CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

StrategicIntent

2007-2011

ONE AGENCY

ONE COMMUNITY
This Strategic Intent, which 

benefited greatly from [employee] 

comments and suggestions, is our 

roadmap for the next five years. 

It will enable us to become a more 

effective organization in fulfilling our 

paramount mission: protecting the 

American people. 

Its central theme is integration—

operating as a team within our 

Agency and with our Community 

colleagues. We must combine our 

talents according to what the 

mission requires. Our common 

culture will be One Agency, 

One Community. 

This Intent is fully consistent with 

both the President’s National 

Security Strategy and the DNI’s 

National Intelligence Strategy, which 

call for the nation’s intelligence 

enterprise to become “more unified, 

coordinated and effective.” 

Director’s Message

Gen. Michael V. Hayden

Director, Central Intelligence Agency

I am excited about this Intent 

because of the promise it holds for 

our Agency. As we better integrate 

our core capabilities—and as we 

take steps to strengthen those 

capabilities—we will meet the 

demands placed on us by the 

challenging strategic environment 

that our country faces. 

As we meet our strategic goals, 

we will be true to our core values: 

Service, Integrity, and Excellence. 

They are the constants that reflect 

the best of our Agency’s unique 

history and accomplishments. 

These are the values that have 

served us well and will guide us 

as we embark on making our 

Strategic Intent a reality.
The Vision

An Agency unmatched in its core capabilities, 

functioning as one team, fully integrated into the 

Intelligence Community.

ONE AGENCY

ONE COMMUNITY
The Mission

We are the nation’s first line of defense. We accomplish what others 

cannot accomplish and go where others cannot go. We carry out our 

mission by:

• Collecting information that reveals the plans, intentions and 

capabilities of our adversaries and provides the basis for decision 

and action.

• Producing timely analysis that provides insight, warning and 

opportunity to the President and decisionmakers charged with 

protecting and advancing America’s interests. 

• Conducting covert action at the direction of the President to preempt 

threats or achieve US policy objectives.
• Service. We put Country first and Agency before self. Quiet 

patriotism is our hallmark. We are dedicated to the mission, and 

we pride ourselves on our extraordinary responsiveness to the 

needs of our customers.

• Integrity. We uphold the highest standards of conduct. We seek 

and speak the truth—to our colleagues and to our customers. We 

honor those Agency officers who have come before us and we 

honor the colleagues with whom we work today.

• Excellence. We hold ourselves—and each other—to the 

highest standards. We embrace personal accountability. We 

reflect on our performance and learn from that reflection.

Core Values
We operate in an unstable and dangerous world where international 

terrorism, the rise of new powers, and the accelerating pace of 

economic and technological change will place enormous strains on 

the ability of states to govern and will sharply increase the potential 

for strategic surprises. 

• Our adversaries in the long war on terrorism are dispersed across 

the globe; they are resilient, ruthless, patient and committed to the 

mass murder of our citizens.

• The possession and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction 

threatens international stability and the safety of our homeland.

• The rise of China and India and the emergence of new economic 

“centers” will transform the geopolitical and economic landscape. 

• Weak governments, lagging economies, competition for resources, 

and youth bulges will create crises in many regions.

The Strategic Environment
The American people look to us as never before. The bar 

has been set very high and appropriately so. They look to 

us to protect their way of life, to be dedicated to the security 

of the United States, and to uphold and defend the 

Constitution. They expect our nation’s leaders to hold us 

accountable. They expect that in pursuit of our mission we 

will take risks and honor the very national values we seek 

to protect. They expect us to keep secrets but not have 

anything to hide. They expect us to work with integrity and 

speak truth to power. 

The Nation’s Expectations
1. Integrating Intelligence Capabilities

1.1 Align mission, activities, and capabilities with the National Intelligence Strategy.

1.2 Create an environment for effective collaboration within CIA.

1.3 Continually seek expanded opportunities for partnering with the national security 

community.

1.4 Broaden and deepen ties with foreign partners to enhance mission performance.

1.5 Strengthen our ability to systematically capture and share lessons learned from our 

intelligence successes and failures.

2. Fulfi lling a Leadership Role in the Intelligence Community

2.1 Build an integrated national HUMINT service and enhance the Intelligence 

Community’s relationship with foreign intelligence services.

2.2 Lead the integrated center dedicated to the highest quality collection, analysis and 

dissemination of open source materials.

2.3 Pioneer innovative, all-source analytical methods that can be adopted across the IC.

3. Strengthening Core Capabilities

3.1 Expand and deepen expertise across all mission areas.

3.2 Develop and deploy innovative ways to penetrate the toughest targets.

3.3 Continue to enhance analytic tradecraft, strengthen strategic analysis, and

expand analytic outreach.

3.4 Improve global coverage to enhance our ability to anticipate and respond to 

emerging challenges and opportunities.

3.5 Develop more robust and agile covert action capabilities.

3.6 Advance mission through the development, introduction, and application of 

innovative technologies, leveraging advances made elsewhere in the Intelligence 

Community, US Government and industry.

Our goals 
4. Investing in Our People

4.1 Develop and sustain an Agency-wide culture—One Team, One Set of Values—where 

goals are mutually shared and honored. 

4.2 Align the rewards and incentives programs to support the goals of this Strategic Intent

—becoming an organization that encourages and rewards mission contributions in 

traditional and non-traditional assignments.

4.3 Recruit, develop, and retain exceptional individuals from a diverse talent pool.

4.4 Develop Agency leaders with the skills and abilities necessary to promote more 

effective Agency performance and contributing to cross-cutting Intelligence 

Community objectives.

4.5 Enhance employee health, safety, and quality of life to create an environment that 

enables people to work more effectively. 

5. Creating a 21st Century Infrastructure

5.1 Improve IT infrastructure both to integrate more effectively our capabilities and to 

service an increasingly dispersed workforce.

5.2 Modernize and expand our physical infrastructure to meet the needs of a growing 

workforce.

5.3 Ensure CIA’s ability to continue essential operations even under adverse circumstances 

by expanding our distributed mission capabilities.