HOSTAGE GAMES

The recent series of hostage dramas in Afghanistan poses the following question: what's the value of a hostage in 21st century warfare? Answer: an order of magnitude more than it was a decade ago (in contrast, the Iranian hostage drama and the Lebanon hostage crisis were outliers to the trend line driven by more by domestic US politics than any inherent system effects). Here's why:

• In today's supercharged media environment, hostage dramas become 24x7 news events -- replete with interviews of every crying relative or co-worker the hostage ever had.
• The value of human life (sadly, only for and between members of Westernized states) has grown substantially. This value has grown in parallel with the average level of investment made in people in the West. This valuation now even applies to the lives of soldiers (as seen in actions against Israeli, Brit, and American troops).
• The pressure to rapidly resolve the crisis, due to the first two factors, can throw the governments and/or corporations involved into convulsions. Even if the country doesn't negotiate with hostage takers, like the US, the efforts to rescue the hostages amount to the same thing.

Hostages for Disruption

In the past, hostage taking in the growing number of hollow states was typically focused on financial reward. That has changed. While the capture of domestic nationals has remained financially focused, the capture of foreign nationals -- whether they work for multi-nationals, NGOs, or foreign militaries -- is now focused primarily on political disruption.

In short, a hostage drama that involves a foreign national can now manufacture a global systempunkt (the node/connection in any network, regardless of whether it's a physical or social network, which will cause a cascade of failure if removed/attacked/damaged). In today's environment, it really doesn't matter who is grabbed, the effects will usually be the same: a disruption of globalization. Here are some specific effects for which we have a bevy of recent examples (all which are improved if the hostage crisis is extended over a long period of time or the hostages are killed, although not publicly, in the process):

• The company impacted will either withdraw from operations in the country or suspend operations. Ongoing knock on effects such as the general withdrawal or withholding of foreign direct investment (FDI) and NGO support.
• The country of the nationals involved will restrict movement to the target country after they endure weeks of crisis level operations.
• Crisis level operations initiated to resolve the crisis will distract target governments from other operations.

Comments

[Cavolonero]

They're doing a live phone interview with one of the hostages right now ~

[gmoke]

"Today's supercharged media environment" can become overheated and 24x7 hostage dramas "news events" can become passe with only escalating more spectacular happenings competing for interest share: situationalist media theory played out with suicide bombers and globala guerrillas armed with Googlemapped homebrew cruise missiles.

"The value of human life (sadly, only for and between members of Westernized states) has grown substantially." Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese have entered the hostage "market."

[londamium]

John

There are only two "hostage" dramas that I can think of that have risen to the level of a systempunkt: the 444 days of the Teheran embassy crisis, which has contributed to a 3-decade aneurysm in elite US political and foreign policy circles, and the Hizbullah capture of the 2 Israeli soldiers last year.An analog event in 2004, in which 3 snatched Israelis - 2 dead IDF and one live civilian - were traded for Lebanese held by the Israelis, interestingly, did not provoke a similar crisis.

The two most devastating hostage crises in recent memory - Beslan and the Moscow Theatre siege - resulted in large-scale loss of life, including many children, but provoked no political crises/loss of legitimacy within the Russian polity, or led to obvious changes in state policy.

It's also easy to forget that non-Western actors also place high values on the lives/fates of their own, and that some of the hostage crises are reciprocal acts - this is certainly the case with regards to long-standing Israeli hostage-taking practices and, more recently, Iranian ire at the continued detention of the Irbil 5 by the US.

What's most curious about this is the extreme variability in responses.

Just taking the UK as an example, in the past 3 years we've had Ken Bigley - and his family end-running the government approach and contacting the hostage-takers on their own initiative in an attempt to save him; Norman Kember, the DFH peacenik who, according to the tabloids, deserved his fate; the captured sailors - "take his ipod and make him blubber" - and now generally objects of vilification; Alan Johnston, and the BBC demonstrating an almost unparalleled brilliance in its media campaign to get him releasesd; and the Ministry of Finance Five, whose identities seem to have been D-noticed, and about whom there is almost no evidence of a public campaign whatsoever.

[adam]

Londamium,

I agree with your excellent post. The fate of the British sailors in Iran was more Ealing comedy and farce than serious hostage threat. Actually, for that matter, so is the US embassy incident, particularly as the US is currently holding the people behind it in Iraq.

I can just about think of another hostage crisis that might be a shockpoint, but its incredibly obscure. During the Cuban Revolution US Air Force bombers were providing direct air support for Batista's troops against the peasants in the Sierra Maestra mountains which supported any number of anti-Batista groups, including Castro. In order to get rid of this form of US support for their pet dictator Castro's forces stopped a US military bus heading down towards the "American Whorehouse" of Havana and kidnapped the occupants.

To be fair the US soldiers were in no particularly danger. During the guerilla period, when US citizens and soldiers were kidnapped, they were always released unharmed. In return for their release Castro only made achievable demands such as an end to US air support for Batista - it was always something in US control, never in Batistas hands. If Castro had asked for something that Batista could delay it would have been in Batista's interest to see the Americans held and, preferably, killed. This would have reduced Castro's moral superiority in American eyes and damaged his political policy. Time Magazine (Jan 12, 1959, page 27 for those that are interested) noted at the time that Castro wanted to get on with America, but in a free Cuba.

As I said, its very obscure.

But where I agree with John is that continual hostage crises have a corrosive effect on operations for most things in a nation. Nigeria for example is a place that the oil companies really feel unprotected in. Some of the more cynical hands want the good old days back when the Mobile Police could be paid off to swoop into an area and slaughter the locals - if Charlie doesn't surf then dead people don't kidnap.

[pm2075]

"... what's the value of a hostage in 21st century warfare? Answer: an order of magnitude more than it was a decade ago..."

I couldn't agree with you more. Just watch the increased and heavy dependence on such activities from past to present. It is no more an isolated game for ransom thugs and one dimensional terrorist on airport tarmacs and/or even olympics. Now such actions have an added commercialized value for recruitment of insurgents against the infidels. Iraq maybe a good thing for us even with the loss of lives because we've taken out the uncertainty of one more oil asset away from questionable hands.

P-
invest_mavin

[Duncan Kinder]

For another perspective on how kidnappings affect the War on Terror, according to the Wall Street Journal, relations between the Saudi royal family, on the one hand, and the Al Rajhi family, whose bank is suspected of funding terrorism, soured after one of the Al Rajhi infants died during a kidnapping.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118530038250476405.html
Quote:
t relations with the ruling family frayed. The government-controlled press in 1992 publicized Al Rajhi Bank's tangential role in an international scandal of that era, that of the bank called BCCI, U.S. diplomats reported. Then in 1994, an infant relative of the Al Rajhis died in a kidnapping. Official press accounts said the kidnappers slit the child's throat, but Saudi dissidents claimed police shot the child. Mr. Al Rajhi blamed the royal family, the CIA report says.
:end_of_quote

[Andy]

For some reason, the Daniel Pearl situation comes to mind as well.