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The West cannot ignore a determined Russian President any more as Moscow prepares for its next act on Ukraine

Catherine the Great, the 18th century Empress Regnant of Russia, once famously said, I have no way to defend my borders but to extend them. Under her reign, the empire continued to grow, encompassing New Russia (the region north of the Black Sea, now part of Ukraine), Crimea, the Caucasus, Belarus and the Baltic region. Empress Catherine, like many of her predecessors, saw a Russia, surrounded by ambitious powers, that was vulnerable to external threats. And her axiom continued to be a guiding principle for several of her famed successors, from Joseph Stalin, who defeated the Nazis and expanded the Soviet boundaries, to Vladimir Putin, who annexed Crimea in 2014 and has now mobilised some 100,000 troops on the Ukraine border.

Russia, the worlds largest country by land mass, lacks natural borders except the Arctic Ocean in the north and the Pacific in the far east. Its vast land borders stretch from northern Europe to Central and north east Asia. The countrys heartland that runs from St. Petersburg through Moscow to the Volga region lies on plains and is vulnerable to attacks. There are practically no natural barriers that stop an invading army from its western borders (Europe) reaching the Russian heartland. In the last two centuries, Russia saw two devastating invasions from the west the 1812 attack by Napoleonic France and the 1941 attack by Nazi Germany. Russia defeated them both, but after suffering huge material and human losses. After the Second World War, Russia re-established its control over the rim land in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, which it hoped would protect its heartland. But the disintegration of the Soviet Union threw its security calculations into disarray, deepening its historical insecurity. This insecurity is the source of what historian Stephen Kotkin calls the defensive aggressiveness of Russian President Putin.

Editorial | Talking to Russia: On Putin and NATO

When the Soviet Union collapsed, which Mr. Putin termed the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, Russia lost over three million square kilometres of sovereign territory. The entire rim land was gone, and the heartland lay vulnerable to future threats. In the last months of the Soviet Union, to calm the nerves of a badly hurt but still breathing Russian bear, the West promised that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would not expand an inch to the east. The United States and the United Kingdom repeated the pledge after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But despite the promises, NATO continued expansion. In March 1999, in the first enlargement since the end of the Cold War, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (all were members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact) joined NATO. Five years later, seven more countries including the three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, all of which share borders with Russia were taken into the alliance. Russia saw this as a direct challenge to its security. If in the early 1990s, NATOs border with Russia was limited to the northern strip of Norway, now, the distance from NATOs Estonian border to St. Petersburg, the second most populous city in Russia that was the Tsarist capital, is less than 160 kilometres.

Russia felt threatened but was not able to respond. For Mr. Putin, who inherited a weak state with a crumbling economy and a directionless foreign policy in 2000, the first job was to fix the state. But in 2008, when the U.S. promised membership to Georgia and Ukraine in the Bucharest summit, Russia, which was coming out of the post-Soviet retreat, responded forcefully. For the Kremlin, both Ukraine and Georgia are critical for its national security calculations. The distance from the Ukrainian border to Moscow is less than 500 kilometres. NATO has already come close to St. Petersburg. And if Ukraine joins the alliance, the heartland would come further under threat.

Moreover, take a look at the Black Sea, which traditional Russian rulers saw as a Russian lake. Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania, all Black Sea basin countries, are NATO members. Ukraine and Georgia are the other countries that share the Black Sea coast, besides Russia. Russia was already feeling squeezed on the Black Sea front, its gateway to the Mediterranean Sea. If Ukraine and Georgia also join NATO, Russia fears that its dominance over the Black Sea would come to an end. So, in 2008, Mr. Putin sent troops to Georgia over the separatist conflict in South Ossetia and Abkhazia; and in 2014, when the Kremlin-friendly regime of Ukraine was toppled by pro-western protesters, he moved to annex the Crimean peninsula, expanding Russias Black Sea coast, thereby protecting its fleet based in Sevastopol in Crimea. That was the loudest statement from Mr. Putin that Russia was ready to take unconventional measures to stop further NATO expansion into its backyard.

In recent years, Mr. Putin has tried to turn every crisis in the former Soviet region into a geopolitical opportunity for Russia. South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the self-proclaimed republics that broke away from Georgia, are controlled by Russia-backed forces. In Ukraine, the eastern Donbas region is in the hands of pro-Russian rebels. In 2020, when protests erupted in Belarus after a controversial presidential election, Mr. Putin sent assistance to the country to restore order. In the same year, Russia sent thousands of peacekeepers to end the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, re-establishing its strategic dominance in the Caucasus. Earlier this year, Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko, with Mr. Putins backing, manufactured a migrant crisis on the Polish border of the European Union. And this month, when violent unrest broke out in Kazakhstan, the largest and wealthiest country in Central Asia, its leader turned to Russia for help and a willing Mr. Putin immediately dispatched troops (under the banner of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, or CSTO) to quell the protests.

The geopolitical realities of the present also favour Russia. The U.S.s ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan has left the Central Asian republics deeper in the Russian embrace. While Europe is vocal in its rhetorical opposition to Russias aggressive moves, it is very much dependent on Russian gas, which limits its response. Moreover, the Wests inability to inflict any serious damage on Russia over its Crimea annexation appears to have emboldened Mr. Putin further.

For years, the West, the winner of the Cold War, discounted Mr. Putin as a thuggish tactician who does not understand strategy. Mr. Biden called him a killer after taking office last year. But when the Wests response to Russia was lost in what academic Walter Russell Mead called a narcissistic fog of grandiose pomposity, Mr. Putin was steadily rebuilding the lost Russian influence in the rim land. By destabilising Georgia and Ukraine and re-establishing Russias hold in Belarus, Caucasus and Central Asia, Moscow has effectively stalled NATOs further expansion into its backyard. The West cannot ignore him any more. Rather, it faces an urgent question of how to deter him as Russia is preparing for its next act on Ukraine.

Having failed to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, NATO is unlikely to pick a war with Russia over Ukraine. The Kremlin also knows this. One weapon that is readily available to western policymakers is more economic sanctions. But Mr. Putin, who has already deepened Russias ties with China, a Cold War rival, to balance against the Wests economic coercion, seems to be ready to pay the economic price, whatever little it is, to meet his strategic goals. This sets the stage for a perpetual crisis in the Russian rim land. Unless the West re-establishes its deterrence, Mr. Putins defensive aggression would continue.

stanly.johny@thehindu.co.in

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What Vladimir Putin really wants - The Hindu

On January 8, in a speech marking the 110th anniversary of the African National Congress (ANC), South African President and ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa underlined his partys determination to help resolve various political and developmental challenges across Africa.

He not only disclosed plans for the ANC to strengthen its support for parties working to entrench democracy in Sudan, Libya and South Sudan, but also reiterated his partys commitment to finding African solutions to ongoing conflicts in countries ranging from Mozambique and Lesotho to Sudan and Ethiopia.

That the ANC used the occasion of its anniversary to voice its dedication to promoting democracy and economic development generally in Africa, and particularly in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, is undoubtedly commendable.

Nevertheless, the ANCs continuing reluctance to honestly talk about, let alone do something to address, the economic and political crisis in neighbouring Zimbabwe despite it also having consequences for South Africa is raising questions about the sincerity of the partys self-declared resolve to find African solutions to African problems.

South Africas neighbour to the North suffered catastrophic economic policies and relentless oppression under Robert Mugabes rule for 38 years. And the land-locked country, which removed Mugabe from power in 2017, is still suffering from endemic corruption, uncontrolled inflation, stagnant salaries, widespread poverty and routine attacks on those calling for truly democratic governance and accountability under authoritarian President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

This permanent state of crisis has led hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans to seek better futures in other countries, and especially in South Africa, over the years.

The exact number of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa is not known, but estimates range from a few hundred thousand to more than two million.

About 180,000 Zimbabweans are currently in possession of a Zimbabwean Exemption Permit (ZEP) a visa that excludes its holders from requirements of South Africas immigration and refugee acts and allows them to freely work, study or conduct business in the country. But many more Zimbabwean nationals are believed to be residing and working in South Africa without any visa or work permit.

In recent years, as South Africas own economy started to stumble and its unemployment rate reached record levels, some segments of South African society started to blame the large number of Zimbabwean migrants living and working in the country for their economic struggles. As a result, small political parties that employed anti-migrant rhetoric, such as ActionSA and the Patriotic Alliance, performed surprisingly well in the November 2021 municipal election.

In response to this growing anti-migrant, and especially anti-Zimbabwean, sentiment, the ANC sprung into action. Soon after the municipal election, the ANC government announced its intention to end the ZEP visa scheme and told all permit holders that if they do not obtain a different visa or voluntarily leave South Africa by December 31, 2022, they will face deportation. As most ZEP holders do not have the necessary qualifications to switch to work or study visas, this means they will either remain in South Africa as irregular migrants, or return home to try and make a living in an economy in permanent crisis.

The decision to end the ZEP scheme is hardly in line with the ANCs self-declared commitment to help other African peoples overcome political, economic, and democratic challenges. Indeed, the move will only push more Zimbabweans into economic precarity and will do nothing to help resolve the crisis that caused them to migrate to South Africa in the first place.

If the ANC genuinely wants to be the unifying and results-oriented political party that President Ramaphosa purported it to be in his January 8 speech, it needs to abandon its populist anti-migrant policies, and even more crucially, it needs to stop ignoring the devastating political and economic crisis at its doorstep.

Unfortunately, South Africa is not the only country where the government is hellbent on denying the existence of a crisis in Zimbabwe. Indeed, the entire SADC seems willingly blind to the damage the Mnangagwa administration is inflicting on Zimbabwe and the wider region with its ineffective economic policies and oppressive governing methods.

As recently as October 2021 the SADC claimed that Zimbabwes problems are nothing but consequences of the prolonged sanctions imposed on the country by Western nations. The regional body further stated that sanctions are a fundamental constraint and hindrance to the countrys prospects of economic recovery, human security and sustainable growth.

This is an erroneous, and dangerous, take. It is not foreign powers that are keeping the country in a permanent state of crisis, but its own government. If the Mnangagwa government is allowed to blame all of the countrys ills on foreign powers, without taking any responsibility for its many, obvious and damaging mistakes and missteps, Zimbabwe can never get back on its two feet and stop being a challenge for the region.

However, even if Zimbabwes dilemmas and failings were solely the consequences of modern imperialist schemes, it would not be acceptable for the SADC countries to make a few supportive statements and abandon Zimbabwe to its fate. If Zimbabwe is still under an imperialist attack, then SADC countries should step forth and introduce comprehensive measures to help their besieged brothers and sisters in the country.

Indeed, it is time for SADC nations, led by South Africa, to propose African solutions to African problems and establish country-specific migrant quotas and formal procedures to help deal with the demanding Zimbabwean situation. While SADC leaders can preach about mysterious imperial plots and pretend there is no debilitating political crisis in Zimbabwe, they simply cannot do away with the victims of oppression and bad leadership on the ground: the hundreds of thousands of migrants compelled to seek sustainable economic opportunities and jobs in SADC countries, especially in South Africa.

Many are low-skilled migrants who require entry-level jobs in the farming, manufacturing, transport and hospitality industries. Some are skilled migrants who seek jobs in, among other sectors, education and health. Others are informal traders and small business owners who want to establish sustainable enterprises. Without SADCs formal support and interventions, however, many will remain enormously deprived and subject to exploitation.

Hence, in 2022, the SADC has two options. It can either stick with the narrative that Zimbabwes problems are caused solely by foreign plots, and continue to turn a blind eye to Zimbabwes governing party ZANU-PFs tyrannical policies and omnipresent failures. But it should accept that if it chooses this path, its member states, and especially South Africa, will continue to see thousands of irregular migrants rushing to their borders. Or the SADC can choose another path and take the necessary steps to promote democracy and support economic development in Zimbabwe by accepting and exposing the failures of the ZANU-PF.

The former liberation parties that dominate the SADCs ranks have to admit that regional inaction has clearly bolstered the often unruly and violent regime in Harare. African nationalism and historical considerations should not be used to mollify Zanu-PFs leadership and obfuscate its sheer brutality and established incompetence.

One of the SADCs crucial shortcomings is the failure to monitor and help rectify problematic developments in Zimbabwe (and elsewhere) in good time. The SADC, for instance, did not anticipate the November 2017 military takeover that deposed former President Robert Mugabe or the flawed elections that followed the bloodless coup, but it eagerly endorsed both developments.

Today, there are credible fears that the government and the Zimbabwe Election Commission are conspiring to limit new voter registrations for the 2023 general and presidential elections and the SADC, as usual, is silent on such an injustice.

Systematic voter suppression does not bode well for a nation desperate to hold free and fair elections and gather global support for an economic turnaround. In fact, it will certainly lead to more Zimbabwean migrants flocking to the adjacent countries that support Harares dubious modus operandi but are rather displeased by irregular migration.

Going forward, the SADC must pay extraordinary attention to Zimbabwe and steer it towards holding credible elections. After all, the SADC has a responsibility to advance common political values, systems and institutions and safeguard the wellbeing of all its citizens including Zimbabwes distressed migrants. And the ANC, which reinstated its commitment to supporting democracy and economic development in the region on January 8, should lead these efforts.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.

Excerpt from:
Its time for the SADC region to hold Zimbabwe to account - Al Jazeera English

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MISSION, Texas The crisis at the southern border, which has seen hundreds of thousands of migrants encountered at the border in recent months and has overwhelmed Border Patrol agents while causing a massive political headache for the Biden administration, shows little sign of slowing down amid concerns that there are further migrant groups on their way.

In a nighttime tour of the border near Mission, Texas, Fox News saw groups of migrants coming across, predominantly families, who were pointed in the direction of nearby processing areas.

SEN. BLACKBURN TOURS BORDER, SAYS CRISIS CANNOT CONTINUE AS SHE CALLS ON BIDEN TO STEP UP

Oct. 8, 2021: Texas law enforcement patrols the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

Border Patrol agents told Fox News that migrant family units were unlikely to be removed under Title 42 public health protections (only 19% of family units were removed under Title 42 in August) and instead would likely be processed and released into the interior potentially at a nearby bus station either that night or in the morning.

"Processing," one frustrated agent told Fox News, echoing a common complaint from agents that they aren't in the field. "Thats all we do, process."

MIGRANT CRISIS COULD BRING 1M PEOPLE TO US-MEXICO BORDER, GUATEMALAN ACTIVIST WARNS

The Biden administration ended the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) which kept migrants in Mexico as they awaited their immigration proceedings. Separately, they also ended asylum cooperative agreements (ACAs) which meant migrants would claim asylum in Northern Triangle countries instead.

With those changes, the administration has also ended the practice known as "catch and release," something the Trump administration had used a patchwork of policies to end. Now, while single adults are mostly still being removed from the U.S., migrant families are mostly allowed to enter the U.S. -- handed only a Notice to Appear at court or a Notice to Report to a nearby Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility.

Republicans have blamed the dramatic changes in policy, including the ending of border wall construction, for the surge in migration. More than 200,000 migrants were encountered in July and August, and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has reportedly warned of a worst-case scenario of 400,000 migrants hitting the border if Title 42 public health expulsions are ended.

The Biden administration, however, has blamed a mixture of Trump administration policies and "root causes" in Central America for the surge.

A sign pointing migrants toward processing centers.

"The downturn in economies, the attendant rise in violence, the downturn in economies made more acute by reason of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the suppression of any humanitarian relief over the past number of years, and the pent-up thirst for relief among many different populations," Mayorkas said in an interview this week. "I think an accumulation of factors contributes to the rise in migration that we've seen."

The dangers for migrants remain significant. Typically, they are dropped off by a smuggler -- who are typically paid around $10,000 per person -- at the Mexico side of the border. They walk across the brush for hours, where they face extreme heat, treacherous terrain and wildlife dangers like tarantulas and rattlesnakes, before they are then met by a smuggler on the U.S. side.

Migrants, however, frequently will get disorientated during the journey or injured, and can get lost. Border Patrol put up laminated signs directing migrants toward the processing centers to avoid more migrant deaths and injuries.

Oct 8, 2021: A fence damaged by migrants illegally crossing into the U.S.

One local official told Fox News that it can be difficult to prosecute smugglers as illegal immigrants are reluctant to testify against smugglers as they will often be offered a discount for repeat crossings.

Meanwhile, ranchers in the area told Fox News how migrants will wreck fences as they climb through their property, that gang activity is up in the area, and warned how deaths of migrants in the area are on their way back up to levels not seen since 2012.

"Its a huge disaster, disaster and Im right there so close to the border," one rancher told Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who visited a ranch in South Texas on Friday. "The drugs are coming across like you wouldnt believe, and they dont stay here -- they dont stay here at the border."

Blackburn also attended a briefing with local officials, including the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). There officials said that DPS alone had encountered 334 gang members from 88 different gangs this year alone, and there have been 35 violent conflicts in the south part of the states -- and that August had seen the highest number yet.

Officials talked about how the situation had been exacerbated by the Haitian migrant surge, where DPS put up a wall of cars to stop the surge of more than 15,000 migrants under the Del Rio bridge.

They are also taking preventative measures to deal with reports of up to 60,000 migrants coming up from Panama, as part of a broader push by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to contain the flood of migrants across the border.

"We dont have any clear information to suggest where they're going to go," one DPS official told the Republican senator. "Ive heard El Paso, I've heard Arizona, I've heard California."

Meanwhile, they have seen a dramatic increase in vehicular pursuits, with some parts seeing a 1000%+ increase in the number of vehicle pursuits -- often packed with illegal immigrants -- in over the same time last year.

The Trump-era border wall remains unfinished after the Biden administration put a stop to it. (Fox News)

Border Patrol agents told Fox that DPS help was invaluable, but also that its the type of thing they should be doing rather than the processing and caregiving duties they are frequently assigned. Both DPS and Border Patrol officials contrasted their respective morales, with DPS agents in good spirits contrasting with Border Patrol agents frustrated with what the federal government is making them do and the limits placed upon them.

Fox also visited the incomplete parts of the border wall, which had been constructed during the Trump administration, but had been put a halt to by the Biden administration. The towering wall sweeps along the border, before ending abruptly.

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On Friday, the administration announced the further cancellation of border wall contracts in Rio Grande Valley and Laredo, days after former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott had warned that it was at one ponts costing the U.S. $5 million a day not to build the wall.

A few days later, Fox News took footage of migrants walking past incomplete border wall construction in La Joya, Texas, something that has been seen numerous times this year.

Fox News' Bill Melugin contributed to this report.

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Border crisis overwhelming officials, communities as ...

On December 4, 2000, the United Nations declared December 18 as International Migrants Day. The U.N. did so to recognize the increasing number of migrants around the world and to reaffirm member nations commitments to migrants freedoms and human rights.

Nearly two decades later, compounding issues around the world have led to over 65 million people displaced abroad or within their own bordersthe most ever recorded by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR). In recognition of the complexity of this issue and the millions of people displaced around the world, we want to highlight what Brookings scholars are saying about the greatest challenges and successes in global migration today.

The state of refugees, migrants, and internally displaced people by the numbers

In an episode of the Brookings Cafeteria podcast earlier this year, Jessica Brandt, fellow in Institutional Initiatives, provided context on the scale of the global refugee crisis and identified steps that the United States and international community should take in order to provide relief. Citing data from a UNHCR report, Brandt pointed out that on average, 24 people per minute, per day worldwide were forced to flee their home in 2015. About 1 out of every 113 people worldwide were either asylum seekers, refugees, or internally displaced, and about half of the worlds refugee population was under the age of 18.

Two-thirds of the worlds displaced population actually remain within the borders of their own country, as Elizabeth Ferris, nonresident senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program, points out. In June, Ferris unpacked the numbers of global refugees, and noted that the internationally displaced populationwhich accounts for most of the growth in overall global displacementhas grown from 25 million in 1992 to 40.3 million in 2016 (although at least some of that increase is likely due to greater awareness of internal displacement and better tracking).

The Syrian civil war

After almost 7 years of civil war, half of Syrias population has been displaced, creating over 6 million refugees, about a third of the worlds total refugee population. Turkey hosts half of these refugees, with large numbers in Lebanon and Jordan, too, the frontline states on Syrias border. Lebanon hosts more than 1 million refugees, which amounts to more than one in five people in the country. In Jordan, that number is one in ten at least.

According to Brandt and co-author Robert McKenzie, large flows of displaced people into these neighboring states causes real strains. They note the sheer scale of the refugee crisis poses unparalleled humanitarian, economic, and political challenges in an already fragile region.

Many of these refugees have limited access to labor market opportunities, education, and other public goods and, according to Brandt and McKenzie, are often forced to work in the grey economy where they are vulnerable to exploitation. They write that lack of resources available for refugees, compounded by a myriad of legal, bureaucratic, and administrative challenges, makes it difficult for international NGOs to provide humanitarian assistance on-the-ground.

Just last week, Brookings hosted an event with a young Syrian refugee, Saria Samakie, who candidly discussed his story and experience as a refugee in America. In the short clip below, Samakie answers a question from the audience on when and under what conditions he believes people will begin to return to Syria.

Other crises around the globe

While Syria is understandably a focal point in the refugee crises, there are many other parts to the worlds migration story. We should not overlook the people attempting to cross the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy, Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar fleeing religious persecution into Bangladesh and India, and thousands of Dominicans stateless in the Caribbean, about each of which Brookings scholars have written.

After Syria, more refugees come from Afghanistan than any other country in the world. Many are in Pakistan, but in a recent analysis, Brookings Nonresident Fellow Madiha Afzal explains how over 600,000 have already repatriated back to a country that is still under attack by the Afghan Taliban. According to Afzal, this voluntary repatriation is often enforced through police extortion, bribery, and the confiscation of legal documents, and supported by Pakistans narrative that Afghan refugees are economic burdens, criminals, and terrorists.

Cities are on the frontlines and should be part of the solution

Now more than ever, refugees are going to cities and they are staying longer. Cities would like to step up and play an even bigger role in the U.N.s global compact on migration, but President Trump wants out, in the words of Jessica Brandt.

Brookings Centennial Scholar Bruce Katz and Jessica Brandt explain that many of the elements critical to an effective emergency response, as well as to long-term integration, are designed, delivered, and financed at the local level. Those elements include housing, healthcare, education, skills training, and social services of every sort.

Today, roughly 60 percent of the worlds 22 million refugees and 80 percent of the worlds internally displaced population reside in cities rather than in camps. This puts a heavy strain on cities, especially as the length of displacement increases. During the early 1990s, the average length of displacement was nine years. Today, it is roughly 20. At the end of last year, more than 11 million refugeestwo-thirds of the global totalwere in a protracted situation.

Brandt explains that cities need a seat at the table when developing an approach to the refugee and migrant crisis. She also argues that the UNHCR should incorporate towns and cities with sizeable refugee populations into the testing and development of new approaches. UNHCR should also encourage U.N. member states to engage in meaningful collaboration with municipal authorities by facilitating the flow of technical expertise and resources to towns and cities. Likewise, Brandt recommends that the international humanitarian community should develop ways to source innovative approaches to refugee integration directly from cities.

The politics of migration and the refugee crises

In his first year in office, President Trump has tried on multiple occasions to fulfill his campaign promise of a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. Brookings experts have written extensively (here, here, and here) on the different renditions of these travel bans, issued via executive order, as well as their battles in court. As it stands today, the Supreme Court has granted a full stay on the third version of Trumps executive order while its legality is being challenged in appeals courts.

Brookings scholars rebutted arguments that these orders are necessary to ensure the safety and security of Americans. As Brandt explained on the Brookings Cafeteria podcast in March, America already has an extremely thorough vetting system for refugees, and of the nearly 860,000 refugees resettled by the United States since 9/11 only three individuals have been convicted on terrorism-related charges (all were for plots outside of the United States and none were successful).

Nonetheless, Americans are split in their support for refugee resettlement within the United States. A survey conducted during the 2016 presidential race by Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Shibley Telhami showed that only 59 percent of Americans support the United States taking in refugees from conflict-prone areas in the Middle East after they have been screened for security risks. Studies also show that Europeans are more likely to be opposed to immigration than people from any other continent.

In contrast with some of President Trumps assertions from the campaign trail, David M. Rubenstein Fellow Dany Bahar illustrates the positive link between immigration and economic growth. Bahar explains that while immigrants represent about 15 percent of the general U.S. workforce, they account for around a quarter of entrepreneurs and a quarter of investors in the United States, and that over one-third of new firms have at least one immigrant entrepreneur in its initial leadership team.

Continued here:
Problems and solutions to the international migrant crisis

Of all the privileges that exist, the nation-state privilege is probably the most important, yet it is by far the privilege we talk about least.

The answer to the question of where you were born, and where you are resident, is decisive for your access to medical care and consumer goods, life expectancy and mobility. It is still better to be a half-Muslim, half-Jewish, Black, non-heterosexual, disabled resident of Tilburg, wool capital of The Netherlands, than a member of the middle class in, say, Helmand province in Afghanistan.

The extent of your right to mobility depends mainly on which passport you happened to hold, most likely through birth. Have a Dutch passport? You can travel to almost 170 countries without a visa. Those who have to travel with a Pakistani passport can travel visa-free to less than ten countries, from Haiti to The Gambia.

In his recently published bookthe German sociologist Steffen Mau describes how borders, as we know them, have only existed for a few centuries. In our own time, he explains, borders are increasingly functioning as sorting machines, separating 'desirable' from 'undesirable' human beings.

Covid may have made traveling somewhat more difficult for those with nation-state privilege, but with airlines predicting a return to the 4.5 billion passengers of the peak year of 2019, even if it takes a few years, that obstruction will also be temporary.

The bottom line is that the world can be divided in two: those who hold passports for superhumans (say, a U.S., UK, Australian, Canadian, or EU passport) and those who hold passports for the damned with the stateless condemned to even lower circles of torment.

Anyone who wants to understand anything of what has been called the migration crisis should keep this in mind. Because it elucidates how the distinction between so-called 'real refugees', 'economic refugees' and those whom Dutch right-wing politicians have called 'fortune seekers,' is wafer thin. When it comes to the reasons why people leave home and hearth, existential poverty is hardly distinguishable from the threat of war and persecution.

No matter how far back we go in human history, there were always compelling reasons for leaving family and homeland behind, if only because God compelled it. For example, God seems to have told Abraham: "Go from your country, your people and your fathers householdto the landI will show you."

Migration is not a crisis unless we are willing to call most of human history a crisis. The fact that we in Europe have come to use the term "migration crisis" is partly because casting migration in a hostile light is still one of the most effective propaganda instruments of right-wing extremist parties.

Whether Merkel's Willkommenskultur (her refugees welcome stance) contributed materially to the rise of the far right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, is unclear, but what is certain is that Merkel realized that the refugees and migrant issue as used by far-right parties could contribute to the disintegration of the EU. Eastern European member states, in particular, hold on to the old story of a homogeneous people rooted in an almost mythical way to the land on which they live.

Merkel's biggest task during her years as Chancellor was to keep the EU together without shaking her power base in Germany itself. The fact that she had to conclude an agreement on behalf of the EU with a semi-dictator like Turkeys Erdogan was of secondary importance. Erdogan did the dirty work for the EU; he had to keep refugees (read: migrants) away from Europe's external borders in exchange for cold cash. Merkel was not exercised very much about the plight of refugees in general, those tucked far away in Greece, for instance, as described in Ralph Bollmann's excellent biography.

Alexander Lukashenko, dictator of Belarus, saw that there was good business to do with the EU when it comes to refugees. Unlike Turkey and Libya, he didnt so much want cash to rid Europe of an artificial problem as much as he wanted the lifting of personal and national sanctions imposed after he forced a Ryanair flight to land in Minsk in May of this year, in order to arrest a Belarusian dissident.

Whether Lukashenko acted on Putin's orders, and whether there is a connection between the refugees in Belarus and the threat that Russia will intensify the war in and against Ukraine, is hardly relevant to a better understanding of the 'migration crisis.'

Far more pertinent is the fact that the EU can be serially blackmailed by the threat of a refugee influx, because of the fear that the far right will gain more popularity as soon as refugees are back on the front pages of European newspapers again.

In order to increase the pressure on the EU, Lukashenko invited Iraqis, among others, to fly to Minsk for a fee of $3-4000 and stay in a hotel for a few days, with the implicit promise that they could then wander on down into the EU. The average income in Iraq is about $4000 a year. Within the domain of the damned, it is always the slightly privileged who make the crossing they have the means and the mental and physical strength to do so. For those left behind, the hope of a better life is usually the hope of an afterlife.

The Polish-Belarusian border, where those refugees were stranded, is in a region historian Timothy Snyder has described as "bloodlands"; places where both Hitler and Stalin committed their greatest mass murders. They have seen it all before.

Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, has stated that the EU will not finance barbed wire and walls to mark and fortify its external borders. But the Polish parliament has already allocated 350 million euros to build a wall with or without money from the EU. A wall that, if it will even be built, will be visual noise, but with only symbolic effect. Whoever has the burning desire for a better life will always find holes in a wall.

Can people be asked to share their nation-state privileges with the less privileged? In theory, yes, of course, but in practice, I fear that the vast majority of people are not willing to make any sacrifices for more justice.

It is true that the sacrifice can be forced, but in democracies there is a danger that this enforcement will be punished in the next elections. Bertolt Brecht already wrote that it is a pity that the government can be dissolved, but the people cannot. Since we are still left with imperfect peoples, the idealist must choose: remain theoretically idealist, become a dictator, or try to convince the people although past results arent very encouraging.

Ironically, Lukashenko's actions seem to have strengthened the unity of the EU. Merkel, before she left office, already complimented Belarus' EU neighbors for their actions. The EU is, of course, a community of values and standards, but east of Berlin and south of Palermo those values and standards are gone, because values and standards, like the weather, are a relatively local matter.

As to whether the human sacrifice of the refugees in the Mediterranean and along the Polish-Belarusian border, as well as the flimsy deals with Turkey and Libya, were a reasonable price for preserving the EU, future historians will determine. It is certain that the abuses of, for example, Frontex, the EU border police (such as pushbacks and violations of international law), about which among other outlets Der Spiegel has reported, are nowhere to be found in debates on essential themes, anywhere.

Since there is no police force at the borders to enforce international law, international law does not exist out there, on the periphery of the EU's community of values and standards.

Stopping relatively small numbers of refugees and migrants is in fact the preventive expulsion of the scapegoat, before that scapegoat has been able to reach the center of the community. In his ever-inspiring study "The Scapegoat," French literary scholar and historian Ren Girard argues that the myth always conceals "collective violence" against "a real victim." The blame for the crisis is projected onto the victims of the persecution, and they must therefore be expelled before they can pollute the community.

Little has changed about that. Behind the myth of the migration crisis hides collective violence against real victims. The perpetrators of that violence, who in Germany attack refugees and asylum seekers on a regular basis,and the profiteers off the refugees misery, try to cleanse themselves by means of that myth. But international humanism also has its mythical sides and is, in any case, powerless without a world police, which will not come into being, for now.

The community of values and standards called the EU, which wanted to outsource warfare to America, makes modest human sacrifices in order not to endanger its own survival too much. That is the truth of the 'migration crisis.' The rest is mythology.

Democracy, the rule of law and the international community are what should save us. But they are gods in which fewer and fewer people believe.

Arnon Grunbergis the author of the recent novels "Occupied Territories" and "Good Men." As a reporter he has been embedded with, among others, Dutch and German troops in Afghanistan and American troops Iraq, in a nursing home in Flanders, a circus in Amsterdam, a massage parlor in Romania and slaughter houses in Germany and the Netherlands. He was born in Amsterdam and lives and works in New York.Twitter:@arnonyy

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Superhumans, scapegoats and the far right: Busting the myth of Europe's 'migrant crisis' - Haaretz