Humanizing Migrants

IMMIGRATION IMMIGRATION

Vladimir Putin specializes in turning refugees into pawns. Amid the mass migration from Ukraine, Europe must learn how to handle the push and pull of conflict.

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali

For the past three decades, Europe’s leaders have pursued a noble strategy to prevent conflict using trade, aid, and diplomacy. But their reliance on soft power has had an unintended consequence: it has left them divorced from reality.

Soft-power tools are honorable and often pragmatic methods of conflict prevention and, at times, resolution. Just look at America’s Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after the Second World War, or the foreign aid provided today by the wealthy West to smaller and poorer nations.

However, as we now see, it is deluded to conclude that evil men can be stopped by soft power alone. In the months since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Europeans have been reminded of the necessity of having a wellfunded and well-trained military.

But a key battlefield in the conflict playing out in Ukraine continues to be overlooked: immigration policy. This is, of course, nothing new: just as soft

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and the founder of the AHA Foundation. Her latest book is Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights (Harper, 2021).

power has been divorced from hard power, so immigration policy has been divorced from national security, even though it has been a destabilizing factor in Europe for at least a decade.

Both sides of the immigration equation—the push and pull factors—dramatically affect Europe’s national security. The flow of immigrants from Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia remains a source of civil unease. Social cohesion and national identity have become incendiary issues in polling stations across Europe. Intolerance towards immigrants is high and extremist parties remain popular. At the same time, radical Islamist extremism and the constant threat of terrorism still linger.

Add to this the burden on local resources—on housing, health care, education, and policing—and it’s hardly surprising that the status quo exacerbates resentment towards immigrants while undermining trust in the political class. It is no accident that Putin and other adversaries have been using misinformation and disinformation to support anti-immigrant parties and other groups on the far right.

What is less well-known, however, is how immigrants have become a tool of war—one that is increasingly deployed by cruel, inhumane autocrats such as Putin.

Hybrid warfare includes the abuse of migrant flows as a weapon to blackmail Europe.

HUMAN SHIELDS

Since the start of this conflict, millions of Ukrainians have crossed into neighboring countries; according to the EU’s warnings, that figure could rise to seven million. To put that in perspective, when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, roughly 1.5 million Ukrainians were displaced. But even then, there was no exodus to the EU; the refugees simply relocated to other regions within the country. This time, however, it’s unclear if Putin will leave any Ukrainian territory for them to flee to.

And make no mistake: this is all part of his plan. Indeed, Putin has become the world’s leading advocate of hybrid warfare. In 2016, American general Philip Breedlove, head of NATO forces in Europe, recognized this, warning that “Russia and the Assad regime are deliberately weaponizing migration from Syria.”

In recent years, Libya is where Putin has pursued his most fierce—and secret—weaponization of migrants. There, Russia exploits its increased

WHERE TO NOW? A migrant carrying a child waits in a camp in the Grodno region, near the Belarusian-Polish border, last November. Large numbers of migrants, in a flow encouraged by Belarus, have been shunted through Belarus in attempts to cross into Poland. Abuses have been reported on both

sides of the border. [Oksana Manchuk—Belta]

presence by collaborating with militias to foster and facilitate crippling migrant flows into Europe. By deploying Russia’s “private” military companies in the region, Putin all but controls the most significant routes for mass migration from Africa and the Middle East to Europe, and therefore has the power to cripple economies and sow societal division.

Take Khalifa Hafar, the commander of the Libyan National Army, a nominal national force that is really an amalgamation of local militias. Hafar is currently trying to rebrand himself as Libya’s next president, but in reality is nothing more than a Russian-speaking warlord who benefits from the support of at least 1,500 Russian mercenaries associated with the Wagner Group.

What would drive Putin to dirty his hands in the chaotic, tribal world of North African politics? As Mark Grey, adjunct professor at the US Army War College, has observed: “Large tribes control vast territories in the region, operate beyond the control of nation-states, and ignore borders. Just as Italy

pays militias to curtail migration from western Libya, Russia can pay tribes and militias to just as easily encourage and facilitate migration as control it.”

AN URGENT REASON TO START OVER

The impact on the West must not be ignored, and neither must the failure of our leaders to recognize it. Europe needs immigrants and immigrants need Europe. Years ago, as this mutual need became apparent, European leaders could have developed a rational system to manage the issue. Instead, they found themselves unable to break an ideological impasse: one moment, they issued virtue-signaling declarations of solidarity and compassion for It’s no accident that Vladimir Putin immigrants; the next, has been using disinformation to they made panic-stricken support anti-immigrant parties. concessions to populist parties. How else should we characterize former German chancellor Angela Merkel’s 2015 wild reception of Syrian refugees, followed just a year later by her €6 billion deal with the president of Turkey after he threatened to open the floodgates?

For too long, Europe has maintained a contradictory stance towards mass migration from poor countries, lurching from compassionate rhetoric about asylum seekers to the development of an elaborate and ineffective system of migration management. But as the recent months—indeed, the recent years—have shown, with the advent of hybrid warfare and the abuse of migrant flows as a weapon to blackmail Europe, it is time not only to review minor features of the existing system but to overhaul the entire framework.

What needs to happen is not easy, but it is clear. Some of the measures we should take have dominated discussion for years but have yet to gar- Europe needs immigrants and imminer widespread political grants need Europe. support. For instance, for all the outcry they inspire in Western countries, border walls and fences do have their uses. When used appropriately, they deter not only crime syndicates and human traffickers but also aggressive autocrats such as Putin. If EU countries had a functioning immigration system, the Kremlin’s use of hybrid warfare would be rendered ineffective.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has created a unique opportunity to challenge all the untouchable positions of European policy. A few short months ago,

it was unthinkable to have a serious conversation in Germany about the retention of nuclear energy. Now, faced with the stark reality that energy is inseparable from national security and that it is foolish to depend on Russia, we are witnessing a welcome change in attitude.

The same must happen with immigration policy. Yes, there must always be a place for compassion—and it’s encouraging to see the European Union and Britain welcome Ukrainian refugees where they Border walls and fences do have their can. But if we really want uses. They deter not only criminals to incapacitate Putin, that but also aggressive autocrats like won’t be enough. Putin. We need to simplify the international and European treaties that govern migration flows and those seeking asylum. And as the current crisis demonstrates, this requires the West to integrate immigration policy into the broader national security agenda. It should be an issue for the defense departments, rather than interior and justice civil servants. Whether we like it or not, mass immigration is now a military weapon. And it should be treated as such.

Reprinted by permission of UnHerd (www.unherd.com). © 2022 UnHerd. All rights reserved.

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