eli5 When countries swap prisoners how are they sure the other country will actually do it?
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To add on with everything. Prisoners are something very valuable to the side they came from but barely have any value to the side holding them.
Like, what can you do with prisoners? You have to feed them to keep them alive, else they die and become useless. They clearly don’t want to work with you. If they do they aren’t prisoners anymore, but are defectors.
The only thing you can really do with prisoners is trade them back to the original country for some goodies. For the origin country, those man are valuable. Just think about the cost of growing a man from a fetus to 18, then you need extra training to make them a useful soldier / spy. Prisoner exchange means you can get it back. And maybe they actually event got some secret from the enemy, who knows.
Other than that, prisoner exchange also boosts moral of your own man. Since they know you still value them and want them back.
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