Who We Are

The National Counterproliferation Center (NCPC) was founded on November 21, 2005 in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to help the United States counter the threats caused by the proliferation of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons.

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What is Counterproliferation?

Counterproliferation efforts aim to eliminate or reduce the threats caused by the development and spread of WMD. To do this, the US Government focuses on five objectives:

North Korea's April 2009
Taepo Dong 2 SLV launch

• Discourage interest by states, terrorists, or armed groups from acquiring, developing or mobilizing resources for WMD purposes
• Prevent or obstruct state, terrorist, or other efforts to acquire WMD capabilities, or efforts by suppliers to provide such capabilities
• Roll back or eliminate WMD programs of concern
• Deter weapons use by those possessing nuclear, radiological, biological, and chemical weapons and their means of delivery
• Mitigate the consequences of any use of WMD against the United States or its allies

How We Do It

Gas centrifuges from Libya's
abandoned nuclear program

NCPC works with the Intelligence Community to identify critical holes in our WMD knowledge – resulting from shortfalls in collection, analysis or exploitation - and then develop solutions to reduce or close these gaps.

In conjunction with the policy community, NCPC also helps to identify long-term proliferation threats and requirements, and develops strategies to ensure that the Intelligence Community is positioned to address these over-the-horizon threats.

To do this, NCPC depends not only on the 16 agencies of the Intelligence Community, but also partners across the US Government, in addition to experts in the private sector.

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What We Have Achieved

Under NCPC leadership, the Intelligence Community is working to eliminate critical gaps on our highest priority WMD targets. We are making progress by developing and putting in place integrated strategies that promote greater dialogue among analysts, collectors, and operators across the Intelligence Community.

NCPC has also put in place processes for regularly assessing efforts and outcomes. For the first time, the Intelligence Community is able to provide consumers with an aggregate picture of how it is doing against priority gaps.