Some national security experts even muse about whether the U.S. government should declare that it will not bargain for the release of anyone who disregards warnings against visiting Russia, Iran, North Korea and other high-risk countries.
At this point, I’m in favor of this. If you’re visiting Russia or North Korea (or Iran or Belarus) in the year 2024, it shouldn’t be the responsibility of the US state department to rescue you.
It’s not like Italy or South Africa or Brazil or New Zealand (or even the more autocratic European countries Hungary and Türkiye) are going to snatch up Americans as bargaining chips. It’s just a very short list of totalitarian states that you’d have to be an idiot to visit anyways.