Assessing Futures Intelligence

IN THE FALL OF 1996, the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC) launched an initiative to identify and assess key global trends with an eye toward describing their impact on world politics, regional affairs, and U.S. security interests. The product of a series of meetings involving government and nongovernment experts, the forecast was initially intended for a limited audience. However, the report generated so much interest that it was distributed publicly in 1997 under the title Global Trends 2010.1 A new unclassified U.S. intelligence product—futures intelligence—was born. That assessment has since been renewed at about four-year intervals by the NIC, culminating in its seventh reincarnation, Global Trends 2040, which was published online in March 2021.2 Despite the effort to develop futures intelligence and a growing literature dealing with the study of the future,3 intelligence scholars and practitioners have spent relatively little time identifying the factors that enable accurate estimates and forecasts, the factors that cause mistakes, and the reasons why some important developments escape notice altogether in futures intelligence.4 By contrast, critics usually charge that futures intelligence just projects today's headlines and hot topics onto the future. It is not particularly surprising, for example, that Global Trends 2040 depicts a world in which an intensification of today's internet-enabled social turmoil might destabilize existing governments and other institutions. Written during a pandemic, it is the gloomiest Global Trends assessment produced by the U.S. intelligence community.5

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• Diffuse intelligence

  Open Access•James J Wirtz•Intelligence & National Security•2026

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• Toward a futurist approach to hedging strategy in Southeast Asia

  Open Access•Pak Nung Wong•Frontiers in Political Science•2025

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