Chapter 3 - Recoveries

Summary

In Chapter 3, we turn to recoveries, a state’s efforts to repatriate its citizens held by a hostile power or at risk of being captured. Aphorisms like ’we leave no one behind’ or ’we don’t negotiate with terrorists’ seem honourable and even righteous. Yet military operations to recover either prisoners of war (e.g., the 1970 US Special Forces raid of the Son Tay POW camp in North Vietnam) or hostages (e.g., the 1980 British SAS rescue of hostages taken at the Iranian Embassy in London) typically involve significant risk to the rescuers, non-combatants who may be in the vicinity of a rescue operation, and even the hostages or prisoners themselves who are sometimes killed in the crossfire. Ethically speaking, how should we weigh those risks against alternatives such as payment of a ransom or a negotiated prisoner exchange?