We Want to Negotiate: The Secret World of Kidnapping, Hostages and Ransom

Columbia Global Reports

by Joel Simon

Starting in late 2012, Westerners working in Syria--journalists and aid workers--began disappearing without a trace. A year later the world learned they had been taken hostage by the Islamic State. Throughout 2014, all the Europeans came home, first the Spanish, then the French, then an Italian, a German, and a Dane. In August 2014, the Islamic State began executing the Americans--including journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff--followed by the British hostages.

Joel Simon, who in nearly two decades at the Committee to Protect Journalists has worked on dozens of hostages cases, delves into the heated hostage policy debate. The Europeans paid millions of dollars to a terrorist group to free their hostages. The U.S. and the U.K. refused to do so, arguing that any ransom would be used to fuel terrorism and would make the crime more attractive, increasing the risk to their citizens. We Want to Negotiate is an exploration of the ethical, legal, and strategic considerations of a bedeviling question: Should governments pay ransom to terrorists?

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, International Relations

190 pages, Paperback

First published January 22, 2019

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book about the Kidnap and Ransom insurance industry, government policies around paying ransom, and how to achieve the best outcomes for both individual hostage situations and policies overall. As I've lived/worked in high-kidnap-risk environments, this is interesting to me.

(My solution in war zones was to just spend any money I'd have spent on K&R on more security; I assumed an American kidnapped in Iraq was going to be tortured/murdered, so my plan was to try to drop everyone or go down fighting. Fortunately it never came to that, but I would not have hesitated.
Most of the other American contractors I ever talked with had the same plan; we used low-pro vehicles and such so our insurance/K&R policies were invalidated anyway.)

Overall, the author makes a case that the US/UK policy of "no negotiation, no ransom" is a bad policy, but also that the European policy if paying essentially unlimited ransom (and in the French case, massive publicity before and after release) is also bad. He makes a case for "strategic ambiguity", using private cut-outs to mask government involvement in paying ransom, and taking advantage of the ability of private parties to plead limited resources (which governments can't do), keeping the prices down.

There's long been an argument that paying ransom encourages more kidnapping, but the author makes a credible case that most kidnappings are opportunistic, not made with specific regard to the nationalities of victims. However, higher ransoms do increase kidnapper motivation overall, and some of the nation-state ransoms are so high ($30-50mm!) to actually be a major source of financing for some groups.

My suggestion is some form of this "strategic ambiguity" program combined with guaranteed retribution -- e.g. one American is kidnapped, 10 affiliates of the hostage-taker are taken, and if $10mm in ransom is paid, an extra $100mm bounty is put into a fund for 51% of the bodies of terrorists. Deterrence is one factor, but mainly just a direct "when there are no X terrorists, there will be no kidnappings conducted by X terrorists". Perhaps it would be easier for someone other than a nation-state to conduct this kind of response.

[Sam Reaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

People have been taking hostages and holding them for ransom for millennia, but in the twenty-first century it has become both a high-profile political tactic and big business. Joel Simon, the head of an organization called the Committee to Protect Journalists, got involved when the Islamic State started grabbing journalists in Syria in the early teens. This book is his account of what happened to those hostages and the policy questions raised by the diverse reactions of the governments involved.
The American and British governments were adamantly opposed to paying ransom, while other European governments, notably the French and Spanish, made the safe return of the hostages their priority and paid up. Simon's question is whether the American policy actually accomplished its objective, namely to discourage kidnapping of Americans by making it unprofitable. His answer is no; what the policy accomplished was to insure that the American and British hostages were killed, while the French and Spanish ones eventually returned home safely.
The debate rages on. Simon concedes that giving money to terrorist organizations is a different matter from paying off kidnappers motivated only by greed, making it a matter of national security. But he questions the value of a no-concessions policy in deterring kidnappings and discusses various ways the government's response might be improved.
The policy recommendations come after a harrowing account of the ordeal of the ISIS hostages and the gruesome fate that some of them met. Simon spoke with ex-hostages and with the families of some of those who were murdered by ISIS. Few policy questions involve such agonizing judgment calls; this book is a thought-provoking exploration of the dilemma.

[Kuang Ting · Rating 5 out of 5]

上個月買了一本書《巨頭的詛咒》，作者Tim Wu是近幾年關於網路治理的重要作家兼學者，因為還沒讀過他的作品，想要拜讀一下，剛好又看到這本薄薄的小書，就先敗回家，接著上網查一下其他人的評論，此時Goodreads的價值再次體現，不愧是愛書人的最佳平台。它顯示本書屬於一個叫做「Columbia Global Report」的書系，點進去一看眼睛又亮了~

每一本的主題都蠻吸引人的，心底對於新聞業還是蠻有幻想的吧，所以對於他們從新聞角度出發的取材很有共鳴~進一步研究才發現原來這是哥倫比亞大學出版社推出的一個書系(imprint)，由一位新聞學院的教授當召集人，推出一個頗有野心的計畫，希望每年推出4~6本原創性的報導文學，由計劃小組委託作者進行深度的研究，聚焦在具備全球視野卻被忽視的重要議題上。

本書系想展現新聞的即時性和敘事力量，同時結合智識上的野心及學術的精確性。這些書都不長，以官網的說法是「中篇小說的篇幅」，約150頁的長度。’Most readers are curious and busy. Our books are for them.’ 講得真好，我以後會持續關注本書系的新作品。這種書就跟牛津大學出版社的通識讀本一樣，薄薄的，但充滿乾貨，希望讓讀者在幾個小時內就讀完，獲得知識上的啟發。現代人工時太長，想要找到時間放鬆讀一本書好像都很難，所以我蠻喜歡這種量身訂製的精緻小讀本，很適合嚮往閱讀的上班族翻閱。

Columbia Global Report自從2015年推出以來，目前已經出版超過20本書。除了《巨頭的詛咒》，有一本《We Want to Negotiate: The Secret World of Kidnapping, Hostages, and Ransom》讓我想先睹為快。這本書的作者Joel Simon是一個叫做「Committee to Protect Journalists」的非營利組織的Executive Director，這個組織旨在協助被綁架的記者安全脫困。西方的媒體記者常常深入危險境地採訪，時不時就會發生被綁架的消息，這個組織就是協助當事人和其家屬，希望能讓記者安全回家。

作者Joel在這個領域有超過二十年的資歷，一些登上全球媒體頭條的記者綁架案，他也親身參與營救的過程。他對於這個神秘的領域有豐富的經驗，應邀把他的見解和觀察寫成一本書，《We Want to Negotiate》就是成果。這本書哪裡吸引人呢?

就我而言，有一個原因是書中提及一些內容跟我從事的職業有關，不過最大的原因還是想要了解一下”綁架”這個主題。一般人通常避免探討這種很黑暗的主題，太沉重了，況且一般人遭遇綁架案件的機會實在很低，沒必要花心思去關心這種主題。但小弟關注(有興趣)的主題似乎都很冷門，很喜歡去認識一些不常見的東西，透過專家的眼睛去認識”綁架”這件事的來龍去脈，我覺得能獲得非常獨特的啟發。

所以什麼是綁架呢? 綁架不外乎為了贖金或利益交換，綁架者能夠藉此獲得談判的籌碼。本書聚焦的族群是記者，記者因為身分特殊，假如被恐怖份子或犯罪集團綁架，常常登上媒體頭條(記者就是媒體的一員，自己人被綁架，當然要大力聲援)。歷史上綁架的案件層出不窮，在未來也不會消失，綁架是一種神祕莫測又令人難受的行為，因此仔細的探討其蘊含的哲理，其實是非常重要的。

本書的目的就是給予讀者特殊的思考空間，透過作者的指引，讓我們有難得的機會好好省思。Joel寫作本書的目的是希望能夠引起新的討論，他認為現行國際上對於綁架的談判慣例是不恰當的。假如談判破裂，人質的生命就會受到威脅，寶貴的人命就如草芥一般不值錢。當你的談判對象是心狠手辣的極端分子，究竟該如何與他們談判呢?

現在很流行所謂的「談判與溝通課程」，這本《We Want to Negotiate》就是最極端的案例研究。Joel在書中介紹了當下國際談判的慣例，最後導出一個結論，呼籲世界各地的政府正視此課題，進行政策面的改革，才能有效保護人命，又不會讓壞人得逞。

當一名記者(或是傳教士、NGO工作者、遊客…等等)被綁架了，不同國家政府有不同的應對之道，有些國家願意不惜一切代價營救其公民，另外一些國家採取對抗的姿態，不願意與綁架者進行談判。這本書就是將這些談判的慣例互相比較，最終獲得一個令人信服的結論:「談判是必要的，全然的反抗並無法保護人質的安全」。

大部分歐洲國家的習慣是”乖乖聽話”(但是絕不會明確的承認)，透過第三方或各種巧妙的方式，依照綁架者的要求繳付贖金，或者進行交換(例如:蓋達組織要求政府釋放某位被監禁的幹部，他們才願意釋放記者。) 這種配合綁架者要求的談判方式通常真的能讓人質安全返家，可是它引起的爭議也很大，比如交付的贖金讓恐怖份子能夠執行下一波的恐怖襲擊，造成更大的傷亡，這樣一來，究竟該不該繳付贖金呢? 這位記者的人命比較重要，還是大眾的安全比較重要呢? 假設為了拯救一位記者的代價是另一次911事件，這種代價是否值得? 或者說，這種東西真的能夠比較和衡量嗎?

為了避免此種困境，美國和英國為首的國家採取的談判策略就是「We don’t negotiate with terrorists!」，完全不跟恐怖份子妥協。因此英美的人質有一定的比率最後就被撕票了。英美政府認為唯有徹底斬斷恐怖份子(或犯罪集團)的資金來源，才能避免憾事再次發生。的確，繳付贖金等同助長恐怖主義的滋長。問題來了，究竟該如何談判，才能達到最好的成效呢?

Joel在書中舉了很多的例證，訪問了很多當事人和專家，他認為英美的不談判原則是失靈的政策，應該進行改革。因為就算政府不出面談判，家屬往往會透過各種管道向綁架者談判，畢竟是家人啊，任誰都會不計一切代價讓他們重新回到身邊吧。

政府不談判等於宣判人質死刑，也間接把責任推到家屬身上。綁架對於每個家庭來說都是一種極端的(情感與經濟)負荷，假如這種事情發生在我們身上，我們還是會希望政府能夠出面協助處理，政府總不能不顧國民的死活吧? 因此，個人情感因素，如何與公共利益相結合，就成為每個政府都必須面對的棘手挑戰。

本書論述的來龍去脈很精采，精闢詳盡，我也很難三言兩語摘要，因為要一氣呵成讀完才能理解作者的初衷。這本Columbia Global Report很好看，屬於上乘的報導文學，用字洗鍊不累贅，讀完以後給了我很多新的想法。有趣的是書中也提及了綁架勒索保險的歷史發展，以及它在談判過程中扮演的重要角色。這本書讓我上了一堂頗具啟發的談判研討課。

推薦各位去搜尋[How to bring hostages home? There’s no simple answer.]這一篇發表在《華盛頓郵報》上的書評，評論者Jason Rezaian是派駐德黑蘭的特派員，曾經被伊朗當局監禁544天，等於被外國政府綁架，他的故事也有出現在這本書裡。《華盛頓郵報》的記者真的是命運多舛，Jamal Khashoggi竟然在大使館被暗殺，這種針對新聞自由的打擊實在令人憤怒與無奈，就如同華郵的副標題Democracy dies in darkness，閱聽人對新聞的價值，應該要有更大的體認和支持。

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

First five star of the year! This is a great overview of kidnapping and hostage response, as well as the difficulties embedded in such a situation. Covering government responses, organisational and insurance actions and familial distress very succinctly yet with great detail. I would have read more of it given the easy writing style.

[Patina Malinalli · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am doing a bit of research into kidnapping for a writing project. This book was very insightful and the interviews of law enforcement officers, victims of kidnapping and their families are quite informative...

[Brian Derksen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought it was going to deal with the actual negotiations and tactics but it didn’t. It had a few interesting stories though

[Jean Huber Bookmama789 · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I hope to continue to regularly review books from Columbia Global Reports for you guys and We Want To Negotiate by Joel Simon is my second book up for review.

As I stated in my review in Bethany McClean’s Saudi America, I am absolutely in love with the format that Columbia Global Reports has adopted for presenting current events and nonfiction to it’s readers. A little more about this in case you did not read my previous review or are not familiar with Columbia Global Reports:
Columbia Global Reports presents all of the titles in their catalog in short novella sized books. Their goal is to make issues like politics, environmental science, social science, cultural anthropology more approachable and digestible by making all of their titles something you could read over the course of a few hours or a day. They have authors writing on a wide range of topics and even offer a sort of subscription service where for set fee they will send you a title slightly ahead of it’s pub date for you to read each month. None of the above information is sponsored I just really do think they are on to something. They recognized that a huge readership was only getting important and relevant information from click bait non researched websites. They knew they would be able to sell a huge 500 page book on a subject but they could sell a incredibly well researched and sources cited nugget of a book on issues people want to know more about that are relevant right now. I received this free review copy off of NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. As stated before this is not sponsored even though I know I sound like a walking commercial for them (I am just that into nonfiction right now).
Review:We Want To Negotiate: The Secret World Of Kidnapping, Hostages and Ransom by Joel Simon is a terrifying and timely piece of journalism and I am not sure I ever want to travel out of the country after reading this book. I say timely because we I am not sure if you all saw the headlines this past weekend about the Saudi journalist that went missing, he was found murdered in his own consulate in Turkey. This book will make you much more aware of headline like these in today’s news. Aware and horrified. We have as Americans all heard the words “The United States of America does not negotiate with terrorists!” These words are always declared as a full stop, there is no gray area, and after 9/11 most people would never question them. I never knew how complicated the world of negotiations are though behind these words and how differently The United States handles these complex and horrifying situations from other developed countries. The main argument that author Joel Simon wants readers to consider while reading this book, is that while our ideals as Americans have not shifted since the days of Nixon and our solidifying non negotiations with terrorist organizations, the motivation behind taking terrorists and wanting to negotiate has shifted on the side of the terrorists. Joel Simon while recognizing it is never good to financially fund a terror organization shows how terrorists would rather ransom not be paid so that hostages can be used for purposes of spreading terror instead of lining their pockets.
This book provides many real life accounts from not only hostage survivors but also from families who felt they were failed by the policies in place to deal with terrorist and hostage negotiations. The situations of how different countries and terror organizations is also addressed thoroughly. My only issue with this particular book was that it did jump around quite a bit both in time and location to draw comparisons and conclusions and that sometimes became confusing when trying to keep facts straight of to keep track of which event where being discussed. I have a much easier time with books like these when it maintains a solid timeline otherwise I end up having to go back a reread whole parts. For this reason It took me a couple days to actually read this book to the point where I felt I had a solid grasp on all of the details, at least enough to write a proper review.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in how these types of operations work, including the cottage industry hostage insurance companies that have been created due to this complex issue with no real right answer. This book is also a really great glimpse at the difference between our countries policies as compared to others. I am not saying this book will change your mind about how you feel on this issue but it will definitely make you think about it.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars owing primarily to just how much useful information Simon packs into 150 short pages. The book is a good combination of policy explanation and comparison, illustrated by case studies. Statistics on page 67 alone make the book worth picking up. If one knows little about this topic, this little book seems a great place to start.

Normally I'd three star ("liked it") a book like this, a good rating, but I "really like" (four star) Simon's efficiency here. Well done.

[Judd Street · Rating 4 out of 5]

We Want to Negotiate is a fantastic look into the world of hostage taking and, more notably, how we get hostages back. It's perhaps most interesting for the genesis of the book: it's written by Joel Simon, who worked with the Committee to Protect Journalists, an organization which had a firm do-not-pay-ransom policy. Following the loss of hostages, Simon had some challenging conversations with the families left behind, which spurred on the process of reevaluating whether the policy was actually appropriate.

In the end, Simon finds that the perhaps philosophically defensible position of refusing to pay ransom is not effective in practice. Hostage takings are often crimes of opportunities, and hostage takers have many different uses for their victims (e.g., selling for profit, yes, but also executing some to increase the payments from others). As such, as long as literally anyone is paying - governments, but also families, corporations, and others - the only real outcome is the death of those who won't be paid for.

It's a short but interesting read, and I love this quest of trying to figure out if one's position is the right one or not. It's cool to watch someone change their mind, and it provides a really insightful window into a world that I really had not thought much about.

[Javier Boncompte G. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although this book has some interesting insights about the way kidnapping works and the multiple dilemmas of paying ransom to criminal or terrorist organizations, it results almost insulting for anyone coming from a non US-European country.

To begin with, the author takes the security of the hostages as the ONLY variable to judge if the "No Concession" Policy works or not. Even referring as the "worst possible outcome" for them to die. Totally disregarding the funding of terrorist organizations as a negative consequence of countries paying ransom to criminal organizations in developing countries. What do you think these organizations use the funds to?

I missed a chapter (or two!) analysing what kind of activities have Western ransoms financed. The US sources he cited are clear to mention that ransoms are the main sources of funding for this organizations, therefore it fair to think that funding has been, in part, responsible for the 15,000 anual deaths caused by terrorist organizations. But the authors almost completely disregards this in his definition of the "worst possible outcome".

He also uses research lightly. As he sometimes clarifies, evidence in favor of the no concession policy seems thin but it exists! Nevertheless, I could agree with his approach that governments should only require their citizens to sacrifice their lives under a no concession policy if there is strong evidence this works in order to keep others safe. However, I think his exclusive focus on the life on hostages makes him ignore many important question for this assessment to be made ,like: Is this policy reducing the total number of kidnappings? How many deaths are prevented by this policy in the organizations host/neighbouring countries? Can we quantify/qualify the damage done using this kind funding? What are the developing/institutional/growth effects in the affected countries of having well funded terrorist organization, partly by the generous ransoms paid by European countries.

I would have thought that in 2019, approaching global problems like terrorism and hostage-taking from a purely western perspective would be more frown upon.

[Lenny D · Rating 3 out of 5]

In wealthy, consumerist societies, we’re used to viewing pretty much every interaction as a transaction. A kidnapping is explicitly so: a situation in which preservation of life—a tangible human life—is available for purchase. Given that the abductee likely comes from a nation, if not a family, that is easily able to afford this cost, you’d think that resolving a kidnapping would be straightforward. Yes, the money will pay for more terror to be committed elsewhere, but that’s a vague theory compared to the immediacy of potentially losing a family member and citizen. Do what you need for your own interests and damn the knock-on consequences. That’s how we run the rest of society, right?

The complication is that kidnappings don’t take place in a market. They don’t involve private actors making economic decisions. They involve governments: bureaucracies accustomed to sending soldiers to their deaths in furtherance of international relations policies du jour, insistent on controlling everything that happens in their names. In this callous, poorly-understood area of policy, the sympathetic stories of aid workers, journalists, and other non-combatants conflict with the imperatives of governments. As such, governments sometimes stand in the way of an easy resolution.

In the few decades that kidnapping has become increasingly popular, the world has been stuck in a situation where different governments have arrived at wildly different conclusions. Some pay outright, like Spain, while others, like the US, claim to never accede to the will of terrorists.

No one seems to be able to coordinate the response of varying governments on this issue, partly because the most powerful countries (France, the US) are among the most capricious. In the breach, an underground economy has sprung up to fill the void. Policy documents have been drafted and ignored. The result is an international policy regime that is worse than a patchwork; it is incoherent, inconsistent, and chaotic.

We Want To Negotiate briskly overviews these competing ransom policies and argues for the creation of a unified approach. Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, speaks passionately as an advocate for abductees but maintains a focus on solving the issue at a high level. His goal is to create a policy regime in which kidnapping is dealt with holistically, in a way that returns abductees but also doesn’t inflate the price tag of ransoms, which incentivizes more kidnapping.

At the end of the book, though, I found myself disagreeing with him. His diagnosis of the problem seemed lucid, but his prescription was way too cute, and to me, seemed unrealistic.

First, the problem.

“When its citizens are held hostage, a government must adopt a posture along a continuum—on one end, you walk away from a threat to kill a hostage, and on the other, you capitulate to it. Where a country lands is a reflection of both its strategic interests and its political culture.” 40

This inconsistency is troublesome because of the unique nature of kidnappings. Whereas countries can advance different foreign policies and work alongside each other—let’s say, with one committing fewer troops to a campaign than another country—abductions are microcosmic, arbitrary situations involving just a few individuals grouped together and being treated as a unit. Diverging national policies distill to the individual level uncomfortably, especially when the divide can determine that one individual will be killed to ratchet up the ransom payment of the other.

Before laying out his argument, Simon takes us through a number of countries’ cultures around kidnappings. We start in France, where Florence Aubenas crusades to keep kidnapping victims in the public eye to put pressure on the government to secure their return. This character seems to be an entree to the general nature of France’s pop-culture approach to kidnapping, where the issue is highly politicized and visible on TV. The president meets the returning abductees at the airport, a tradition that dates to 1988, when French citizens returned by Lebanese jihadists ended three years of national obsession. As a result of this popular attention, “no country has a reputation for paying ransom more than France.” (24)

This kind of attention is bad. Simon remembers how the campaign to humanize Daniel Pearl in 2002 played into al Qaeda’s hands by raising the profile of his murder. It also complicates sensitive, back-channel negotiations between kidnappers and hostage negotiators, who already have shadowy connections to the government.

A kidnapping is not a simple equation involving government and terrorists. On the hostage side is usually some mix of political and police-affiliated officials. On the other are actors that can be deemed either "political" or "criminal." Criminal groups are basically non-ideological merchants; dealing with them is a negotiation that the government won’t necessarily stop. Political groups, however, are those that start to touch foreign policy; terrorists generally fall into this camp. Governments see these groups differently, and assign different officials to negotiate with them. The goal of the negotiation is, in the process of getting the hostage released, to work down the price by claiming an inability to pay. One reason Simon doesn’t like governments getting involved is that they lose that claim.

The next chapter covers Spain. Unlike France, which claims to not pay at all (though they often do, fooling no one) Spain uses “more ambivalent language” to advance “a policy of negotiation and restraint that places a maximum emphasis on the safe return of the hostages.” (52)

81% of EU hostages kidnapped by jihadi groups have been freed, at a cost of some $300 million between 2008 and 2014. (57) Spain has never lost a single hostage. Paying ransom, as a tactic, works. Which explains why a market for kidnapping and ransom (K&R) insurance blossomed.

K&R insurance began in the late 1970s when a British insurance executive visited Colombia and realized the extent of the kidnapping problem, and the opportunity of selling to companies. K&R insurance today has evolved into a somewhat rational market. It helps companies (who cannot tell their employees a policy has been taken out) to manage risk and cover their duty of care to their employees. If a policyholder gets kidnapped, the family gets assigned some security consultants—hardened professionals all, from the sounds of it—who sit with the family and guide the negotiation. Being that the goal is to plead an inability to pay, it has to be the family to do the talking. Furthering this dynamic (and surely reducing the liability of the insurance company) the money does have to be put up first in order to be later reimbursed by the insurer.

The insurance approach also works. 97% of cases involving professional negotiators resolve successfully through ransom payment, which ends up being “generally between 5 and 10% of the initial ask.” (67) More than 75% of the Fortune 500 have K&R insurance policies and the market is around $300 million a year.

Governments hate K&R—one UK official said these private security firms “are operating on the very frontiers of official tolerance” (69), which I goddamn loved—because it undercuts their claim to supremacy on these political, foreign-policy questions. But Simon clearly doesn’t hold much respect for those claims given the clusterfuck most governmental policies on kidnapping are: duplicitous at best, actively harmful and ill-advised at worst.

The last type of policy is the worst: no-concessions. There’s no evidence that it protects citizens or deters terrorist activity. It’s not honored by governments, which routinely pay ransoms through some means or another, and in reality it puts those countries’ hostages in danger. “The most effective way for hostage takers to put pressure on the governments that do pay is to murder one of the hostages. The disparate policies make the decision easy.” (155)

The US’s no-concessions policy had an ugly founding. In 1973, a Palestinian terror group named Black September kidnapped two US diplomats and one Belgian from the American embassy in Khartoum. They issued a bunch of demands, including the release of Sirhan Sirhan. Nixon got on TV for a separately scheduled press conference, and without really having prepared to address this question, off-the-cuff announced that the US did not negotiate with terrorists, nor pay their ransom (88). When the terror group heard this, they promptly took those three hostages into the basement and shot them. No use keeping non-monetizable hostages around.

Since then, the US has adhered to that policy in name only and for no good reason other than precedent. The Nixon episode ensured the policy was “sealed in blood,” even though it made no sense then or now.

The first problem with no-concessions is that it doesn’t deter kidnappings. One expert “compared the challenge to trying to wipe out armed robbery by making it illegal to give muggers your wallet.” (95) Kidnappings are crimes of convenience; it’s not like al Shabab would let the American journalists in a captured Humvee go free because their country won’t pay ransom. The kidnappers will either try to extract the same ransom as the Frenchmen they’re with, or worse, they’ll kill the Americans first to prove they're serious.

Maybe the most important takeaway of the book is that ransom policies can and ought to only resolve a bad situation. Ransom policies will never further positive conditions on the ground, such as a reduction in kidnappings. There's no carrots and sticks here. Ransom does, however, help end an emergency. “Hostage-taking is largely opportunistic and unrelated to the hostage policies of a particular country. But those policies are highly relevant to outcomes.” (159) You fight kidnapping by eradicating or politically dealing with the groups themselves, not by getting high-minded about the commission of the crime.

Negotiation does have a beneficial effect overall, by keeping prices down. (France is kind of the bad guy because they just impulsively pay and inflate the price for everyone else.) But ultimately, each of these incidences must be dealt with as a transaction.

We learn in this book that staying alive as a hostage is just a game (107). You’re dealt a hand, and you play as best you can. If that involves converting to Islam or renouncing something, if you think it’ll help, do it. (Actually one of the only funny parts of the book was when two Spaniards were retrieved by their government’s spy agency, the CNI, after having converted to Islam in captivity. They were presented with Iberian ham, beer, and other haram treats to tempt them immediately into renouncing their “new faith.” They did. (51) Funny that “conversion was a constant focus of the militants.” So naive.) The government, families, and agents operating on behalf of the kidnapped should view the situation the same way: play the game. If that requires ransom, so be it.

No-concessions not only endangers hostages, it makes the government look hypocritical by having to do stupid things like privately assuring families that they won't be prosecuted for violating national policy and paying ransom. This is not a helpful position for the government to be taking.

At the end of the book, Simon finally offers his prescription: he basically wants to privatize the negotiation process so that governments can plausibly deny involvement. To me, that is a terrible idea. Get ready for actuarial tables about the value of this or that life. Get ready for a runaway K&R industry that is empowered to make life-or-death decisions on an industrial scale; that might even have a hand in increasing kidnappings. Kidnapping rings that operate like health insurance networks. No thank you. Plus, his proposed solution involves the government maayybe or maayybe not being a part of the negotiations. It’s just stupid; of course the government is going to be involved and, given the cultural realities around kidnpaping, will probably at least allow a payment to be made. (Plenty of these payments are made by the likes of Oman or other Gulf actors, and then paid back in some way by Westerners. Rarely is it a direct cash transfer from the government.)

To me, based on what Simon presents here, the only logical solution is to acknowledge the presence of government and its coffers, and to just pay fucking ransom to get your citizens back—and then, like mugging, deal with the root cause of the existence of the groups in the first place. Anything else is unrealistic and succumbing to the same double-speak that this world is filled with already.

As a book, We Want To Negotiate was a pretty dry read considering the scintillating subject matter he had to deal with, but it certainly crammed a lot of information about the hostage-ransom world, along with a few juicy questions about ethics, into a small package. It wasn’t really fun to read—the constant family-dealing-with-horror scenes ensured that—but I learned something.

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

“France has a reputation for being the country most willing to pay ransom for hostages, but my own investigation shows that its policy is actually more nuanced. The key variable in determining the government's response is the level of popular mobilization on behalf of the hostage. Spain, meanwhile, experiences no such conflict. The task assigned to the country's intelligence service is to bring hostages home at all costs. Because of its willingness to pay, the country has a tremendous record of success. The UK and the U.S., meanwhile, are the leaders of the no concessions camp. They do not pay, and in many cases, do not negotiate. As a result, a high number of British and American hostages have been killed.”

“The main reason piracy declined was that the local people rebelled when these newly wealthy pirates began using drugs, drinking alcohol, and abusing local women. Somalia is a violent place, but it’s also a conservative place.”

“Ransom paid to criminal groups are generally between 5 and 10 percent of the initial ask. More than 97 percent of kidnappings handled by professional negotiators are successfully resolved through the payment of ransom. A small percentage of hostages escape and a very few are rescued through high-risk operations.”

“International hostage negotiation is high stakes, but it is also like a business transaction. Often, the haggling over the amount of the ransom is typical of a commercial transaction, except that lives are on the line.”

“Despite the illegality, she was still prepared to negotiate. The FBI made clear that the government had never prosecuted a family for paying ransom and that she would not face legal jeopardy for doing so. ‘I was told this early on and throughout,’ Mulvihill recalled.”

“The right to life is a fundamental human right and if you take away the ability to make concessions you are essentially condemning the person to die.”

“In March 1973, eight members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September launched an attack on the Saudi Embassy Khartoum, Sudan, and took several diplomats hostage, includi two Americans and one Belgian. They issued a series of demands that included the release of Palestinian prisoners in Jordan, Israel and Europe. They also called for the release of Sirhan Sirhan, who had been convicted in the 1968 murder of Robert Kennedy.
The following day, President Nixon hosted a schedul press conference. A reporter asked how the president planned to respond to the hostage incident. “As far as the United States as a government giving in to blackmail demands, we cannot do so and will not do so,” Nixon proclaimed. “We will do everything we can to get them released but we will not lay blackmail.” Within hours, as word of the president’s remarks reached Sudan, the three diplomats were taken to a basement in the embassy, stood against a wall, and shot.”

“At one point early in her captivity, the French government tried to negotiate a ransom for Betancourt. Instead, the French mediator ended up the victim of a Brazilian scam artist who claimed to be representing the guerrillas.”

“To Pay Ransom or Not to Pay Ransom concluded that “American hostages have suffered disproportionately bad outcomes compared to other Western hostages.”

“A no concessions policy is only credible if governments are willing to let hostages die to make the point that they will never give in. A government that expects its citizens to make that kind of sacrifice should only do so based on incontrovertible evidence that many other lives will be saved. The no concessions policy does not meet that standard. It's time for a new approach. No one should have to die for a policy that isn't working.”

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely interesting. The author examines the policies and practices of Western countries in dealing with hostage negotiations. The U.S. and U.K. are very public about their resolve to not negotiate with terrorists, which the author shows in practice has led to a disproportionate number of hostages from those countries being tortured and murdered when compared to certain European countries that have policies to pay ransoms.

"The no concessions policy is defended on the basis that paying ransoms would create incentives for U.S. citizens to be kidnapped and that ransom payments finance terrorist groups. No clear evidence exists to support the claim that Americans are targeted less often because of the no concessions policy. On the other hand, there is strong evidence to suggest that a no concessions policy puts hostages at greater risk once abducted." "The most effective way for hostage takers to put pressure on the governments that do pay is to murder one of the hostages. The disparate policies make the decision easy. Osama Bin Laden's strategic advice to Al Qaeda was to kill the least valuable hostage. In the current environment that's likely to be an American or a Brit."

However, counting on the government to cover any ransom is not a satisfactory response either. "Governments can't plead poverty, so once hostage-takers realize they are dealing with a government the demands will almost certainly increase. This inflates the market itself, meaning the amount of money flowing to terrorists actually increases; criminal groups demand more; and families that must fend for themselves struggle to come up with ever larger ransoms."

All in all I thought the book was well written and researched, the author cited the available studies and his personal interviews with survivors, their families, and government officials.

[Juni · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that delves deep into the intricacies of hostage negotiation. Joel Simon impresses with his thorough research and looks into the ethics of negotiating with terrorist organizations. Journalists and photographers are often kidnapped and tortured while doing their jobs in politically unstable countries. But what happens to them and their families when a country refuses to open any channel of communication with the abductors in order to make a statement against terror funding? Or is it a wise idea to give in to the exorbitant demands?

As an executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Simon is reasonably biased towards bringing journalists home, no matter what the cost. However, he does present a strong case. Even though he repeats the same point quite often, he presents a complete picture of a very complex problem.

[Kevin Stecyk · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Fascinating Book on International Kidnappings

How should countries respond when their citizens are kidnapped and held for ransom? Some might argue that countries should never engage with kidnappers because it encourages more of the same. Yet experience shows that isn’t true.

Joel Simon chronicles several kidnappings and how countries, employers, and families have responded. Unfortunately, there is no perfect or ideal way to respond. And even more unfortunate, often kidnappings have a sad and tragic ending.

I enjoyed this book because it made me think about the different perspectives. If this topic interests you, then I highly recommend We Want to Negotiate: The Secret World of Kidnappings, Hostages, and Ransom.

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an interesting read. I didn't know anything about kidnapping and ransom prior to reading this book, so I found it quite informative, especially with how different countries react to kidnapping situations. At first, I thought that the book would address each nation's policy for kidnapping since he started with a focus on France and moved into Spain, but then he discussed a particular situation and the organization of the book no longer made sense. The writing was a bit dry and I found the flow to be choppy in some parts. The content was interesting, but I think the writing and editing could be better.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley.

[Alex Gruenenfelder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aside from abstract thoughts many of us have had about what we would do if we (or a loved one) were kidnapped, most of us have not thought extensively about the topic of hostage ransoms. This light but dense read interviews a variety of powerful people and studies some dark real world events to spark an important discussion about how we treat hostages overseas. Government policy should clearly be evidence-based, and this book is therefore an important one for those studying international relations.

[Bruce Yoor]

I really feel bad for the journalists that are traveling around in dangerous areas. There are some evil people in the world, and without eyes on what's going one, we would all be ignorant. And yet, ignorance is the best play when negotiating with terrorists - allowing complete denial, no press, and price comparison. It is heavy the weight of choice, when there are many choices, and yet the moto is "we do not negotiate with terrorists".

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was a very interesting read. I have seen the high profile kidnappings on tv but there are many more than we realize. Joel goes into the stories behind some of the interesting kidnappings and what countries pay the ransom and what do not. How families have gotten involved and how kidnapped victims returned have gotten involved post-return. Well worth the read.

[Jeremy Hurewitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book and it is written in an approachable manner. But there is a lot left unsaid about how kidnapping works, and about how K&R consulting works. Some of these details can be found in my own book, Sell Like a Spy (sorry for the self-promotion!). But if you're curious about kidnapping you could do a lot worse than read this book.

[Jennifer D · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all the book heavily focuses on the role of kidnap and ransom insurance which I was not expecting nor really wanting when I picked this one up. I found the history and notable cases of hostages very interesting, and he did a really solid job of explaining and supporting his view on how governments should approach hostage negotiations.

[Warren Mcpherson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A closer look at a difficult topic that is not well understood. It looks particularly at unintended consequences of government policy and how reactions of family and the public relate to the motivations of the criminals.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. This book does the very different views of paying for hostage's releases in policy and practice and is a very practical text for the differing viewpoints. It gives special emphasis to the families of this effected.

[Connor Whittick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must-read for anyone interested in kidnapping policy, using France, Spain, and the UK/USA as contrasting case studies. Gives a thorough overview of the recent history of kidnapping (1970s-onwards), with some really compelling arguments against the UK/USA’s approach to ransom payments.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential research and commentary for anyone working with journalists in high-risk locations.

[Rahul Phatak · Rating 3 out of 5]

A look into a different world of kidnapping, hostage ransoms, and the different policies different governments follow (and whether they work)

[Harold Kent Heredia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good primer on the business of K&R and the various approaches governments had taken.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not what I was hoping for, but a cogent argument for change.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent balance of real world examples with discussion of issues.

[Dora Okeyo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was curious about this book. Have you watched the TV Series "Ransom?" If you haven't, well, google it after you're done reading this because with that in mind, reading this was insightful. Over the years, I've watched on international news outlets calls for the release of journalists or Aid workers who were kidnapped in turbulent areas and I never fully grasped the stress, anxiety, negotiations and trauma that surrounds it.
In this book, the author explores the roles of governments and media houses in such cases and not all the stories have happy endings which ultimately broke my heart.
I liked how he presented the stories on both sides. Thanks for the eARC Netgalley, this book would be a great conversation on policies that affect international news coverage and politics whilst protecting reporters.