America Must Stop Doing Prisoner Exchanges
What do former US Marine Paul Whelan, WNBA player Brittney Griner, and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich have in common? They were all imprisoned in Russia within the context of deteriorating US-Russia relations. Griner was returned to the US in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. Whelan and Gershkovich remain in Russian prison. Griner was freed via prisoner exchange, while Whelan and Gershkovich might be used in a prisoner swap later.
As difficult as it is to hear for families of kidnapped Americans, America must stop participating in prisoner exchanges. Doing so incentivizes Russia to continue to kidnap citizens. If the US shows that it will exchange a dangerous Russian for an American, Russia will know that it only has to manufacture a bogus criminal charge on an American to extract dangerous Russian assets back.
The reason for not participating in prisoner exchanges is the same for not negotiating with terrorists. Negotiating with them legitimizes and encourages their actions. It is impossible to stop every individual American from falling prey to Russian imprisonment. Consequently, Russia will always have the ability to hold Americans for ransom to get something they want.
This is obviously difficult to hear for the loved ones of someone imprisoned. If someone I cared about was kidnapped, I would want the US government to disregard what I am saying here. But in international actions, the needs of a single individual must always be subordinate to the needs of that nation as a whole. Trading dangerous Russia spies and criminals for ordinary Americans is a win the US cannot allow Russia to have.
There are possibilities for exceptions. Critical high ranking officials could be contexts where prisoner exchanges are allowable. But even in this circumstance, there is an argument against prisoner exchanges; never negotiate with terrorists.
It should be noted that when Americans are held in Russia, showing a high level of concern for the kidnapped party is counter productive. The greater value we attach to a kidnapped American, the more likely Russia will be to use them as leverage. The outcry when Brittney Griner was jailed showed the Russians the value of keeping her. The political pressure on the Biden administration to do something also benefitted the Russians.
In a sense, free societies will always have a conundrum in this context. We have a free press, which of course will report on a kidnapped American. The report will in turn facilitate pressure on the administration to get the American home. The added pressure, which other nations can see, will give those nations more leverage.
The only way to obviate this problem is to preemptively declare that America will not participate in prisoner exchanges. Doing so eliminates the domestic pressure on the administration to participate in the exchange. They cannot be accused of favoring one person over the other, depending on who they negotiate for. It also shows nations like Russia that kidnapping Americans will not gain them anything.
In this increasingly tenuous geopolitical period, it is important that America does not give our adversaries any necessary advantages. Not participating in prisoner exchanges is one way to do that.