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Does Torture Work?, by John W. Schiemann
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When the Senate released its so-called "Torture Report" in December 2014 the world would learn that, for years, the CIA had used unimaginably brutal methods to interrogate its prisoners - often without yielding any useful or truthful information. The agency had long and adamantly defended its use of torture, staunchly arguing that it was not only just but necessary for the country's safety. And even amid the revelations of the report, questions abound about whether torture can be considered a justifiable tool of national security.
Is interrogational torture an effective method of extracting information? How good does the information extracted need to be for the torture to be considered successful? How often or how vigorously must torture be used to achieve valuable information? It may be the case that interrogational torture can never be justified under any circumstances, but, according to John Schiemann, if it is to be justified at all, it must be effective. According to more than one national poll, most Americans do believe that torture can work, and that it can be justified under certain circumstances. But if the information that torturers extract is bad, then the method amounts to nothing more than pure sadism. So, how can we solve the dilemma over whether to torture or not to torture?
In this book, John Schiemann takes a truly unique approach to the question of torture: game theory. Thinking of torture as a "game" played between an interrogator and a detainee, the book walks the reader through the logic of interrogational torture, comparing the outcomes to the claims made by torture proponents. The book draws on a wide variety of sources ranging from records of the Inquisition to secret CIA memos to trace this logic, illustrating each outcome of the model with a narrative from the real world of interrogational torture. Does Torture Work? is an absorbing and provocative take on one of the most discussed human rights and security dilemmas of our time.
- Sales Rank: #789834 in Books
- Published on: 2015-11-02
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.40" h x 1.30" w x 9.50" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 336 pages
Review
"Does Torture Work? will stand as a foundational text in the continuing effort to set the study of torture on sound scholarly foundations, marking out a new line of social scientific inquiry. Each chapter combines real world examples with clear deductive reasoning, setting aside quixotic and mythical reasoning. Organized for the general educated reader, illuminating for the specialist, and thought-provoking for future scholars testing out Schiemann's propositions." -Darius Rejali, author of Torture and Democracy
"John Schiemann actually says something fresh about the issue of torture by a rigorous examination of the game theory underlying the encounter between the torturer and the victim from whom information is being sought. Given that many of the defenses of torture are issued by self-styled 'realists,' this is an important demonstration of the fact that the decision to torture is basically irrational in that it is highly likely to be counter-productive when carefully analyzed (putting to one side the obvious moral objections). His carefully worked out argument deserves wide attention." -Sanford Levinson, editor of Torture: A Collection
"John Schienmann's Does Torture Work? is a remarkable book that uses game theory to demonstrate that the negative consequences of torture far outweigh the perceived benefits when evaluating torture's effectiveness. His conclusions are surprising and worthy of inclusion in any substantial discussion of coercive interrogation techniques." -Matthew Alexander, author of Kill or Capture
"From the standpoint of a professional mathematics educator, I can see this book being used productively as the springboard for an interesting discussion on the use (and limitations) of game theory. From the standpoint of a citizen, I see this book as raising questions and offering ideas that merit intelligent discussion." --Mathematical Association of America, Mark Hunacek, Iowa State University
"Schiemann separates opinion and political position from objective analysis. He presents facts. His case is categorical, magisterial, exhaustive, original, and terribly, tragically sad. He demolishes the liars, partisan, supporters and defenders of torture." -Glenn Carle, author of The Interrogator: An Education
From the Author
1. Was there anything that you found surprising when researching for this book? If so, what?
Yes, I was surprised in three ways:
First, I was surprised by the power of the individual insights emerging from the formal game theoretic model. Although as someone who had used game theory before I had expected some of this, I kept being surprised each time I explored a new aspect of the model. Sometimes these took the form of a result that matched up with something we already knew, but emerged from the model. An example of this is a (knowledgeable) detainee's decision about whether or not to divulge information. In the model, just as in the brutal logic of torture in real life, this is a balance (ratio) between the value of the information and the pain of torture he wants to avoid. Derived deductively in the model, this simple mathematical form allowed me to explore important substantive problems like torture's slippery slope: once it starts being used, it tends to get more and more brutal. At other times the insight would be something new, not discussed in previous studies of torture. I found, for example, that what I call "surprise torture" - torture of someone who has already given up all of her or his valuable information - is very likely once torture is permitted as an interrogation technique. So I was a little taken aback at just how many different aspects and outcomes of interrogational torture could be accounted for in one relatively simple logical framework.
Second, and related to what I just said, I didn't expect to see just how profoundly and in how many different ways interrogational torture fails to match up to even those standards and expectations of its proponents. Originally, I thought the model might identify some conditions under which it works and other conditions under which it didn't and that would be pretty much it. As all those other insights I mentioned above began to emerge from the model, they began to paint a more damning picture than I had imagined - even though the assumptions of the model are actually quite favorable to proponents of interrogational torture.
Third, with respect to the historical research in the book, I was struck by the remarkable similarity of accounts of torture across time and place. Without ignoring or obscuring obvious and important differences, what stood out for me in terms of the methods, the concerns about torture's effectiveness, and victims own experiences, were their similarities, from the Visigoths in Spain to St. Augustine, to the Inquisition to medieval European jurisprudence to the French in Algeria, the British in Northern Ireland, to Israel to the CIA after 9/11.
2. Since you had made some predictions back in 2012 based on the model in your book, were you surprised by what you read in the Senate intelligence committee's "torture report" released in December 2014?
Yes, I was. As a human being and a patriotic American, I was surprised and disappointed at just how brutal the torture was and shocked at just how ineffective. As a social scientist who believes in my own work, I shouldn't have been surprised, since the report confirmed very clear predictions about both brutality and effectiveness I had made in a journal article back in 2012. But there is always uncertainty around those predictions (which is why we don't make them very often) and of course the human being and American in me didn't want them to be true.
3. What led you to use math and game theory to study torture?
Like other Americans I wondered about our use of torture when it came out in 2006. Why were we doing it? Was it really necessary, as the Bush Administration claimed? Was it as effective as he and others claimed? So I started to look around and noticed there was no systematic evidence about effectiveness. I also read some mathematical models of various aspects of torture but was surprised to find almost nothing on effectiveness. Since the dynamic between an interrogator and a detainee was inherently strategic and the logic of torture according to proponents themselves is a cost-benefit one, I thought it might be worth seeing whether a model built according to proponents would come out the way they argued it would.
4. Do you think there are many misconceptions regarding the topic of your book? If so, what?
Yes, two, both having to do with using game theory to study torture. The first is an objection that one can't and shouldn't "reduce" the pain of torture to numbers. This stems from a totally understandable confusion about what models (don't) do, from a conflation of representation with reduction. Like any model, a game theoretic model simplifies reality, but it doesn't reduce things like pain to numbers. It represents that pain using numbers, but doesn't reduce it. It's an understandable misconception, but it's still a misconception. The second misconception is that a mathematical model can't say anything about the "real world." So if the first misconception is about the inputs to a model, the second is about its output. Models can serve as a kind of reality-check. If the model accounts for the range of outcomes we see in the real world and provides new insights about the outcomes and the way they were generated - why surprise torture happens or why the slippery slope leads to more brutal torture - then that's powerful and useful. This is particularly true in the case of interrogational torture, where we don't have systematic data to settle disputes between proponents and opponents.
5. What was the most challenging part of your research?
The emotional challenge was reading day after day detailed accounts of how my fellow human beings tortured other human beings. The intellectual challenge was working through the implications of the mathematical model in order to think about what they say about interrogational torture. Whereas the first was challenging in a negative sense, the second was positive insofar as I felt I was saying something new and important.
About the Author
John W. Schiemann is Associate Professor of Political Science at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
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