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.