James Clapper said the best the US could hope for was a cap on the North’s capabilities, in a speech in New York.
It is a rare admission that Washington’s long-standing goal of denuclearisation may not be achievable.
However, the US State Department said its policy has not changed.
Pyongyang has made seemingly rapid progress in its nuclear and rocket programmes in recent years, observers say, despite international opposition and strict sanctions.
North Korea recently carried out its fifth and largest nuclear test, to worldwide condemnation, with South Korea calling it an act of “self-destruction”
Clapper, President Barack Obama’s advisor on national security, visited Pyongyang in 2014.
Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations think-tank on Tuesday, the intelligence chief described the regime in Pyongyang as “paranoid”, seeing nuclear weapons as “their ticket to survival”.
“So the notion of giving up their nuclear capability, whatever it is, is a non-starter with them,” he added.
He suggested offering economic inducements to North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un to limit his nuclear arsenal might be a better policy.
Responding to Clapper’s comments, the State Department said the US still aims for a resumption of six-nation negotiations that have been stalled since the North pulled out of them in 2009.
The US is due to deploy its Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile defence system in South Korea soon, despite opposition from China and North Korea.
Washington and Seoul insist it is purely for defending against threats from North Korea, reports the BBC.
