The Scharff technique: training military intelligence officers to elicit information from small cells of sources

ABSTRACT

Studies have demonstrated the efficacy of the Scharff technique for gathering human intelligence, but little is known about how this efficacy might vary among different samples of practitioners. In this training study we examined a sample of military officers (n?=?37). Half was trained in the Scharff technique and compared against officers receiving no Scharff training. All officers received the same case file describing two sources holding information about a terrorist attack. University students (n?=?74) took the role of the semi-cooperative sources. Scharff-trained officers adhered to the training as they (1) aimed to establish the ‘knowing-it-all’ illusion, (2) posed claims as a means of eliciting information, and (3) asked fewer explicit questions. The ‘untrained’ officers asked many explicit questions, questioned the reliability of the provided information, pressured the source, and displayed disappointment with the source's contribution. Scharff-trained officers were perceived as less eager to gather information and left their sources with the impression of having provided comparatively less new information, but collected a similar amount of new information as their untrained colleagues. The present paper both replicates and advances previous work in the field, and marks the Scharff technique as a promising technique for gathering human intelligence.     

Innovation and Alliances

Explanations for national success in science and technology typically focus on domestic institutions and policies. However, that line of research has yet to identify any particular set of institutions or policies that explain variation in national innovation rates across cases or over time. This article offers new evidence that the problem with domestic institutions approaches stems from their failure to consider international security factors. Specifically, this article finds a positive effect for U.S. security alliances on innovation. This finding is robust across different specifications and periods of analysis. While countries that ally militarily with the United States are found to realize benefits in economy‐wide, indigenous innovation, such an effect is not observed in military technologies. This suggests that alliances may substitute for being on the frontier in military technologies. Therefore, this article contributes not just to debates over S&T competitiveness, but also to alliance formation.     

Does U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Training Constitute a Type of Civic Education?

In what respects can military basic training affect veterans’ civic identities? According to a 2015 report published by the National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC), military service positively affects civic health. While social scientists have also noted this possible connection, little attention has been paid to how and why this link might exist. To test the purported relationship between military training and increased civic capacities, I explored the United States Marine Corps’ (USMC) Recruit Training program. I conducted 20 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 17 enlisted Marine veterans and Marine drill instructors (DI) to ascertain their perceptions of the pedagogical aspirations of their service’s recruit training. The study’s participants reported that Marine Corps Recruit Training does seek to inculcate skills, values, and habits that are consistent with a civic identity as discussed in the civic-engagement and civic-education literature.     

Civil society support for military coups: Bangladesh and the Philippines

As of yet, civil society support for military coups has hardly been investigated in depth. This article compares the attempted military coup in 2006 against Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, which received support from prominent civil society leaders, to the collaboration between civil society actors and the military-backed Caretaker Government that ruled Bangladesh from 2007 to 2008. It argues that in both cases, civil society support for military intervention can be traced to the weakness of the state.     

Do Civil Wars,Coups and Riots Have the Same Structural Determinants?

The literature on political instability focuses on institutional and leader survival or outcomes like civil wars and coups. We suggest that this approach overlooks lower levels of instability and that isolating outcomes understates the likelihood that they are manifestations of similar structural determinants. We extend the notion of instability to encompass jointly but distinctly civil wars, coups, and riots. Our explanation focuses on the role of political institutions and the related ethnopolitical strife over state power. Using data from 1950 to 2007, we find that the three outcomes share some determinants such as a factional partial democracy and the exclusion from power of a large proportion of the population; the inverted U-shaped effect of political institutions is driven by a subset of semidemocracies; and there is a substitution relationship between civil wars and coups emerging from the composition of governing coalitions.     

Does European defence really matter? Fortunes and misfortunes of the Common Security and Defence Policy

This article examines how the defence component of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) has been revisited over the last few years. It argues that while the CSDP has grown predominantly as a security – rather than defence – policy, the latest developments that include the creation of a military headquarter, the launching of a Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) and the new role for the European Commission in defence funding, attest to an evolution towards a more central EU defence policy. In the meantime, the article points to some structural impediments to the materialisation of European defence. The momentum says little about the form and finality of military operations that EU states will have to conduct so as to give a meaning to defence in a European context. Moreover, persisting divergences in the EU member states’ respective strategic cultures and institutional preferences – notably vis-à-vis NATO – are likely to continue to constrain European defence self-assertion.     

特朗普政府“印太战略构想”评析

特朗普政府推出“印太战略构想”是为了应对世界大变局,替代奥巴马政府“亚太再平衡”战略和保持有利于美国的地区战略平衡。其主要特点包括：在“有原则的现实主义”和“美国优先的国家安全战略”指导下,加强印太地区联盟和伙伴体系;构建“美日澳印四边形安全合作机制”;形成有利于美国的印太地区经济关系。特朗普政府“印太战略构想”将增加美国联盟体系的内在矛盾;美日澳印四边形安全机制面临印度弱角问题;“印太战略构想”目标与财政资源不相称;战略目标之间自相矛盾。特朗普政府“印太战略构想”将进一步增加中美关系的复杂性和竞争性;向美国的盟国和伙伴国发出错误信号;有利于日本加强自身军事实力和扩张海权势力范围。     

The military dimension of Russia’s connection with Europe

The Russian challenge to the European security system is internal rather than external, because despite all the political efforts at distancing Russia from Europe, the indivisibility remains undiminished. The underlying assumption for Russia’s course is that the West is in irreversible decline, and the conclusion about the dissolution of the West-controlled world order is established in the key doctrinal documents. Instead of passively waiting for this meltdown to develop, it makes perfect sense for the Russian leadership to accelerate it pro-actively, using various levers, including military force. Moscow acts on the assumption that its “unconventional” methods could yield results only if augmented by military threats, against which the Europeans cannot master convincing counter-argument. The imperative to sustain and update credibility of these threats necessitates allocation of greater share of available resources to military build-up, which clashes with economic rationale of reducing this burden in the situation of protracted stagnation.     

从科索沃战争看冷战后美国的军事战略

科索沃战争作为美国推行其全球战略的一个重大步骤,从一个侧面反映了冷战后美国军事战略的内容与实质。这场战争初步暴露了冷战后美国“塑造、反应、准备”新军事战略的主要矛盾。“新干涉主义”则已成为推行其全球战略的一种新形式。     

“天基丝路”助推“一带一路”战略实施——军事安全保障视角

"一带一路"战略充满各种安全风险,军事安全挑战与威胁就是其中之一。"一带一路"战略应该针对最坏的军事安全威胁来进行谋划。作为军民双用的天基资产,理应超越公共产品的范畴,承担起保护"一带一路"军事安全的重任。在可预见的未来,构筑"天基丝路"的方向是继续增加天基资产数量,促进"一带一路"沿线基础设施的互联互通;另外,从保护"一带一路"战略的军事安全来看,要增加先进侦察卫星数量,明了沿线的各种军事安全威胁;适当增加天基对地攻击武器和中远程导弹,实施快速军事反应。"天基丝路"的建设,也需要有"战略支点",即在关键地区、国家建立卫星地面站点。这又是一个棘手的政治问题,需要用政治智慧来解决。