Some national security experts even muse about whether the U.S. government should declare that it will not bargain for the release of anyone who disregards warnings against visiting Russia, Iran, North Korea and other high-risk countries.
At this point, I’m in favor of this. If you’re visiting Russia or North Korea (or Iran or Belarus) in the year 2024, it shouldn’t be the responsibility of the US state department to rescue you.
It’s not like Italy or South Africa or Brazil or New Zealand (or even the more autocratic European countries Hungary and Türkiye) are going to snatch up Americans as bargaining chips. It’s just a very short list of totalitarian states that you’d have to be an idiot to visit anyways.
I won’t say I 100% disagree, but it is a hard thing. It’s like the Coast Guard rescuing someone when they ignored every warning and put themselves in danger - it’s like yeah they definitely shouldn’t do that but also if you have the capacity to rescue them, and if you don’t they will literally die on your watch while you sit at home. I get the idea of saying fuck it and going and bailing them out, even if it is costly to do it.
It’s good for US journalists to go into authoritarian countries and report, just like they do for war zones and other dangerous places. It’s bad for US Marines to hear all this stuff about putting their life on the line for their country when they know they are Marines just sitting in Russian prison and the US isn’t doing a thing to try to get them out (whatever stupidity it was that wound up getting them put there).
I think it’s also kind of national pride - like it makes us look like chumps if there are Americans sitting in prison that shouldn’t be there and we’re just not doing anything about it.
Like I say I won’t say I 100% disagree with you but there are other factors involved than just whether or not the person put themselves at risk on their own.
At this point, I’m in favor of this. If you’re visiting Russia or North Korea (or Iran or Belarus) in the year 2024, it shouldn’t be the responsibility of the US state department to rescue you.
It’s not like Italy or South Africa or Brazil or New Zealand (or even the more autocratic European countries Hungary and Türkiye) are going to snatch up Americans as bargaining chips. It’s just a very short list of totalitarian states that you’d have to be an idiot to visit anyways.
I won’t say I 100% disagree, but it is a hard thing. It’s like the Coast Guard rescuing someone when they ignored every warning and put themselves in danger - it’s like yeah they definitely shouldn’t do that but also if you have the capacity to rescue them, and if you don’t they will literally die on your watch while you sit at home. I get the idea of saying fuck it and going and bailing them out, even if it is costly to do it.
It’s good for US journalists to go into authoritarian countries and report, just like they do for war zones and other dangerous places. It’s bad for US Marines to hear all this stuff about putting their life on the line for their country when they know they are Marines just sitting in Russian prison and the US isn’t doing a thing to try to get them out (whatever stupidity it was that wound up getting them put there).
I think it’s also kind of national pride - like it makes us look like chumps if there are Americans sitting in prison that shouldn’t be there and we’re just not doing anything about it.
Like I say I won’t say I 100% disagree with you but there are other factors involved than just whether or not the person put themselves at risk on their own.