The institution of hostages is an ancient technique that deserves to be studied by game theory, as does the practice of drinking wine from the same glass or of holding gang meetings in places so public that neither side could escape if it subjected the other to a massacre. The reported use of only drug addicts as agents or employees in a narcotics ring is a fairly straightforward example of a unilateral hostage.

XREF: Connects to game theory and commitment problems — hostage institutions and shared-ritual practices both solve credibility dilemmas.

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, loc. 313