Educing Information: Interrogation - National Intelligence University

The Regression Factor: The Fundamental Objective of Coercive
Methodology
All coercive techniques are designed to induce regression…the
result of external pressures of sufficient intensity is the loss of
those defenses most recently acquired by civilized man: “the
capacity to carry out the highest creative activities, to meet
new, challenging, and complex situations, to deal with trying
interpersonal relations, and to cope with repeated frustrations.
Relatively small degrees of homeostatic derangements, fatigue,
pain, sleep loss, or anxiety may impair these functions.” As a
result, “most people who are exposed to coercive procedures
will talk and usually reveal some information that they might
not have revealed otherwise.” 89
The deprivation of stimuli induces regression by depriving the
subject’s mind of contact with an outer world and thus forcing
it in upon itself. At the same time, the calculated provision of
stimuli during interrogation tends to make the regressed subject
view the interrogator as a father-figure. The result, normally, is a
strengthening of the subject’s tendencies toward compliance. 90
Listening to the post-9/11 debate over guidelines for the interrogation of
terrorist suspects, one could easily conclude that coercive methods are not only
effective, but also substantially more effective than non-coercive methods in
obtaining actionable intelligence from resistant sources. Even those opposed to
the use of coercive methods fail to challenge this premise, exclusively focusing
their arguments instead on the legal and moral issues at stake.
Those issues aside, from a geopolitical perspective alone, a judicious
risk/gain assessment of this course of action is of critical importance, as the
consequences are considerable. This was dramatically illustrated by the anti-
American demonstrations throughout the Muslim world in response to revelations
of the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Ironically, while those risks are not
exceptionally difficult to ascertain, the potential for gain is arguably problematic
since the scientific community has never established that coercive interrogation
methods are an effective means of obtaining reliable intelligence information.
In essence, there seems to be an unsubstantiated assumption that “compliance”
carries the same connotation as “meaningful cooperation” (i.e., a source induced
to provide accurate, relevant information of potential intelligence value). 91
89
KUBARK, 83.
90
KUBARK, 90.
91
Claims from some members of the operational community as to the alleged effectiveness of
coercive methods in educing meaningful information from resistant sources are, at best, anecdotal in
nature and would be, in the author’s view, unlikely to withstand the rigors of sound scientific inquiry.
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