Below are two charts on intelligence funding I did for an article in National Interest . These show funding trends (in constant 2012 dollars) for the National Intelligence Programs budget (NIP) and the NIP as a percent of overall DOD budget (where the NIP is cached). These data are pretty accurate and the trends reflect growing resource commitment to national intelligence. This is a trend which should continue given the types of threat we will face in future. The risks (indeed attacks) we are subject too will be less kinetic and more virtual. They will be things that the intelligence community is more adept at understanding and, indeed, thwarting. The necessity for massive investment in defense hardware will trend down. This will be a trend that lobbyists in Washington will fight, but looking ahead, the past decade with its trillion dollar expenses in Iraq and Afghanistan, is not a good indicator for future needs. The Arab awakening and Chinese penetrations of our communications, and sensitive commercial data are more representative of things that will affect our future. Looking ahead, the NIP funding line should hold its own and grow as a portion of the overall defense budget.