12 December 2022 — 0824 mst

Jailing Viktor Bout did not stop arms dealing, but it
did give the U.S. a way to bring home Brittney Griner

By James Conner

Viktor Bout

Ten years ago, Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was sentenced to 25 years in prison for, according to the U.S. Attorney for the southern district of New York, “…conspiring to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons, including hundreds of surface-to-air missiles and over 20,000 AK-47s to the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (the “FARC”), a designated foreign terrorist organization based in Colombia.” Now he is back in the arms of Mother Russia, given his freedom in exchange for Brittney Griner’s being given hers.

American law enforcement leaders are outraged. They wanted Bout to served his full sentence. Indeed, since at least August, some have argued that trading him for Griner would let him return to his old ways, and would result in people dying from the arms he sold. Letting Griner, whose offense was illegally bringing a gram of cannabis oil into Russia, rot in a Russian penal colony would be unfortunate, they argued, but in the balance of equities, her misfortune would be more offset by preventing the deaths that would result from his release.

The law enforcement leaders’ premises are (1) jailing Bout stopped arms sales, thus saving lives, and (2) set free, he’ll continue selling things that get people killed.

Jailing him did stop a sale of arms to FARC, but probably not for long. Arms dealing, which goes back to time immemorial, does not stop when an arms dealer is arrested and imprisoned. New dealers take the imprisoned dealer’s place, arms sales continue, and weapons are transferred to people who should not have so much as a slingshot. Interdicting and seizing shipments of arms, not arresting and jailing arms merchants, is the most effective way of keeping weapons out of the hands of people intent on kiling.

He’ll never again be really free. Although Bout is home, he is not in a practical sense free to roam the world as before. If he gets within range of a drone, a Hellfire missile will blow him to Kingdom Come. He’ll have to watch his back for the rest of his life. And he’ll always wonder, as will Russians, whether he can be trusted fully again having spent a decade in an American hoosegow.

So why did Russia want him back so badly? Was it because he has some special knowledge that Putin can use to hurt western nations? That’s a popular theory. But it’s much more probable that Russia wanted him back simply because he was theirs; because as a practical matter, letting operatives rot in foreign prisons makes recruiting new spies much more difficult. These activities are older than the hills, and the rules governing them have not changed.

None of this will mollify the critics of the Griner-Bout swap. They believe swaps should be made only when the prisoners have been convicted of crimes of equal seriousness. They’ve convinced themselves that his release will set flowing new rivers of blood. But they’re not thinking clearly. Bout’s time in an American prison did not stop arms sales or save lives, but it did give President Biden what he needed to buy Brittney’s freedom. He spent his bargaining chip well.