Methods in the Madness? Exploring the Logics of Torture in Syrian Counterinsurgency Practices

While the administrations of Hafez and Bashar al-Assad employed torture regularly as a tool of authoritarian governance, this usage changed dramatically in nature as the revolution moved from protests to insurgency, which posed an increasingly significant threat to the regime’s survival. In the counterinsurgency literature, torture’s function is generally tied to intelligence gathering. In the context of Syria’s post-2011 Counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign, torture functioned more as a way to intimidate the population, forcing them to explicitly choose a side—especially in contested zones. The threat posed by the uprising amplified the scale, form, targeting, and purpose of torture, expanding it significantly. This article traces these dynamics, not only to explain the changing logics and practices of torture in Syria, but also to identify key actors, structures, and sites of analysis. It attempts to avoid falling into the normative trap of simply condemning torture, by moving its examination into a more analytical space, thereby demonstrating how torture can perform a critical function beyond intelligence gathering within an authoritarian COIN campaign.