Educing Information: Interrogation - National Intelligence University

this technology fall far short of that which would be involved in a major regional
conflict or, certainly, a strategic engagement with an emerging peer-competitor
such as the People’s Republic of China.
The challenge of educing information from uncooperative sources
cannot be overstated, but neither can the requirement for acquiring timely and
accurate intelligence information that can only be obtained from human sources.
Sun Tzu’s observation continues to ring true in today’s geopolitical environment:
What enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike
and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary
men is foreknowledge. Now this foreknowledge cannot be
elicited from spirits; it cannot be obtained inductively from
experience, nor by any deductive calculation.
Knowledge of the enemy’s disposition can only be obtained
from other men. 683 (Original italics)
Toward a Third Generation in Educing Information
The effort to collect intelligence information from resistant sources can
be traced back to antiquity. A review of the strategies and objectives involved
suggests a sluggish evolution through just two doctrinal generations.
Through most of recorded history, prevailing political powers employed
fi rst generation strategies that relied heavily on physical force. In this era, the
fundamental objective of terrorizing — and thereby controlling — target
populations frequently took precedence over the collection of operationally useful
information.
The second generation of educing information emerged in the closing years
of World War I, when the British director of military intelligence began to examine
in earnest the need to obtain timely and reliable information from prisoners of
war. From that beginning, the strategic interrogation programs developed by
the German, British, and U.S. militaries during World War II established, in
unprecedented fashion, that a potential treasure trove of information can be
obtained from a systematic, outcome-oriented approach to interrogation that
relied far more on finesse than on force.
As the impetus for building on this promising beginning began to fade shortly
after the conclusion of World War II, the experience of U.S. soldiers held prisoner
during the Cold War — especially during the Korean and Vietnam conflicts —
gave rise to a new emphasis on designing strategies for resisting coercive methods
of interrogation. As a result, the preponderance of U.S. government-sanctioned
interrogation research focused on deconstructing coercive methods. The objective
was to develop defensive strategies that would protect U.S. servicemen who faced
the possibility of being held in foreign governmental detention and where they
would be subject to prolonged exploitation.
683
Sun Tzu, 77–78.
264