When should we negotiate with terrorists?

Q Magazine spoke with Australian Adam Dolnik, expert in negotiation techniques, about the prisoner’s dilemma and the “red line” that governments are willing to overcome when initializing the dialogue with terrorist groups. 

Is negotiating with terrorists a discrete form of diplomacy?

Discrete, but with a very specific purpose. If done well, it can also lead to other things that can be beneficial in the wider context of the counter-terrorism grand strategy.

When such negotiations should take place?

Negotiation is simply about exercising influence over the other party’s behaviour or decision-making through the process of communication. As soon as contact with the kidnappers is established, communications should begin in an effort influence how the hostage is treated, and what his or her eventual fate will be.

How can a democratic government talk to terrorists without jeopardizing the integrity of its political system?

It is always politically difficult for governments to talk to terrorists, mainly because of the widespread misconception that talking to them is the same thing as „giving in” or rewarding extortionate behavior. However, all governments should communicate with anyone who can help them get the hostage back home. This is not the same thing as capitulating, and negotiations by themselves do not imply substantive concessions to the terrorists’ demands. We should hence always negotiate with terrorists.

What kind of terrorists are susceptible to negotiations?

Generally speaking, terrorists with tangible goals. In reality this depends less on the „type” of terrorists one is dealing with, and more on the concrete objectives they have with respect to the hostage taking in question. ISIS for instance released 17 hostages for ransom payments, and from that perspective the group was susceptible to negotiation. But later with the British, American, Japanese hostages, as well as Jordanian pilot – ISIS never had any intention of negotiating their release, they were never interested in having their declared propaganda and financial demands met. They simply wanted to murder these hostages as part of their gruesome soap opera.

When negotiations should be opened?

This game is changing in recent years, we have seen an increase in duration of terrorist kidnappings, as well as the selling of hostages between groups. It is not uncommon for kidnappers today to quietly sit on a hostage for many months before even making first contact. Frequently it also takes a long time for them to figure out what specifically they want for their hostage, and sometimes hostages get sold from smaller groups with minor demands to larger groups who they have huge political and financial demands. For this reason, there is sometimes a case to be made for early, proactive negotiation approaches, as opposed to simply waiting for the kidnappers to make contact.

What does it take to make negotiations with terrorist groups a viable strategy?

I think we should ask another question: if negotiation is off the table, what other options are there? One option is the mounting of a rescue operation, which however is rarely viable due to intelligence gaps and jurisdictional issues, and is also coincidentally the most common cause of death among hostages. Given the logistical challenges and the risks involved, rescue operations are rarely attempted unless the hostage’s life is judged to be in imminent danger. The next option is to attempt to escape, but this is incredibly risky, not least because of the fact that escaping from the kidnappers’ stronghold itself still leaves the hostages in extremely dangerous suburbs of Miran Shah or Raqqa, where the likelihood of re-capture or death is still very high. The third option is to wait for a miracle, but that is hardly a plan. So in essence, the question should  not be „when is negotiation a viable strategy” but rather how to best influence the fate of the hostage without rewarding terrorists or sacrificing national interests in the process.

Why do the U.S. and Britain not pay the ransoms demanded by terror groups while other countries, particularly those in Western Europe, do?

Many countries won’t pay ransoms, but there is a difference in how far each country will go in enforcing this ban. Some countries will not pay at governmental level, but will not stop families from making a ransom payment on their own. Some countries will accept the help of third countries to achieve the release of their hostage, even if it involves an indirect payment of ransom. Other countries, like UK and US have been much stricter, actively dissuading families and third party states from paying a ransom on their behalf. And finally, some countries simply chose to pay, because their terrorism threat perception is low, and because of the political unacceptability of leaving a hostage behind. It is also actually cheaper to pay a ransom than to not pay, given the amount of resources that go into each case the longer it goes on.

How did the philosophy of never negotiating with terrorists develop in the U.S.? Has it always been that way? How does that perspective stand alongside “leave no man behind?”

It dates back to the 1979 hostage crisis at the US embassy in Teheran, but even in that case, there were very active negotiations going on. The policy of „no negotiations” really means a policy on „no substantive concessions”. Discretely talking to hostage takers in an attempt to influence them to release hostages costs nothing.  The issue of „leaving no man behind” is an important one from the military standpoint, and  as we saw in the case of Bowe Bergdahl, very different rules seem to apply to military hostages as opposed to civilians.

Professor Adam Dolnik, PhD returned to UOW in 2013 after two years of serving as Professor of Counter-terrorism at the George C. Marshall Center for European Security Studies in Germany. Prior to joining UOW in 2006, Dolnik has served as Chief Trainer at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) in Singapore, and as a researcher at the Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism Research Project at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California and at the United Nations Terrorism Prevention Branch in Vienna. Dolnik has delivered lectures and training courses on terrorism and hostage negotiation for various governmental and non-governmental organisations and agencies in over 50 countries, and regularly conducts field research in conflict zones (i.e. North Caucasus, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uganda, Sudan, Southern Philippines, DRC, Colombia, etc.) Dolnik’s books include Understanding Terrorist Innovation: Technologies, Tactics, and Global Trends (London: Routledge, 2007) Negotiating Hostage Crises with the New Terrorists (Westport CT: Praeger Security International, 2007), Terrorism Field Research: A Guide (London: Routledge, 2013),Negotiating the Siege of Lal Masjid (Oxford University Press, forthcoming), as well as over 50 reports and articles on terrorism related issues. Dolnik also serves on the editorial boards of Terrorism and Political Violence and Perspectives on Terrorism, the leading academic journals in the field.