In-Depth Briefing: The Weaponisation of Migration

IN-DEPTH BRIEFING // #85 // JANUARY 25

AUTHOR

Major Luke Turrell Directing Staff, Land Command and Staff College

The Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research is the British Army’s think tank and tasked with enhancing the conceptual component of its fighting power. The views expressed in this In Depth Briefing are those of the author, and not of the CHACR, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Ministry of Defence, British Army or US Army. The aim of the briefing is to provide a neutral platform for external researchers and experts to offer their views on critical issues. This document cannot be reproduced or used in part or whole without the permission of the CHACR. www.chacr.org.uk

THE WEAPONISATION OF MIGRATION: A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER TO THE UK

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S a clear disclaimer, this is not an InDepth Briefing about migration.

It’s an article that recognises the growing political impact of migration as one of the most influential political issues across the world and the increase in the causal factors that drive it. Conflict and the effects of climate change are dramatically increasing migration and organised criminal groups are exploiting migration for financial gain. More significantly, migration is being weaponised by hostile state actors seeking to polarise and subvert the political landscape in the UK and across Europe.

As a result, migration, or more accurately the mitigation of the effects of migration, is

increasingly a defence and security issue. And, as such, at a time when the Strategic Defence Review is focusing on the conventional threat of Russia in eastern Europe, the unconventional but potentially more invidious threats should be resourced and prioritised appropriately.

The UK policy of police primacy dictates that the defence of UK political stability is best, and most effectively, delivered through increased intelligence and operational policing rather than by soldiers, sailors and aviators. However, this is to treat the symptoms, rather than the cause. A more strategic approach would see the UK identify where large, youthful populations, conflict and the greatest impact

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of climate change coincide, for example in the band of countries in the Sahel, and support regional governments to provide local solutions. This would also serve to reduce the demand that ruthless organised crime and state actors exploit. This is likely to be Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office focused but may include Army capacity building by units such as the Army Special Operations Brigade and the Ranger Regiment. Equally, the UK should seek to reduce climate change where possible by pursuing the aims of the 2030 Strategic Framework for International Climate and Nature Action.

POLITICAL IMPACT OF MIGRATION Immigration was a central theme of the 2024 US election campaign.

IN-DEPTH BRIEFING // THE WEAPONISATION OF MIGRATION Donald Trump was re-elected on the promise of delivering mass deportations, restricting refugee and asylum seeker entry, and expanding the Mexican border wall. 78 per cent of Americans considered immigration through the Mexican border to be either a ‘crisis’ or a ‘major problem’ according to a Pew survey. Whilst this reflected Americans’ sense of their broken immigration system, it is telling that the issue crossed the increasingly polarised political spectrum – 73 per cent of Democrats agreed.

This is a pattern also seen across Europe. Analysis by the Centre for Economic Policy Research shows that concerns over cultural clashes, economic competition and the fiscal costs as a result of migration have contributed to the increase in nationalist and antiimmigration right-wing parties.

Oxford Open Economics noted that politics, policies and political discourse are increasingly shaped by immigration issues, with a particular impact on law and order, social security and international relations: “In the European Union, one election after another has demonstrated the centrality of irregular migration and border security in public discussions.”

The Brookings Institution noted a “notable shift in tone on migration” with the European Parliament, French, Austrian and three German state elections demonstrating a more “securitized, hardline approach”.

This is echoed, to a lesser extent, in the UK. The previous Conservative Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, emphasised one of his five missions was to ‘stop the boats’, a focus reinforced by the passing of the Illegal Migration Bill and the determination to send illegal migrants to Rwanda.

The Conservative Party’s poor result in the UK General Election may suggest this was not widely supported across the UK although economic factors inevitably played a part, whilst a YouGov poll of Tory members suggested the largest factor was due to in-fighting and party disunity. Nevertheless, the official Home Office figures that show that the department spent £8.3 million per day to house asylum seekers in hotels demonstrate the pressure on government resources. As does the increase in the EU Frontex budget. The border and coast guard agency increased its budget from €19 million in 2006 to more than €750 million by 2022.

In short, migration across the world is one of the largest and most influential political issues and one that is driving polarisation and discord within the political narrative. Four factors can be identified to be driving this: climate change, human trafficking, conflict and the deliberate use of migration as a weapon.

CLIMATE CHANGE The World Meteorological Organisation’s State of the Global Climate report in September 2024 noted the warming trend in Africa was more rapid than the global average and estimated that, by 2030, up to 118 million people across Africa will suffer drought, floods and extreme heat.

In 2023, Tunisia and Morocco experienced record temperatures of 49°C and 50.4°C respectively whilst Mali, Morocco, Tanzania and Uganda reported the hottest year on record. Meanwhile, flooding in parts of Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia led to 2.4 million displaced people whilst the worst drought in 40 years in Zambia affected approximately six million people. North Africa’s cereal production was nearly 10 per cent below the five year average, with a direct impact

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on food production. The World Meteorological Organisation Secretary-General, Celeste Saulo, noted that in 2023 and 2024 across Africa “extreme events led to devastating impacts on communities... [which] exacerbates an already desperate humanitarian crisis”.

Meanwhile, the UN predicts Africa’s population will grow to nearly 2.5 billion by 2050, a 63 per cent increase, which would mean that the African population will constitute more than one in four people globally. The clear message is that the enduring effect, as an increasingly large number of people seek safety and stability, will be an increase in net migration out of Africa.

CONFLICT In addition, conflict across Africa and across the world remains a driving factor in forced migration. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs agency estimates that about 1.9 million people in Gaza have been displaced whilst the Civil War in Sudan is estimated to have displaced more than 10 million people. The International Organisation for Migration’s World Migration Report 2024 noted that the number of

IN-DEPTH BRIEFING // THE WEAPONISATION OF MIGRATION

displaced individuals due to conflict and other causes is the highest it has ever been at 117 million. There can be little doubt that the trend of increasing conflicts and their effect on migration will continue in 2025.

HUMAN TRAFFICKING This increasing demand is being ruthlessly exploited by transnational organised crime organisations. In September and October 2024, Interpol’s Operation Liberterra II led to 2,517 arrests globally, of which 850 directly related to human trafficking and migrant smuggling. As a result the Interpol Secretary General stated “this operation highlights the vast scale of the challenge facing law enforcement”. In the same month, The Daily Telegraph reported that hundreds of migrants had been detained and more than 30 people smugglers were arrested on the ‘soft’ border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

And in December 2024, the UK National Crime Agency, in conjunction with French and German colleagues, targeted an Iraqi people-smuggling network by seizing inflatable boats, engines and lifejackets that had been stored in Germany before being transported to France for crossings. These examples demonstrate the increased attention and resources that law enforcement organisations are applying to migrant smugglers.

Equally, this suggests that such arrests likely represent merely

the tip of a very large, brutal and hugely profitable iceberg.

MIGRATION AS A WEAPON Beyond organised crime exploiting personal suffering for financial gain is the use of migration as a political tool by states. Kelly Greenhill’s book, Weapons of Mass Migration, highlights that, far from being a new tactic, the use of migration as an instrument of state influence has been used more than 50 times in the past 50 years, often successfully.

She concludes the strategy of “coercion by punishment” has been used to threaten to overwhelm a state’s capacity to accommodate a migrant influx. In 2010 Muammar Gaddafi demanded €5 billion per year from the European Union to prevent migration into Europe, a solution that helped improve the political standing of Libya, despite the fact that research indicates that he helped to cause that migration in the first instance.

Greenhill further identifies that liberal democracies’ respect for rights and open democratic debate makes them particularly vulnerable to this tactic. And states under climate, demographic and conflict pressure may increasingly use turning on/off domestic migration controls as a mechanism to gain political concessions from neighbouring and richer European nations.

Migration as a weapon was

exploited recently and most transparently by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in 2020 when he imported refugees from the Middle East with the intent of pushing them across the Polish border to destabilise the EU through uncontrollable migration flows.

NATO is increasingly recognising Russia’s attempts to destabilise and intimidate European nations as a means of mitigating its own weaknesses. Sabotage, cyberattacks, disinformation and energy blackmail are its current tools, but they may yet turn increasingly to migration.

CONCLUSION The political influence and impact of migration globally is significant and rapidly increasing.

Factors such as climate change, the effect of conflict, organised migrant gangs and, conversely a global border security industry worth more than $65 billion, indicate that it will not decrease without greater political focus and resources. The recent UKGerman joint action plan on irregular migration seems to be a step in the right direction.

The plan includes changes to German domestic law and the removal of bureaucratic barriers to enable greater co-operation and operational impact. More broadly, greater intelligence and security resources to understand the transnational dynamics of legal and illegal trade and share information on trafficking routes between countries will likely have a significant effect.

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Equally, the UK and its allies should dedicate more resources to resolving, rather than simply managing, conflicts such as the ongoing civil wars in Sudan and Syria. Whilst humanitarian aid is critical to reduce human suffering, dedicated political and diplomatic efforts to resolve conflict will likely reduce the consequential displacement and migration. The challenge, for an increasingly debt-ridden Europe in an era of polycrisis, is to justify expenditure on solving international problems instead of addressing education, health or social issues at home.

Perhaps the greatest mechanism for addressing the root causes and reducing the political impact of migration is to address climate change. Research has identified numerous response measures that, if enacted quickly and widely, can dramatically reduce the likelihood of drought, floods and extreme heat throughout Africa and across the world. Sadly, progress on addressing climate change is painfully slow, which contrasts with the speed of the effects, including rising migration.

The UK, the US and nations throughout Europe will continue to suffer the political fallout of increased migration caused by dramatic climate change, increased human trafficking, proliferating conflict and the deliberate use of migration as a weapon. All are complex, ‘wicked’ problems but the UK and its allies must address the causes, rather than the tragic, horrific symptoms, of illegal migration.