ECAC stands for Evasion and Conduct After Capture and is a US Air Force training programme combining evasion of capture with preparation for captivity. It is intended for designated personnel facing an increased risk of isolation or capture. Its Level B profile includes classroom instruction and role-play scenarios addressing wartime captivity, government detention outside war and hostage-taking, practical evasion training and personnel recovery principles. It concludes with a hostage scenario in a Resistance Training Laboratory.
USAF programme and personnel
ECAC is delivered at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, by Detachment 3 of the 66th Training Squadron. The programme forms part of USAF SERE training. Its preparation for deployment addresses designated personnel entering uncertain environments where they may become separated from their unit or detained. The exposure arises from their mission and duties: someone operating outside a secure location can find themselves alone after an incident, even when their primary task does not involve combat.
The level describes the preparation provided for these personnel. The US conduct framework assigns Level B to duties carrying a moderate risk of capture; Level C addresses significant or high risk and particular vulnerability to exploitation. Knowledge, position and responsibility contribute to that vulnerability. A dangerous deployment location alone therefore does not establish which course a person needs.
Classroom instruction, ARLs and practical training
ECAC combines two areas of preparation. Evasion involves instruction in tactics, techniques and procedures, personnel recovery principles and an Evasion Laboratory providing practical application. Captivity preparation includes classroom instruction on military captivity, government detention and hostage-taking, together with Academic Role-play Laboratories, or ARLs. The concluding Hostage RTL places participants in simulated hostage captivity.
An ARL turns an abstract conduct rule into an encounter with a portrayed opposing side. The participant's answer must fit the circumstances: what protects information, what helps another captive, and what could enable further exploitation? In an older US Army ARL model, participants observe and discuss each other's role-play scenarios with instructors. In the Army model, those instructors provide individual and group feedback during debriefing on the answers and actions that actually occurred. For example, the participant may recognise whether a disclosure identified a fellow captive as having valuable knowledge or whether their approach to conversation limited a harmful demand. They prepare their answers for the next encounter accordingly, avoiding such disclosures and separating conversations about necessary welfare from information about fellow captives.
Distinguishing captivity settings has a practical consequence. Military questioning may seek operational knowledge and identify other prisoners. Government custody can involve criminal allegations and political exploitation. Hostage-takers can use a captive to coerce third parties. The same answer, approach to conversation or decision to escape can therefore have different consequences in each setting.
Evasion and the individual's return
The ECAC profile expressly includes urban evasion: avoiding capture in built-up surroundings. The isolated person needs to find a route that can actually be travelled with the available means while considering the risk of detection. An earlier ECAC demonstration showed a wall being scaled using available survival items or debris. Its purpose was to overcome an obstacle to movement in an isolation or evasion setting. This presents a concrete task: assess the obstacle, the available materials and personal physical capability together, instead of insisting on a planned route at any cost.
Personnel recovery in the ECAC context also concerns the isolated person's own actions. They maintain their ability to act, evade potential capture and contribute to returning to friendly control. The programme expressly prepares for return with or without organised recovery. A planned pickup and movement by the isolated person are different options: available forces, the threat, personal condition and usable communications influence which can actually be carried out.
When a pickup is possible, location and identity must be established. An accurate location allows forces to find the person; authentication protects both that person and the recovery group against adversary deception. Recognising an apparently friendly contact does not complete this identity check. In general PR preparation, the Evasion Plan of Action describes intended movement, while ISOPREP provides information supporting identification and authentication. The person needs to be able to use the communications and contact procedures prepared for their mission. Those require the appropriate means and a usable connection; managing their own movement and sustainment remains their responsibility until actual recovery.
Conduct in different captivity settings
The Code of Conduct provides the national framework for US military personnel who become prisoners of war. Under questioning they provide name, rank, service number and date of birth and evade further questions to the utmost of their ability. Protection extends to fellow prisoners: describing their role or particular knowledge can identify them as further targets for questioning. Leadership and cohesion should be maintained within the group. Conversations about health, welfare and grievances remain permitted prisoner matters. Protecting information therefore means limiting harmful disclosures deliberately while retaining communication needed for the prisoners' welfare.
Outside war, government detention changes the circumstances. The USAF framework for custody by an unfriendly government calls for calm, controlled conduct, explaining the innocent circumstances leading to detention and limiting further discussion to health, the welfare of fellow detainees and returning home. Aggressive conduct or an escape attempt can worsen the criminal-law position and bring further prosecution. The US expectation of escape from prisoner-of-war captivity is therefore not transferred unchanged to this government custody; the USAF conduct framework treats escape here as an exception in life-threatening circumstances.
During terrorist hostage-taking, part of the individual's conduct aims to establish them as a person in the captors' minds and limit avoidable escalation. Calm, courteous behaviour and listening can contribute to this. Political or religious arguments, patronising behaviour and debating the captors' cause can intensify an encounter. At the same time, the person must consider which information could be used to exploit them or others. This setting calls for a different approach to conversation from simply repeating military identification details.
The Hostage RTL emphasis
In the Hostage Resistance Training Laboratory, the participant acts within simulated hostage captivity. They apply the prepared principles to encounters with the portrayed hostage-takers and to their own reactions. The emphasis combines survival with resistance to exploitation: a person can speak calmly to a captor while considering which information or statements would support that captor's aims. Resistance is therefore broader than open confrontation.
A rescue already in progress also changes the hostage's task. USAF preparation calls for taking cover, remaining stationary where practicable and avoiding an attempt to help by fighting alongside rescuers. Forces need to distinguish hostages from perpetrators; ambiguous movement by the hostage can make that distinction harder.
Level B, Level C and national CAC programmes
A practical captivity laboratory does not by itself make a course Level C. ECAC is classified as Level B or Level B-equivalent preparation and nevertheless includes a Hostage RTL. Full SERE Level C covers survival, evasion and resistance with substantially more extensive practical training. An older US Army course model combined field sustainment and evasion with a subsequent phase in a mock prisoner-of-war camp and individual and group debriefing. The distinction concerns the overall task sequence: extended independent action in the field and practical resistance in a broader captivity setting compared with ECAC's focused evasion and captivity profile.
NATO assigns basic practical survival and evasion with classroom resistance to Level B; Level C includes extensive practical survival, evasion and resistance. The United Kingdom delivers B at unit level and conducts C through the Defence SERE Training Organisation. The letter B therefore does not denote the same amount of practical captivity training everywhere. For an isolated person, the relevant question is which evasion, contact and captivity tasks their own programme has actually prepared them to perform and allowed them to practise.
Conduct After Capture can also designate only the resistance component of a national SERE system. An older Australian CAC model divided that component into A for introductory awareness, B for theory preparation and C for practical captivity scenarios involving government detention, hostage-taking and military exploitation. Its CAC Level C therefore designated a level within captivity training. ECAC instead names the USAF programme combining evasion and preparation for captivity. Comparing qualifications requires checking the subject behind the level: a full SERE programme, a captivity component or a specific combined course.