But despite appearances, this development is not progress: it augurs more sovereign “piracy” by the enemies of free nations.

Of course, we should all be overjoyed that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Marine Paul Whelan, and the independent radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva have returned to the US, and that Kara-Murza and two other Russian dissidents were saved.

But the price for their release was huge: an FSB colonel who assassinated a Chechen national in Germany, another FSB agent who laundered money for the Kremlin, an operative who hacked into computers to make trades netting millions for Vladimir Putin’s coffers, another Russian agent who moved American ammunition into Russia, and four confirmed Russian spies held in western prisons.

Asymmetric Swaps

These are in no way symmetric swaps: Russians convicted of very serious crimes in impartial jury trials are increasingly being traded for completely innocent Western journalists, businesspersons, and athletes who were snatched at Putin’s command and convicted many months after capture in Russian kangaroo courts.

The same was true when American basketball star Brittany Griner was exchanged for Russian arms dealer Vicktor Bout, nicknamed “the merchant of death.”

These moves are nothing like the US-Soviet swaps during the 20th century Cold War, when actual American operatives and military agents were captured in Russia. We are trading innocents for hardened criminals involved in enabling totalitarian systems of mass murder.

The same holds for Biden’s September 2023 decision to release over $6 billion in Iranian assets, which were held sequestered in a South Korean account, in exchange for five innocent Americans held for years without just cause by Iran’s totalitarian theocracy.

Rather than “prisoner exchanges,” we should be calling them “criminals for hostages swaps.”

Hostage Diplomacy

The glaring problem with such “hostage diplomacy” is obvious: as Senator Mitt Romney said of the Iran deal, the appearance of paying more than $1 billion for each American freed will only encourage more hostage-taking.

Putin will be further emboldened to order more Russian agents and proxies to carry out assassinations, hacking, fraud, weapons trafficking, and attacks on democratic election systems because he can retrieve any of his agents who are caught and convicted: all he has to do is snatch some innocent Americans, Germans, or other Western citizens to use as bargaining chips.

This is a losing spiral: sovereign hostage-taking has been increasing for years, just like ransomware, and it is a bipartisan problem no matter who is in the White House. In 1985, Ronald Reagan infamously sent arms to Iran in exchange for US hostages held in Lebanon as part of an illegal complex larger deal. Short-term gain leads to long-term pain.

The situation is similar when terrorist groups take hostages. In his 2018 book on terrorism, economist and game theory expert Todd Sandler notes one study that found that 2.62 “additional abductions” resulted from concessions to get one hostage back.

The International Center for Counter-Terrorism concludes that rewarding terrorist kidnappers can “encourage imitation and become contagious.”

This is why, ironically, the Biden administration earlier this year began seriously considering a ban on paying ransomware attackers to release computing systems they have seized. But the White House and congressional leaders failed to follow through on this, caving to pressure from corporations and local governments that fear having no recourse when their systems are breached.

New International Hostage Game

Of course, hostage-taking has been part of warfare and hostile relations among nations for many centuries.

Yet medieval kings and queens responded very differently than Western authorities do now: when their innocent citizens were captured and held, they would often snatch innocents from the other side to use as bargaining chips.

Western nations have not done this because our systems of justice are not dictatorial and include habeas corpus, which is the basic right to a speedy and impartial trial. Thus, as Keir Giles from Chatham House told Newsweek, Putin can retrieve his “murderers, spies, and criminals” by taking Western hostages to trade for them, knowing that the US cannot “respond in kind.”

This central asymmetry is now the reason why the US and its allies are losing so badly in the new international hostage game.

To even the scales, American presidents may have to consider detaining Russians or Iranians of interest to their regimes whenever those dictators grab innocent Americans. This would require suspending habeas corpus for those foreign nationals we hold under special reprisal orders, and exchanging only them – not Russians, Iranians, or Chinese operatives already convicted of major crimes – in exchange for American victims.

In other words, we would need to copy Putin’s tactic of “stockpiling” prominent Americans to use as bargaining chips.

For example, when Putin seized and held Griner to use as a pawn in exchange for Russian criminals justly convicted in the US, we could have responded by seizing three more Russians closely connected with the Kremlin and suspected of shady dealings. Indefinite detentions of select foreign nationals held for months or years without trial might sound extreme; yet without such reprisals, we will see more innocent victims in Griner’s and Gershkovich’s former situation.

Legal Reforms

We could further strengthen this tit-for-tat response with legal reforms that also beat ransomware.

Outlawing all forms of payment for taking innocent American hostages and seizing control of computer systems is the most essential step. The law should include “waivers” or presidential permissions to pay only when hundreds of lives or hundreds of billions in assets are at stake, and should include criminal penalties for its violation, given the desperation payers endure.

When such a law is strictly enforced, sovereign adversaries seizing computers or human hostages will eventually realize that they are wasting their time and resources on such efforts.

So we should reconsider the policy announced by President Barack Obama in June 2015, which he broke and both Donald Trump and Biden rejected, that “the United States government will make no concessions to individuals or groups holding US nationals hostage.”

While this policy should not apply to exchanging prisoners of war, it can deter civilian hostage-taking because returning foreign civilians seized in reprisal is not a “concession.”

Beyond banning paying ransoms in all forms, we need to punish rogue regimes that snatch our citizens as political prisoners with other reprisals — such as destruction of military assets and even detention of their own friends working in the US.

The ultimate solution is to rid the Earth altogether of dictators who take innocents as political hostages, but that will probably require a global alliance of democratic nations of the sort outlined in my book, A League of Democracies.

John Davenport is Professor of Philosophy and Peace & Justice Studies at Fordham University.

He is the author of The Democracy Amendments, available through Amazon.com.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Defense Post.

The Defense Post aims to publish a wide range of high-quality opinion and analysis from a diverse array of people – do you want to send us yours? Click here to submit an op-ed.

The post Why the US and Its Allies Are Losing the New International Hostage Game appeared first on The Defense Post.

For example, the US is once again doing most of the heavy lifting to defend basic human rights in Europe. Leading EU nations refused to put troops into eastern Ukraine in January 2022 when this could have prevented a war that has already killed and injured more than 350,000 people, devastated Ukrainian cities, and caused enough economic havoc to shave a full 2 percent off of global GDP growth.

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel persisted in trying to appease Vladimir Putin for another seven years after he annexed Crimea in 2014. And well into the war, some “neorealists” were still trying to argue that Russia’s intervention was somehow NATO’s “fault” for honoring the strong desire of former Soviet states in eastern Europe to be protected.

Abuse of ‘Escalation’

These shocking realities are now so familiar that they have receded into the background as NATO nations debate their short-term policies. But within these discussions, abuse of the term “escalation” has also acquired a surreal quality.

Due to fears of “escalation,” NATO allies were sluggish in providing heavy weaponry, waiting over a year into the conflict to supply tanks, short-range missiles with a limited range of 50 miles (80 kilometers), and improved air defense systems.

Yet, every time Ukraine receives additional military support, Moscow accuses NATO of “escalating” the conflict — a baseless objection echoed by some Western leaders.

In January 2023, despite Russia’s constant targeting of civilian structures, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz opposed sending fighter jets because that would only “escalate” the conflict.

And President Joe Biden, Kyiv’s staunchest supporter, has repeatedly said that using US-made military hardware to attack targets within Russia is unacceptable because it would constitute “escalation.”

Likewise, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has opposed sending long-range missiles because they could reach Russian territory and thereby spark a world war.

What Is Escalation?

The term “escalation,” frequently invoked without precise definition, warrants closer examination. In a factual or political context, “escalation” refers to the expansion of the war theater or the adoption of more destructive weapons.

It also covers the progression from jus ad vim methods short of full-on war (such as containment, naval blockades, economic sanctions, and cyberattacks) to airstrikes, naval confrontations, and ground invasions.

Unquestionably, once escalation triggers are activated, maintaining control becomes challenging as thresholds are crossed, leading to shifts in group allegiances and perceived stakes.

Norms

But a clear aggressor (Russia) that illegally attacks and invades a sovereign nation is primarily responsible for any “escalation” necessary to counter their attacks and make a just peace.

When the accusation of “escalation” is made, it pertains to the concept’s normative aspect, which relates to the principles of jus in bello governing the methods of warfare. These principles are codified in treaties like the Geneva Conventions and customary laws of war.

Among these concepts is the principle of proportionality, which dictates that those defending a victimized nation should employ only the necessary amount of force to defeat the aggressor and establish a just peace (while also not using any intrinsically horrendous means, such as chemical weapons).

Engaging in excessive damage beyond what is required for legitimate aims, such as liberating annexed or occupied territories, would constitute unjust escalation. Similarly, pursuing vastly ambitious war goals disproportionate to the initial wrongs would also be unjust escalation.

To call defensive acts meeting this standard “disproportionate” because the aggressor may respond in harmful ways would allow any tyrant to brand all defense immoral by threatening some enormity if there is any opposition to their aggression.

Legitimate Means

Crucially, nothing in these norms restricts a victimized nation to only counterattack within its own territory.

In fact, the overwhelming consensus is quite the opposite. In the face of attacks originating from missile launch sites, artillery depots, and airfields within Russia, targeting these areas becomes a completely legitimate form of defense, as it is essential for defeating the aggressor.

This justification becomes even more evident when Russia is deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure, committing continuous war crimes.

By analogy, imagine a mother whose neighbor is shooting at her children’s bedroom window from within his yard. With police far away, you bring a gun to help her. But you tell her that (a) you won’t use the gun yourself and (b) she should refrain from using it against the neighbor unless he crosses into her yard, as it may provoke him to target your house as well. That would be a strange mix of cowardice and backward strategic thinking.

Yet that is precisely the surreal position that NATO nations have put Ukraine in. By setting this limit of not targeting anything within Russia, the US, Germany, and other allies are telling Ukraine that it would be wrong to neutralize missile launch pads just east of Ukraine’s border or to target Russian missile ships in the Black Sea.

Skewed Narrative

Characterizing Ukrainian strikes on military targets within Russia as “escalation” in the normative sense provides Putin with an ideological weapon. It enables him to portray such actions as grave offenses, granting Russia a seemingly legitimate grievance.

The demand for Ukraine to fight with one hand tied behind its back also confuses journalists, whose narratives imply that if Kyiv takes the fight into Russia, Ukrainian leaders would somehow be guilty of endangering Europe and provoking Putin to widen the war or maybe even use nuclear weapons.

Obviously, this gives Putin a huge mental advantage. In fact, fear that he will exploit casualties and damage within Russia to expand the war to other nations is misplaced: his forces can barely manage Ukraine, and he has largely maxed out the Kremlin’s propaganda capacities.

But Western anti-escalation rhetoric tells Putin that such threats work, encouraging him to take actions that reinforce such Western fears. For example, he last week confirmed Russia had sent nuclear arms to Belarus.

Ironically, the fear of escalation among Ukraine’s allies has invited escalation on Russia’s side.

Furthermore, the conflation of defense with improper escalation implies that Western allies would only be at war with Russia if the donated arms are deployed against targets within Russia, but not otherwise.

This standard lacks any basis in the laws of war. Traditionally, when A directly assists B’s war effort against C, A becomes a belligerent on the side of B. Putin already believes that a de facto state of war exists between NATO and Russia, despite the self-stymieing way Western leaders are trying to deny this to their citizens.

Let’s Stop Cowering

It is time to scrap this unnecessary and counterproductive “escalation” red herring. After all the horrors Russian forces have heaped upon Ukrainians, why grant Putin a narrative advantage and confuse Western audiences about the justifications for “legitimate defense”?

Ukraine’s allies should clearly state that if Ukraine starts hitting more military targets inside Russia, and Putin does respond with even more destructive attacks or widens the war to other nations, it will be Russia, not Ukraine, that is guilty of “escalation.” 

In such a scenario, NATO should respond by directly deploying forces against Russian targets. Let’s stop cowering and start deterring.

Bombing schools and hospitals across Ukraine was already escalation. Kidnapping thousands of Ukrainian children to be “adopted” and brainwashed by Russian families was escalation by ethnic cleansing. Filling the mercenary Wagner Group with Russia’s worst criminals and sending them to rape, pillage, and kill without discrimination was escalation. Flooding a million hectares of towns and vital farmland by exploding a vital dam is yet more escalation.

In contrast, targeting Russian missile launch sites, air force facilities, and naval vessels that have been responsible for mass murder in Ukraine would not be “escalation” in the normative sense. It would be an act of justice.

John Davenport is Professor of Philosophy and Peace & Justice Studies at Fordham University.

He is the author of The Democracy Amendments, available through Amazon.com.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Defense Post.

The Defense Post aims to publish a wide range of high-quality opinion and analysis from a diverse array of people – do you want to send us yours? Click here to submit an op-ed.

The post Escalation or Defense? Unveiling Errors in Discussing Military Aid to Ukraine appeared first on The Defense Post.

It is right to show the world all the war crimes, the enormous and pointless destruction, and Ukrainians from all walks of life fighting with wholehearted courage that jaded consumerist societies had forgotten was possible.

But in all the details of these daily reports – of cluster bombs and incendiary weapons, of people trying to escape cities without water – it is easy to lose sight of the biggest implications of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The most basic one is simple and shocking: even after Joseph Stalin’s terror-famine in Ukraine, the millions killed by Adolf Hitler, and the Soviets’ four-decade reign of terror across eastern Europe, still Europe’s leading nations will not fight to stop the same kind of radical evil from triumphing again.

The monstrous result is like a crowd of people watching a big man slowly bludgeon a boy to death over many hours while occasionally throwing him a wooden shield and issuing statements condemning his beating.

Europe’s Cowardly Leaders

Major EU nations will do almost anything but fight Russian forces, including robust economic sanctions and sending stronger defensive weapons to Ukrainians. This aid is welcome, but it is far too little when thousands of people are being butchered daily within their own continent.

Stingers Thanks to the @LithuanianGovt, Lithuanian people&personally to great friend of @a_anusauskas for the aid! Ukrainian & Lithuanian relations are very close&have lasted for many centuries. I appreciate our centuries-old friendship&strength support of each other! pic.twitter.com/zf8sNj9Oe7

— Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) February 13, 2022

They knew what Vladimir Putin would do: he bombed civilians to oblivion in Chechnya, Georgia, and Syria as well.

Yet Europe’s cowardly leaders are not even willing to risk a handful of fighter pilots to stand up a no-fly zone — although they would find many willing volunteers within their own air forces, men and women with far more decency than their puerile political leaders.

It is as if all the lessons of 20th-century history meant nothing, and all the victims died in vain. As in Bosnia and Kosovo, when then-British Prime Minister John Major and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl refused to fight, leaving it to then-US President Bill Clinton to stop mass slaughter within Europe, today’s leaders of Germany, France, Britain, Spain, and Italy have utterly failed the test once again.

The only difference is that the stakes are orders of magnitude greater this time.

Larger Geopolitical War

In this sense, whether Putin eventually occupies all of Ukraine’s cities or not and whatever concessions he extracts before leaving Ukraine in burning ruins, he has already won the larger geopolitical war.

Putin has shown the whole world that leading democracies are faithless friends who will not fight when that is the only adequate response. Current and would-be dictators will be emboldened. China will probably invade Taiwan within a few years.

Thus, European politicians, always running to the toothless UN in search of some misconceived patina of legitimacy, have now advertised that the UN Charter is utterly meaningless.

Its core principle, which was invoked to authorize military force to reverse Saddam Hussein’s 1991 invasion of Kuwait, says that borders cannot be changed by unilateral force.

Its second principle is the duty to honor treaties like the Budapest Memorandum in which Russia promised to respect Ukraine’s 1994 borders in exchange for Ukraine handing over the nuclear weapons that might have saved its people from their present fate. Any lingering hope that these principles matter has been shredded by the execrable timidity in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, and Madrid.

Of course, the protest marches to “support Ukraine,” the divestment campaigns by CEOs, and the well-meaning fundraisers to send humanitarian aid are all better than nothing. But focusing attention on them only distracts from the real heart of the matter, namely the fatal sin of deciding that no cost in Ukrainian lives is too high a price to avoid a brief shooting war with Russia.

The message is clear: neither Ukraine nor the most basic human rights principles are worth risking a single casualty from European armed forces.

Nuclear Risk

Of course, Europe’s leaders keep trying to use nuclear risk to rationalize their dereliction. This excuse rings hollow for two reasons.

First, Putin knows that trying to use even small tactical nukes would bring a nearly-instant end to his reign at the hands of his own deputies.

Second, if any “escalation” with Russia is too great a risk in Ukraine, the same would apply if (say) Putin invaded a NATO member like Latvia. In that case too, Norway’s prime minister could say that it would be “irresponsible” to risk a larger war with Russia: sadly, rather than risk a nuclear conflict, we will just have to let Latvia go.

Putin will realize that if they are that unwilling to risk any escalation, then really the NATO pact means nothing for smaller east European members.

No matter what, Europe’s main leaders will keep deceiving themselves that “negotiations” and “diplomacy” are a viable alternative even without any hard military threat to back them up.

In other words, in the argument that we cannot risk fighting Russian forces because Russia is a nuclear power, NATO membership is irrelevant. Western nations only won the Cold War because they were willing to fight if necessary.

Will to Fight

The resulting ethical abyss cannot be covered up with posturing on social media proclaiming that “we love you, Ukraine.”

The humanitarian aid would not be needed if only the European NATO nations had provided a few thousand troops, armor, and air cover for Ukraine — for then Putin probably would not have dared to invade. And if he still did, in that scenario, Russian forces would have been swiftly defeated.

This should now be clear, given how well Ukrainians have fought on their own. Backed by an air force to stop Russian bombers, they would already have won.

Imagine what such a total defeat for Putin’s invasion would have meant for the world. After this triumph for democracy and human rights, within weeks, the tyrant of Belarus would probably be where he belongs – hanging from a gibbet in Minsk – and generals in Sudan would be making hasty plans to restore a civilian government. Even in Beijing, second thoughts about Taiwan would be likely.

Europe might have lost 100 soldiers who had volunteered to defend Ukraine — and to prove that democrats have the will to fight when necessary.

West’s Fateful Failure in Ukraine

Now this invaluable opportunity has been lost in a mire of Ukrainian blood because ordinary citizens throughout advanced democratic nations are so confused in their thinking about war and unequipped to understand what military inaction means in high-stakes contexts such as Putin’s total war on Ukraine.

Misled by decades of twisted pacifist ideology, they imagine that millions of refugees, hundreds of billions in physical damage, deep trade boycotts that will impoverish millions of Russian, and a worldwide recession caused by ineffective sanctions are somehow better than any level of direct war with Russia.

That kind of simplistic thinking that cannot recognize the inherent value in that noble stance – in standing up for humanity – is the root of the West’s fateful failure in Ukraine. As we already saw in Syria, it ensures that mass murder will go unchecked, and belief in the power of democratic nations to defend each other will decline even further.

In sum, Europe’s fateful choice to abandon Ukraine may ensure that tyranny will control most of the world within 50 years.

Europe’s leaders have not only betrayed the people of Ukraine; their manifest weakness now imperils the entire future of humanity.

John Davenport is Professor of Philosophy and Peace & Justice Studies at Fordham University.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Defense Post.

The Defense Post aims to publish a wide range of high-quality opinion and analysis from a diverse array of people – do you want to send us yours? Click here to submit an op-ed.

The post The Big Picture: Europe’s Refusal to Fight and Democratic Weakness appeared first on The Defense Post.