Editing KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Review: Observations of an Interrogator (section)

== 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 90 91
KUBARK, 83.
KUBARK, 90.

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.

The concept of regression appears to be a consistent theme in much of the research conducted on long-term detention and interrogation, a considerable portion of which involved the experiences of U.S. military personnel held prisoner during the Korean conflict. The psychologist Martin Orne, writing in 1961, noted that:

[C]onditions of interrogation are sometimes conducive to a regression on the part of the source. The interrogator can exercise complete control of the source’s physical being — his primitive needs such as elimination, eating, and sleeping, and even bodily postures. He is also in a position to reward or punish any predetermined activity on the part of the captive. This tends to create a situation where the individual feels unable to observe any control over himself. This extreme loss of control is handled in a variety of ways, one of which is regression to a childlike state of dependence on and identification with the aggressor...some prisoners adopt a cooperative role because of the need to reassure themselves that they retain some control over their behavior in the coercive situation. Complying “voluntarily” for such cases is less threatening, and may be regarded by them as less shameful, than losing control completely over their actions.92

Assuming for a moment that this regression dynamic accurately describes the underlying process that leads a once-resistant source toward compliance,93 the use of interrogation techniques to bring about regression still raises a number of key questions:
1. What precise means are required to obtain this end?
2. What are the overarching management and operational requirements for orchestrating such a process?
3. Is the length of time required for the regression to occur reasonable enough to render it a useful method of obtaining time-sensitive intelligence?
4. What are the long-term effects of the regression experience?
5. Are individuals subjected to this condition profoundly changed?
6. Is their emotional and psychological stability significantly harmed such that treatment is required to address — and reverse — the condition?
7. What are the legal and moral issues involved?
8. How would the revelation of this form of interrogation be received by various audiences, domestic and foreign?
9. Would the use of coercive methods — real or alleged — have an impact on the treatment of U.S. personnel held captive in adversarial hands?
10. Would the use of forced regression as a sanctioned method of exploitation be viewed as being consistent with long-standing U.S. values and military traditions?
11. The above considerations notwithstanding, does the use of regression consistently produce reliable, actionable intelligence information?

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93 Two additional important points with respect to regression warrant further comment. First, a given individual’s response to circumstances designed specifically to cause regression cannot be reliably predicted in advance. Second, regression in general receives far less professional acceptance as a psychological concept today than was true in the 1950–1960 timeframe.

Martin T. Orne, “The Potential Uses of Hypnosis in Interrogation,” in The Manipulation of Human Behavior, ed. Albert D. Biderman and Herbert Zimmer (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1961), 206. Hereafter referred to as The Manipulation of Human Behavior.

In The Manipulation of Human Behavior, Biderman decried the fact that, in 1961, the “dearth of sober information on interrogation has had the unfortunate consequence of facilitating the exploitation of United States prisoners of war by Communist captors.”94 While he was specifically addressing a research shortfall that undermined training in the resistance to interrogation for U.S. military personnel, the same observation remains essentially true over 40 years later with regard to the paucity of relevant information on effective tactics, techniques, and procedures for the interrogation of adversarial detainees under U.S. control.