As the first hostages released by Hamas parade across our TV screens, accompanied by shots of Hamas fighters enjoying a victory lap, what are we to think and believe? Whatever your next thought, it is likely incorrect. Hostage-taking, whether recently or back to America’s first overseas military adventures against the Barbary pirates, or somewhere in between, reflects America’s waxing and waning policy toward the practice. The only takeaway terrorists can draw from America’s conduct since at least the 1970s is that hostage-taking is an effective, cheap and ultimately successful way to conduct asymmetric warfare.
America no longer has a well-defined core value system that reflexively reacts in response to attacks, as we did previously. Today, the harder we protect our people and assets, the more vulnerable we become to this specific form of terrorism. Operation Eagle Claw, also known as Desert One, was a failed military operation ordered by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 to rescue 53 hostages from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran. The mission occurred on April 24-25, 1980, and failed. In the following nine months of his presidency, Jimmy Carter transformed into a failed president, ushering in Ronald Reagan. It also marks the moment we gave terrorists power they still largely hold.
The 1970s saw a shift in the nature of hostage-taking, with terrorist organizations using it as a tool for political leverage, publicity and relevancy. This period included notable incidents like the 1972 Munich Olympics hostage crisis and, again, the 1979 Iran hostage-taking.
Hostage-taking is both a business (think Somalia’s pirates) and, separately, an instrument of war. To put this in context, recall the U.S. government’s formal policy of not negotiating with terrorists, established in the 1970s. This stance was reinforced over the years, particularly after the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s, when the Reagan administration was heavily criticized for negotiating with terrorists to free American hostages.
However, there have been exceptions to this policy, such as the exchange of deserter Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban prisoners in 2014, which rightly drew significant criticism. Notably, six American soldiers were killed searching for Bergdahl. But, it would take a new president to explode hostage-taking and ransom payments. That president was Barack Obama, followed by his acolyte, Joe Biden. Consider:
- Presidential Policy Directive (PPD-30): In 2015, President Obama issued PPD-30 ostensibly to improve the U.S. government’s response to hostage situations. Importantly, it said nothing about how to reduce or eliminate the practice.
- Executive Order on Hostage Recovery Activities: In 2015, an executive order was issued to improve efforts to bring hostages and wrongfully detained U.S. nationals home.
- Executive Order on Bolstering Efforts to Bring Hostages Home: In 2022, President Biden signed an executive order to strengthen efforts to address hostage-taking and wrongful detention. This order ostensibly imposed severe consequences on actors involved in these practices.
- U.S. Hostage and Wrongful Detainee Day: In 2024, President Biden proclaimed March 9 as U.S. Hostage and Wrongful Detainee Day to reaffirm the commitment to bringing American hostages home.
All of the above only institutionalized and created an acceptance of hostage-taking as an instrument positioned between diplomacy and war. The net effect has been accelerating the tactic and normalizing it in the eyes of much of the world. The penultimate moment when this became crystal clear was Oct. 7, 2023, in Israel, when approximately 250 hostages were taken to Gaza, with about 94 (living and dead) still held just before the latest prisoner swaps. As of Jan. 8, 2025, Hamas had released a total of 105 living hostages. The best estimates are that there may be another 55 still alive. This means of the original 250 hostages, about 90 either died in captivity for a variety of reasons or were brought to Gaza already dead. Add to this number the 1,200 killed in the original attack and approximately 850 Israeli soldiers who have died in battle. The United States is deeply involved in negotiating with terrorists, there can be no doubt, with the inevitable conclusion that ever more hostages will be taken.
Take the Britney Griner fiasco. In December 2022, Russia and the United States conducted a high-profile prisoner exchange involving American basketball star Brittney Griner and Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who can be tied to thousands of deaths through his activities. Griner had been convicted of drug charges in Russia and sentenced to nine years in prison. The sequence of events that preceded Griner’s detainment notably marks this incident as pure extortion by Russia. Bout is a personal friend of Vladimir Putin and an integral facet of Russia’s general expansion. Griner was initially picked with the ultimate intention of seeing Bout exchanged for an American pop figure.
Viktor Bout, often referred to as the “Merchant of Death,” is a significant figure in international arms-trafficking. His release was important to Russia for several reasons:
- Political Leverage: Bout’s release was seen as a diplomatic victory for Russia, showcasing their ability to negotiate and secure the return of one of their citizens and the corresponding weakness and limitations of American power.
- Public Perception: The exchange highlighted Russia’s commitment to its citizens, boosting national pride and demonstrating Putin’s willingness to go to great lengths to bring them home.
- International Relations: Bout’s release is now a template for future hostage-taking and repatriation. It has diminished America’s stature in the world.
No country is perfect. However, our propensity to walk down paths that virtually guarantee future hostage-taking, ever-larger demands for ransom and extortionist demands will end with a predictable result. It also toys with an unpredictable yet real possibility of miscalculation leading to escalation, future wars, and widespread death and destruction that could have been avoided. Bowing to any form of terrorism, in this case, hostage-taking, only invites more of the same. Let’s return to the old status quo that had America’s enemies realize that there was no benefit to hostage-taking but instead a lot of guaranteed blowback.
God bless America.
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