Now, US Studies Putin's Body Language

What is happening internationally and in particular between the U.S. and Russia can be compared to a match of chess or poker. The goal is to win, and in order to do so, it is important to understand whether or not your opponent is bluffing and try to anticipate his or her next move. It is from this premise that the U.S. has decided to leave nothing to chance: While politicians are working to resolve the crisis in Crimea and Ukraine, behind the scenes there are those who are analyzing everything — absolutely everything — including body language.

The Pentagon has been working for some time on a project called Body Leads, assigned to the Office of Net Assessment, which regularly reports results to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. A team of technicians and experts from Harvard University and Brown University spends countless hours daily analyzing the body language of heads of state and governments of half of the world, first and foremost Vladimir Putin. All this is made possible thanks to highly sophisticated software, which is able to detect behavior that deviates from the “norm” and signals this suspicious body language to the technicians and experts, who analyze and interpret the results.

At the head of this team, as revealed by USA Today, is Brenda Connors, a researcher specializing in this sector since 1996 and who wrote a report on a similar study, carried out in 2008, which had as its main focus the Kremlin leader himself. For example, in a 2005 interview, Connors herself told The Atlantic that Putin has a distinctive way of walking irregularly. According to the researcher, his walking problems “created a strong will that he survive … When we are unable to do something, really hard work becomes the way.”

That even now, in a moment reminiscent of the Cold War, is Putin making an effort to “rise above?” In this case, even possible tics or gestures that may go unnoticed to the untrained eye could be full of meaning, however. But analyzing people’s behavior is not limited to only studying world leaders.

Any body language can in fact betray an emotion and help recognize if the person is lying or not, as in the case of a possible terrorist or suicide bomber. It is for this reason that the Transportation Security Administration, the federal agency that ensures flight safety, has just announced it is investing over $1 billion to train its staff to recognize facial expressions and body language that could betray high-risk passengers or even terrorists themselves.

Among the instructions given to the agents who work at American airports, for example, is to pay attention to the gaze of the passenger in front of them: If upon being questioned during a check, the potential passenger diverts his or her gaze by focusing their eyes to the right, it could indicate that he or she is lying. On the other hand, if the passenger looks to the left, this would not indicate an “abnormal” situation. Although some critics have shown concern about the techniques taught to TSA agents, John S. Pistole, the TSA’s head administrator, defended his choice over the past few months, explaining that it “was significantly more effective at identifying high-risk passengers than random screening protocols,” normally carried out in U.S. airports.