THE PRACTITIONER'S COMPENDIUM

What makes an adversary tick? How do intelligence analysts fail - and how can they do better? What happens in the brain when someone is coerced into a false confession? And did an unarmed diplomat negotiate the release of hostages from one of the world's most dangerous terrorist organizations?
The Practitioner's Compendium answers questions of this nature by putting behavioral science in the service of statecraft. Written for professionals in government, the military, the intelligence community, and law enforcement, this compendium surveys a century of behavioral science engagement with American national security and public safety - from the mass psychological testing of World War I recruits to today's AI-driven influence operations.
Seven chapters cover the scope of the field: the history of operational psychology; the psychology of international negotiation, explored through the extraordinary career of UN diplomat Giandomenico Picco; the indirect assessment of foreign leaders, including a psychobiographical profile of Xi Jinping; the neuroscience of persuasion and the history of coercive brainwashing; the psychology of human intelligence and intelligence analysis; the science and ethics of investigative interviewing and interrogation; and the principles of hostage and crisis negotiation.
Running through every chapter are themes that make behavioral science indispensable to statecraft: the centrality of the human factor over structural analysis alone; the dual-use nature of psychological knowledge; the imperative of ethical safeguards; and the cognitive limitations that every practitioner must learn to recognize and manage.
The Practitioner's Compendium draws on the work of researchers, clinicians, and intelligence professionals who have spent careers at this intersection - combining scholarly depth with narrative accessibility for readers who want to understand what behavioral science can contribute to keeping nations free and secure.