In 2011, the independent think tank, Third Way, asked me to write a paper that offered an objective and systematic overview of the challenges, opportunities, and limitations associated with interrogations of high value detainees. The conclusions drawn in that paper are even more relevant today with the decision by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to release its report on the Central Intelligence Agency's interrogation program.

In preparing that paper, I sought to address the following key points:

• What interrogation actually is (and why fictional portrayals muddy the waters);

• How coercive practices actually undermine interrogators’ long-term goals; and

• Why experienced interrogators know that rapport-building is the most effective means to extract valuable information from detainees.

You can read the paper, National Security Interrogations: Myth v. Reality, on the Third Way website. (Thanks to Mieke Eoyang, Third Way's Director of the National Security Program, for her encouragement and invaluable assistance.)