That's Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence to you. The PDDNI is the No. 2 U.S. intelligence official, deputy to the Director of National Intelligence, retired U.S. admiral Dennis Blair.

There is no PDDNI right now. But Nukes & Spooks is hearing that a leading candidate is David Gompert, a former top official at the State Department and National Security Council who is currently a senior fellow at the RAND Corp.

Gompert has wide experience in dealing with questions of failing states and violence, having worked over the years on the Balkans, Sudan, Liberia and other crises. He's also, perhaps not coincidentally from Blair's perspective, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.

A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence would only say that a final decision on a PDDNI has not been made.