Country held hostage by learned cheat (8)
I believe the answer is:
womanise
'cheat' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are verbs in their base form.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'country held hostage by learned' is the wordplay.
'country' becomes 'oman' (Oman is an example).
'held hostage by' is an insertion indicator (inserted letters are held hostage).
'learned' becomes 'wise' (I've seen this before).
'oman' inserted within 'wise' is 'WOMANISE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for womanise that I've seen before include "turn to the ladies" , "Philander" .)