he National Intelligence Council (NIC) sponsored this study by the RAND Corporation to inform the NIC’s 2020 project1 and help provide US policymakers with a view of how world developments could evolve, identifying opportunities and potentially negative developments that might warrant policy action. From June 2004 through August 2005, RAND undertook the challenging task of identifying technologies and applications that have the potential for significant and dominant global impacts by 2020. .
