The Conduct after Capture Training Centre (CAC TC) is a specialist Canadian Armed Forces training establishment in Kingston, Ontario. It prepares military personnel for captivity survival and conduct after capture: resisting exploitation, protecting information and retaining their ability to act when their freedom is restricted. Its French name is Centre d’entraînement de Conduite après la Capture (CE CAC).
Mission and personnel
Conduct after Capture, or CAC, concerns the situation after a person has lost their freedom of movement. A captor may seek military knowledge, exploit statements politically or use the captive as a means of exerting pressure. The centre therefore combines captivity survival with resistance: the person must cope with physical and psychological strain while preventing their knowledge and conduct from being used against friendly forces.
The intended audience includes Canadian military personnel exposed to possible captivity. Risk depends both on their employment and on the consequences of exploitation. A person with particularly valuable knowledge or an exposed position of responsibility may offer an adversary substantial benefit after capture. An earlier Canadian training model distinguished general preparation, mission-specific preparation and enhanced training for this particularly vulnerable group. For these personnel, it combined principles of conduct with practical application: participants were to learn about their own reactions and options under simulated captivity conditions.
The national framework is the Canadian Code of Conduct after Capture. Qualifying instructors and preparing personnel at risk serve different purposes: participants practise conduct under an adversary’s control; instructors must portray such a situation credibly while retaining control of their own reactions.
The captivity situations addressed
CAC covers prisoner-of-war captivity, detention by a foreign government and hostage-taking. These situations involve different purposes for detention and different problems of conduct. After military capture, questioning may seek knowledge about friendly forces and operations. Government detention may involve allegations, statements and legal proceedings. Hostage-takers may use the person to make demands on third parties. Captives therefore need to understand what information or action the captor wants and what opportunities for movement, conversation or access to basic necessities actually remain.
An answer about a mission, other personnel or the captive’s responsibilities can reveal more than the single fact requested. Fear and exhaustion may make the person focus solely on ending the immediate unpleasant situation and lose sight of its further consequences. CAC prepares personnel to recognize that pressure and align their conduct with national requirements and the particular captivity situation.
Preparation, skills and application
This earlier Canadian model progressed from explaining possible captivity situations through rehearsing coping skills to applying them under controlled stress. Participants first considered possible capture and their own stress reactions. They learned, for example, how fear and physical arousal affect attention and behaviour. Recognizing a reaction as a sign of stress allows them to use a previously rehearsed action to manage it, instead of being driven entirely by it.
Skills were initially practised under low stress. They included controlled breathing, deliberately tensing and relaxing muscles, self-talk and mental activity. Breathing and muscle relaxation address physical arousal; cognitive skills address thoughts that immobilize the person or consume their attention. A manageable next task or mental activity can help the person focus on something they can influence, even when they cannot control their external situation. Personal faith and prayer may also be part of an individual’s coping resources.
During practical application, participants had to keep these skills available in unpleasant and austere conditions. Physical, psychological and environmental stressors were combined with simulated captivity. In this model, demands increased gradually, with recovery periods between stressful exposures. Participants thus practised the self-direction they had learned while freedom and familiar options were restricted. Feedback and follow-through concerned how they had coped with the situation and which skills needed further practice.
Instructor roles and control
Conduct after Capture Instructors, or CACI, perform different roles within the simulated situation. Credible roles create the problem of conduct to which the participant must respond. Instructors therefore need self-discipline, maturity, emotional control and restraint in a stressful environment. An instructor who is carried away by a participant’s reaction loses precisely the control that structured captivity training requires.
Previously rehearsed actions should remain available despite fear and pressure. Demands must therefore increase in a way that allows participants to use the skills they have learned; their physical and psychological health sets limits on stress. Instructors maintain their qualification through continuing involvement in delivering CAC training, which entails regular work in this particular environment of role portrayal and stress.
Actual captivity may last considerably longer and leave access to basic necessities, contact and the end of detention uncertain. A real captor is subject to no training authority. What matters to isolated personnel is therefore what they can still do: cope with stress, remain attentive and protect their interests within their remaining freedom. Controlled practice prepares them to sustain these tasks; its planned recovery periods and endpoints are unavailable during an operation.
Links to SERE, personnel recovery and reintegration
CAC addresses the captivity and resistance component of SERE. A specific Canadian link is the practical instruction provided by CAC instructors on the Air Operations Survival – SERE Course. Survival and evasion also concern the period before possible capture: retaining the ability to act and avoiding an adversary’s control. After capture, CAC addresses the options available under the captor’s control.
Personnel recovery connects the isolated person’s efforts with military, diplomatic and civil means actually available for their return. Preparing captives preserves their options until escape, release or assisted return becomes possible. A military recovery requires available forces and access to the person; their physical pickup must be feasible. In captivity, a radio, a communications link and freedom of movement may all be absent.
Reintegration follows the actual return to friendly control. In the NATO personnel recovery framework, it includes medical and psychological care and debriefing to gather information about the situation and improve future preparation. Responsibility rests with the respective nation. A training debrief addresses simulated captivity; reintegration attends to a person who has returned from actual isolation.