eli5 When countries swap prisoners how are they sure the other country will actually do it?
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It mostly boils down to the fact that you can only play tricks with that once.
You can’t put human beings into escrow after all. You have to trust each other. If you can’t trust the other party and they can’t trust you then no future exchanges are going to be made.
You get things like the infamous “bridge of spies” where both walked across at the same time, to keep everyone honest, the truth is that in the vast majority of cases, it is in everyone’s best interest to keep these deals to ensure that future deals are possible.
It only really becomes an issue when you deal with fanatics or idiots. This happens occasionally, but usually that is also where it ends.
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