This article was originally included in our Fall 2024 edition.

Hostage diplomacy, the malevolent counterpart of a prisoner swap, is on the rise. While the exchange of spies, political prisoners, or prisoners of war is typically a routine product of diplomatic negotiations, this tradition has been recently corrupted by the practice of “wrongfully detaining people, often as political pawns.” ¹ For practicing countries, hostage diplomacy now entails falsifying or inflating charges of foreigners in order to gain leverage to negotiate the return of their own hostages (who typically possess more serious charges). These political maneuvers have become increasingly frequent in countries like Russia, Iran, and China. 

President Biden’s strategy towards hostage diplomacy can be compared to negotiating with terrorists, and the same can be said for all past presidents. ² Although the conditions in which these prisoner exchanges occur are not necessarily akin to acts of terrorism, many of the deals Biden has agreed to in order to bring Americans home have emphasized how other nations manipulate American hostages for their own political gain. In many cases, the desire to bring hostages home is exploited, causing the U.S. to return their own (political) prisoners who have committed more severe crimes in comparison. This can be seen in the 2023 exchange of five American hostages from Iran for $6 billion in oil revenue — funds that were previously restricted from Iran and held in South Korea — or the 2022 exchange of two British hostages from Iran to the U.K. for the settlement of a $522 million “debt dispute.”³

Russia, in particular, serves as an interesting case study regarding the publicization and politicization of (wrongfully) detaining American hostages. Introducing a celebrity component to prisoner exchanges has led hostage diplomacy practices to reach new heights by garnering the attention of those back home and engaging them in lobbying the government to free the prisoner. Most notably, this has been seen in the case of Brittney Griner, as well as the multinational prisoner exchange involving Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich. 

The public reaction to Biden’s prisoner exchange negotiations with President Putin reveals two further issues hostage diplomacy is causing for the U.S. First, the detainment of Brittney Griner in February 2022 for drug possession highlights the trap of public approval. Griner, a professional basketball player, attracted considerable attention due to her celebrity, which resulted in incessant demands from the American public for her release. She was ultimately released in December 2022 in exchange for Viktor Bout, referred to as the “merchant of death,” who was imprisoned in the U.S. While there was an initial outcry when Biden took ten months to free Griner, a larger uproar arose when the deal reached was more advantageous to Russia than the U.S. Freeing a prisoner should typically warrant praise for the administration, but a president cannot himself call attention to this diplomatic success and related concern for hostage crises. Doing so “would raise the value of American hostages and increase the number of kidnappings” — an error President Trump was guilty of. ³ It is necessary to bring hostages home for public approval, but approval ratings can also sink if the public disagrees with the agreement reached. However, presidents should shy away from seeking approval to fulfill the public’s desire, or else hostage-taking will only increase. 

A further issue with hostage diplomacy is that concessions the U.S. is required to make are seemingly always greater than those of the other party involved, making it difficult to “win” — both in the polls and in the great power contest. The Bout-Griner exchange, which equated Griner’s minor drug charge with Bout’s conspiracy to commit terrorism and kill Americans, is emblematic of the issue at hand. The U.S. valued the return of an American so much that Putin was able to negotiate far more than an equal exchange for Russia. Conventional logic concludes that this would only encourage Putin to continue. In another example, the August 2024 multinational prisoner exchange led to the release of Americans Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich (both falsely charged with espionage by Russia), among others. The deal was a net positive for Putin, however, as several spies and an assassin were returned to Russia from Germany, which was not equivalent to the release of two U.S. prisoners with falsified charges.⁴ Because Russia continues to unlawfully detain Americans on fabricated or exaggerated charges and release them in exchange for more dangerous Russian prisoners, it is difficult to see how hostage diplomacy will reach an end. Roger Carstens, Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, has seen a decrease in hostage cases since the start of Biden’s administration, but this does not necessarily represent a correlation between the concessions Biden has granted and the future of hostage-taking and diplomacy. ⁴ Though there has been a decline in hostage-taking, there is no proof of linkage to Biden’s negotiating strategies, leaving the incoming administration with little guidance on how to best continue this trend. Ultimately, the U.S. is stuck in a Catch-22: making concessions is necessary to bring hostages home, but doing so likely emboldens Russia to continue its practices.

It is unclear how Trump will approach diplomatic relations with Russia; an already unpredictable issue of international relations is further clouded by Trump’s unlikely, unprecedented, and unsupported friendship with Putin. Their close relationship may give the U.S. an advantage in resolving hostage crises, but the reverse is possible as well. If Trump allows Putin to operate uncontrolled in the arena of hostage diplomacy, it may be difficult to differentiate between his personal decisions to favor Russia and the firmly anti-Russian government he received. Biden has arguably incentivized Russia with the significant concessions he made in exchange for the release of Brittney Griner, among others, and has failed to deter Putin in the process. But, this is not the fault of Biden — Russia’s growing power is a cause for concern, and there is no rational way to engage with an adversary such as Putin. It may be impossible to reconcile the significant political sacrifices required to bring hostages home with the ethical imperative to grant their release, but morality must trump all.

Works Cited

1.  Blinken, Antony J. “Secretary Antony J. Blinken at ‘Hostage Diplomacy as an International Security Threat: Strengthening Our Collective Action, Deterrence, and Response.’” U.S. Department of State, February 13, 2024. https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-hostage-diplomacy-as-an-international-security-threat-strengthening-our-collective-action-deterrence-and-response/.

2. Gilbert, Danielle. “Biden’s Hostage Diplomacy, Explained.” CSIS, September 22, 2023. https://www.csis.org/analysis/bidens-hostage-diplomacy-explained.

3. Simon, Joel. “How Trump Has Reversed Decades of American Hostage Policy.” The New Yorker, February 7, 2020. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-trump-has-reversed-decades-of-american-hostage-policy. 

4. Northam, Jackie. “What Does the Future of Hostage Diplomacy Look Like?” NPR, August 10, 2024. https://www.npr.org/2024/08/10/nx-s1-5061552/what-does-the-future-of-hostage-diplomacy-look-like.

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