelligence Council, the IC publishes Global Trends, a series of publications that outlines possible and probable future events. The most recent addition to the series, titled Paradox of Progress, underscores the reality that the world of tomorrow will be filled with both opportunity and peril—it is up to humankind to navigate the preferred path. This chapter discusses four potential "drivers" of future change: technology, demographics, economic trends, and politics/governance. The vulnerability of internet-based systems and communications devices discussed in the chapter has sparked a huge debate in the United States. Through the National Intelligence Council, the intelligence community (IC) publishes Global Trends, a series of publications that outlines possible and probable future events. The IC will continue to face myriad threats and challenges as the twenty-first century progresses. The chapter highlights three: terrorism, the rise of Russia and China, and the challenge of encryption. The IC has its own agency for looking toward the future and imagining how it will affect the interests of the United States and IC. Policymakers depend on the IC to help prepare them for future challenges and events. In order to successfully perform strategic or anticipatory intelligence, one must have the ability to creatively look past the current horizon.