By Ryan T. Williams.
U.S. Presidents face significant political and social pressures to bring home Americans unjustly detained in foreign countries, as illustrated by the exchange of Viktor Bout, “the Merchant of Death,” for Brittney Griner. Griner was the first U.S. civilian with no alleged war crimes on her record to be detained by a foreign country with the politically motivated goal of effectuating a prisoner exchange. Griner had been sentenced to nearly a decade in a Monrovian prison camp for having a few ounces of marijuana oil in her travel bag. Following Griner’s release, there have been other seemingly unjust detentions, which indicates that each time the executive branch arranges such a swap with a detaining country, it weakens our national security, and simultaneously puts Americans abroad at heightened risk for unjust detention by foreign powers. This “prisoner swap dilemma” finds its roots and solution in game theory. Full Article.