Learning from past experiences should be considered vital in every decision-making process. It becomes even more important when lessons could save lives. Past experiences could indeed support the development of survival courses and reintegration processes for military and civilian personnel deployed in hostile environments. Moreover, the integration of lessons from the past and basic techniques could be useful for anyone working, or simply traveling, in areas where the risk of isolation and/or kidnapping is considered very high. During an isolation event, every aspect should be considered from support to families during captivity to the reintegration into everyday life. Governments, NGOs, and international organizations should look at the past and learn how to establish an effective system to repatriate and reintegrate their representatives.
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The numbers of prisoners in modern conflicts are impressive. During WWI between 7.000.000 and 8.500.00 persons from all nations were captured: over 420.000 by the French, almost 525.000 by the British and something in that range by the Italians, 1.500.000 by the Russians, 1.700.000 by the Germans, and 2.000.000 by the Austrians. The estimates for WWII are inflated due to the collapse of the German state and the surrender of Japan. Entire armies of the defeated powers became prisoners during the last six months of 1945, raising the highest estimates for that period to 35.000.000 (Davis, 1977).
The reaction of the public opinion to the news describing the kidnapping of military and civilian personnel in operations can affect the political decision-making process. Those men and those women are sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, husbands, and wives, before having a role in operations. Watching them on the news or in captors’ frightening videos can touch the soul of any human being that can easily imagine his/her own son or brother in the same situation, causing a strong empathy for the victims and their families. The sustainment of operations, to domestic and foreign policies can be undermined by the weight of those, but it is not the only risk that a nation has to manage. Indeed, prisoners of war (POWs) can be exploited by the enemies to collect precious operational information. Those procedures are forbidden by the Laws of Armed Conflicts, but history has taught us that few nations really cope with those regulations. Since ancient times, POWs have been a product of wars and important sources for the enemies to learn more about their adversaries. Focusing the attention on contemporary history, with modern conflicts increasing the mobility of troops, asymmetric threats superseding traditional warfare and non-state actors turning into ruthless captors and, the number of POWs, and victims of captivity, surged enormously.
At their return, prisoners can be welcomed as heroes or as criminals, depending on the circumstances, as experienced for example during the Vietnam war. They can fear the opinion of their countries and even experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They are fragile, but they can provide an amount of vital information that should be collected promptly with effective techniques from a specialized team. For all the above-mentioned reasons, POWs enter a Reintegration phase, starting once they reach friendly facilities. From that moment on, an articulated process, divided in distinctive phases, will guide them on their way back to normal. It may take just hours, but it may also last for months, sometimes years, depending on POW’s reaction upon return and his/her physical and psychological conditions.
In this chapter, POWs intelligence will be divided in two distinctive phases: intelligence in captivity and intelligence after captivity. The first phase includes all actions carried out to acquire information from enemies, but also the actions taken by POW’s country to prevent social media and journalists from spreading sensitive details about the operation, the hostage and his/her family. The second step consists of all the intelligence activities conducted after the POW is back under friendly control (either released or successfully escaped), entering in a Reintegration process. All the valuable information collected in this phase could potentially enter the intelligence cycle to be then processed and disseminated through the communities of interest. Nothing can be left to chance when dealing with POWs, from both sides of the barricades, but we should never forget that before being “information bearers”, they are human beings, deserving respect and healthy living conditions.
During the recent lockdowns, we have all been prisoners of war, a different war. Our captor is invisible, but it seized our lives with evil cruelty. Each one of use experienced isolation from family and friends, many lost beloved ones without having the opportunity to tell them goodbye, but we all are striving to survive. As we wait to be released and come back to life, writing of POWs in this time of crisis and suffering may arouse strong feelings and their stories can be now seen with different eyes.
POWs sacrifice their lives, with death or perpetual physical and psychological sufferings. They could be considered heroes or traitors, friends, or foes, means or ends, but they are undoubtedly victims that are to be protected and treated humanely. Therefore, this work looks at POWs as victims and resources, scrutinizing past events and providing recommendations for the future in an attempt to raise awareness on a topic repeatedly faded into oblivion.