The Torturer's Dilemma: Analyzing the Logic of Torture for Information

the truth when the subject prefers to hide it.
The next chapter of this book will examine the theory that lies behind my informal model of
how torture operates, drawing on the history of torture in the West from ancient Greece to modern
times, and outlines the logic necessary to make torture work. The idea is to find the conditions under
which torture could work, before examining how well it has worked in the real world. This focus on
logic is crucial, because of the nature of torture: the experimental approach is of course impossible, and
the fact that states do not publicize their torture regimes (and generally deny their very existence)
makes a statistical approach nearly impossible. I argue that torture all too easily becomes perverted,
transforming from a means of generating true information for the state into a means to corrupt the
state's intelligence apparatus with false information. This results of this process are best exemplified by
the deceptive circle, where bad information leads to more bad information, the torture of ignorant
captives leads to more ignorant captives being tortured, and the state faces costs in the form of
weakened legitimacy, corrupted agents, a loss of investigative abilities, and finally a crisis that ends the
cycle of torture as the costs and dangers generated become too great for elites to bear. 7 Most
disturbingly, this deceptive cycle is not restricted to authoritarian states that torture for purposes of
social control: even liberal states engaged in a good-faith hunt for true information, whose interrogators
are not sadistic and whose elites are not corrupted are at risk – and increasingly so as torture becomes
institutionalized.
The next three chapters consist of case studies, each of which offers insight into how torture
actually operates. The first of these case studies centers on the Salem witch trials in order to elucidate a
central concept in my model: the deceptive cycle, where bad information drives out good information.
It is one of my main arguments that the presence of such a cycle is clear evidence that torture has
failed: if torturers cannot distinguish between truth and fiction, then the captive has no reason to ever
speak the truth. The fourth chapter considers the case of torture during the Algerian Revolution by
comparing torture used by the French in order to eliminate the insurgent National Liberation Front
(FLN), and by the FLN in order to locate and eliminate pro-French informants in their own
organization. This chapter examines how torture operates when the conspiracy being hunted is real, but
7 Examples of such elite actions include the outlawing of torture by Phillip the Magnificent of Hesse in 1526, leading to
the disappearance of witch trials for 50 years, the end of forfeiture of assets by Bamberg under pressure form the Holy
Roman Emperor in 1630; and the end of forfeiture and the requirement for 'outside evidence' by the inquisitor of Spain
in 1614. (Currie, p. 24) The end of torture in France similarly stemmed in large measure from pressure on lower courts
instituted by the Parlement of Paris in the 1600s. (Soman, 1978)
7