As stresses of mass migration in Europe build, a Washington think-tank claims that an army of 450,000 men are needed to stop the seismic turbulence in the Middle East, writes Max Hastings.
Could this lead to WAR in Europe? Apocalyptic, yes. But even if conflict can be avoided, MAX HASTINGS says unchecked mass migration will make Europe unrecognisable
Predictions claim the seismic turbulence in the Middle East will continue
Washington think-tank claims an army of 450,000 men needed to stop it
Unprecedented stress of migration in Europe could lead to outright war
By Max Hastings For The Daily Mail
19 March 2016
Daily Mail
Last week in Washington, I met an old friend who is one of the smartest strategy wonks I know. His business is crystal ball-gazing.
During our conversation, he offered some speculations about what could happen to our world over the next decade or two which made my hair stand on end.
He predicts that the seismic turbulence in the Middle East will continue, and indeed worsen, unless or until the West is willing to commit stabilisation forces to the region. He calculates that an army of the order of magnitude of 450,000 men would be necessary, to have any chance of success.
As mass migration pressures on Europe grow, a Washington think-tank predicts that it will take an army of 450,000 to have any chance of ending the seismic turbulence in the Middle East. Riot police stand guard in front of a migrant reception centre in Roszke, Hungary, September 2015
Claimed that war within our continent is not impossible before the middle of the century. Migrants warming on a fire beside railroad tracks in the Idomeni refugee camp at the Greek-Macedonia border on March 18
In the absence of such an effort — for which he admits the political will does not exist on either side of the Atlantic, and is unlikely to do so in the future — he believes that the tidal wave of migration to Europe from the Middle East and Africa will continue, with consequences much greater and graver than any national leader has yet acknowledged.
He suggested that war within our continent is not impossible before the middle of the century, as southern European nations are swamped by incomers, and Greece stands first in line to become a failed state.
We can defer for a moment the question of whether my friend’s most frightening scenarios are likely to be fulfilled.
What was sobering about our conversation is that here was an uncommonly well-informed man who believes that the earthquakes shaking the Middle East, together with the scale of economic migration from Africa, could undo all our comfortable assumptions about the stability of the society in which we live, including our confidence that Europe has turned its back on war for ever.
The most obvious lesson of history is that events and threats always take us by surprise.
Consider the shocks we have experienced in modern times. Almost nobody expected the Irish Troubles; the Argentine invasion of the Falklands; the collapse of the Soviet Union; the dramatic rise of Muslim extremism; the 9/11 attacks in New York and 7/7 bombings in London; the global banking disaster of 2007-8; the break up of the Middle East that began with the 2003 Iraq invasion.
I never cease to be amazed by the continuing willingness of institutions all over the world to pay fat fees for speeches from the American academic Francis Fukuyama, who in 1992 published a ridiculous best-seller entitled The End Of History, which proclaimed that liberal democracy and free-market capitalism were now triumphant and unassailable, having shown their superiority to all alternatives.
The most obvious lesson of history is that events and threats always take us by surprise. A refugee (centre) is hit with a belt by a man as he is dragged by fellow refugees to the police, accusing him of abusing a young girl, at a makeshift camp at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni
Refugees react during a protest asking for the opening of borders at a makeshift camp at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni, Greece, March 18
Tens of millions of people in Africa, too, aspire to move to Europe in search of a better life, and huge numbers are already crossing the Mediterranean via Libya, Algeria and Tunisia
Everything that has happened since shows that Fukuyama was as wrong as could be. Across large swathes of the globe, authoritarian regimes flourish like the green bay tree. Democracy has never looked rockier, even in the United States.
My think-tank friend in Washington observed last week: ‘Democracy only works where there is a broad consensus about the distribution of wealth and power.’ And it is because this consensus faces unprecedented stresses in consequence of migration in Europe, that he believes some factions may resort to violence, even outright war.
It seems foolish to dismiss this warning out of hand. The threat posed by mass population movement is huge and intractable, and it is hard to have much faith in the deal struck yesterday between the EU and Turkey which seeks to halt the huge numbers reaching the shores of Greece.
What it will actually mean is that 77 million Turks will have the right to travel all the way to Calais unhindered should they so wish.
Tens of millions of people in Africa, too, aspire to move to Europe in search of a better life, and huge numbers are already crossing the Mediterranean via Libya, Algeria and Tunisia.
The entire Middle East is in a ferment, and it is impossible to see any reason why peace should be restored any time soon. This week, President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia’s forces are beginning to withdraw from Syria, where their aircraft have been conducting a murderous bombing campaign against rebels fighting the Kremlin’s client, President Bashir Assad.
The entire Middle East is in a ferment, and it is impossible to see any reason why peace should be restored any time soon
There are signs that the Kurds and Iraqis are making headway in the struggle against Islamic State which, sooner or later, will probably collapse. Children play on a pile of gravel at the northern Greek border point of Idomeni, Greece, March 18
Western governments are pondering the implications of this surprise move. British analysts think Putin judges that his air strikes have put Assad in a position to negotiate from relative strength. Yet whether he stays in power or goes, it is hard to believe that Syria will again function as a single state.
Most likely it will fragment as Libya has fragmented, with rival factions continuing to contest territory. There are no ‘good guys’ in Syria, which makes it hard to anticipate an end to the violence which has driven millions to quit their homes.
There are signs that the Kurds and Iraqis are making headway in the struggle against Islamic State which, sooner or later, will probably collapse. Yet such is the fervour of Muslim extremism across the region that some successor movement is sure to arise, with terrorist branches making mayhem in the West.
Meanwhile, the Saudis and Iranians are fiercely fighting each other through proxy forces in Yemen, while Turkey’s stability is under threat from millions of Syrian refugees on its soil, from Kurdish separatist violence, and from the erratic governance of its own despotic leader, President Erdogan.
Arguably the most sinister symptom of this vast region’s troubles is the flight of money.
I attended a bankers’ meeting this week at which much of the gossip was about the desperate flight of the rich, together with their money, from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and in lesser degree the UAE. Many of those able to liquidate assets and move them to Europe or America are doing so. They fear for the stability of local regimes, and also anticipate more inter-state wars.
Strife will continue, and spread across the Middle East. There is no single, over-arching course of action open to the U.S. or Nato governments that can resolve this alarming state of affairs. It can only be addressed piecemeal, through local diplomatic initiatives and modest military assistance.
For instance, though the West cannot promise the Kurds the independent state they crave in northern Iraq, it can at least provide them with sufficient military aid to resist ISIS, while at the same time seeking to persuade the Turks to stop bombing Kurdish forces.
For their part, the U.S. and European governments are doing their best to avert a military showdown between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
They must also face up to the need to bargain with Russia for a dirty deal that will at least curb the violence in Syria, and drive back the forces of ISIS, even if the odious Assad continues for a time to crow on his dunghill.
Strife will continue, and spread across the Middle East. Migrants are escorted by police through fields towards a holding camp in the village of Dobova on October 26, 2015 in Rigonce, Slovenia
The people on these odysseys are driven by motivations and passions more intense than most of us can imagine
None of this amounts to a ‘solution’, which does not exist, but it may at least help to contain the chain of crises.
We should recognise that the old state borders of most of the embattled countries, notably including Iraq and Libya, are almost certainly defunct. They will fragment into statelets dominated by the local tribe or warlord.
Moreover, it is hard to see any course of action that can stem the flow of migrants to the West, the foremost concern for most of the people who inhabit our continent. Only a proportion of the incomers are fleeing from the immediate consequences of violence. A far larger number, according to every survey conducted in Europe, come from places where there is no war. They simply seek better lives.
The physical difficulties of preventing them from coming are immense. When they are plucked from sinking boats in the Mediterranean, human rights law and the cynical attitude of North African governments make it almost impossible to return them to their ports of embarkation.
The people on these odysseys are driven by motivations and passions more intense than most of us can imagine. They see our societies offering a wealth and security unimaginable in their homelands. They embrace the most desperate dangers to reach our shores.
At present, the governments of Europe have no credible and coherent policies for checking or halting the flood, beyond creating some frail fences on the Eastern margins.
Mass migration now poses the gravest threat to Europe’s stability and tranquillity since the end of the Cold War, and arguably since 1945.
Unless it is checked, over the coming decades it promises to change the character and make-up of all our societies on a scale to make past immigration seem trivial.
One policy to which David Cameron’s government is rightly committed is to work to ameliorate the conditions of refugees and economic migrants in their own countries, or at least nearby. Britain is a generous donor to the UN’s international refugee programmes.
It would be naïve to imagine that aid alone can stem the migration tide, but it can help.
Mass migration now poses the gravest threat to Europe’s stability and tranquillity since the end of the Cold War, and arguably since 1945. Migrants sit on a rescue boat during a rescue operation of migrants by Italian Navy vessels in this March 18
Those of us bitterly critical of Cameron’s insistence on ring-fencing the foreign aid budget might feel better if our money was directed squarely and explicitly to countries from which the principal refugee flow is coming, both in Africa and the Middle East.
Of course, the West cannot aspire to enable Nigerians, Ethiopians or Afghans to enjoy the standard of living that exists in west London.
But we must do everything in our power to diminish the incentives for migration. Fences and border controls at Calais will not suffice.
None of the answers is easy. This crisis can only grow in the months and years ahead. Leaving the EU may well help Britain to control its borders, but will not alone solve this historic problem.
The principal charge against Europe’s leaders today is that none of them, including David Cameron, has begun to come clean with us about the enormity of the challenge.
Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared a towering figure until August, when she made her disastrous unilateral commitment to open her country’s doors.
None of the answers is easy. This crisis can only grow in the months and years ahead. Leaving the EU may well help Britain to control its borders, but will not alone solve this historic problem
We must do everything in our power to diminish the incentives for migration. Fences and border controls at Calais will not suffice
Today some EU members, especially in the east, are striving to reverse the consequences of this policy, and to stem the flow. They are achieving only limited success: it is frightening to behold the numbers of newcomers pouring into Greece and Italy.
I have no doubt that after reading all this, a spokesman for the compassion industry would demand: where is your human sympathy for the millions suffering terribly in their own societies? Fair enough. My words sound harsh. But I would in turn ask that spokesman: where should human sympathy stop?
We are witnessing the beginning — and it is only the beginning — of a game-changing shift of populations, which if it continues unchecked will over the next half-century change all our societies for ever.
Maybe our children’s generation will be content to live with such a transformation. Maybe we can avoid the wars my friend in Washington fears. But our politicians should at least be telling the nation just how profound the coming upheaval threatens to be.
Could this lead to WAR in Europe? Apocalyptic, yes. But even if conflict can be avoided, MAX HASTINGS says unchecked mass migration will make Europe unrecognisable
Predictions claim the seismic turbulence in the Middle East will continue
Washington think-tank claims an army of 450,000 men needed to stop it
Unprecedented stress of migration in Europe could lead to outright war
By Max Hastings For The Daily Mail
19 March 2016
Daily Mail
Last week in Washington, I met an old friend who is one of the smartest strategy wonks I know. His business is crystal ball-gazing.
During our conversation, he offered some speculations about what could happen to our world over the next decade or two which made my hair stand on end.
He predicts that the seismic turbulence in the Middle East will continue, and indeed worsen, unless or until the West is willing to commit stabilisation forces to the region. He calculates that an army of the order of magnitude of 450,000 men would be necessary, to have any chance of success.
As mass migration pressures on Europe grow, a Washington think-tank predicts that it will take an army of 450,000 to have any chance of ending the seismic turbulence in the Middle East. Riot police stand guard in front of a migrant reception centre in Roszke, Hungary, September 2015
Claimed that war within our continent is not impossible before the middle of the century. Migrants warming on a fire beside railroad tracks in the Idomeni refugee camp at the Greek-Macedonia border on March 18
In the absence of such an effort — for which he admits the political will does not exist on either side of the Atlantic, and is unlikely to do so in the future — he believes that the tidal wave of migration to Europe from the Middle East and Africa will continue, with consequences much greater and graver than any national leader has yet acknowledged.
He suggested that war within our continent is not impossible before the middle of the century, as southern European nations are swamped by incomers, and Greece stands first in line to become a failed state.
We can defer for a moment the question of whether my friend’s most frightening scenarios are likely to be fulfilled.
What was sobering about our conversation is that here was an uncommonly well-informed man who believes that the earthquakes shaking the Middle East, together with the scale of economic migration from Africa, could undo all our comfortable assumptions about the stability of the society in which we live, including our confidence that Europe has turned its back on war for ever.
The most obvious lesson of history is that events and threats always take us by surprise.
Consider the shocks we have experienced in modern times. Almost nobody expected the Irish Troubles; the Argentine invasion of the Falklands; the collapse of the Soviet Union; the dramatic rise of Muslim extremism; the 9/11 attacks in New York and 7/7 bombings in London; the global banking disaster of 2007-8; the break up of the Middle East that began with the 2003 Iraq invasion.
I never cease to be amazed by the continuing willingness of institutions all over the world to pay fat fees for speeches from the American academic Francis Fukuyama, who in 1992 published a ridiculous best-seller entitled The End Of History, which proclaimed that liberal democracy and free-market capitalism were now triumphant and unassailable, having shown their superiority to all alternatives.
The most obvious lesson of history is that events and threats always take us by surprise. A refugee (centre) is hit with a belt by a man as he is dragged by fellow refugees to the police, accusing him of abusing a young girl, at a makeshift camp at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni
Refugees react during a protest asking for the opening of borders at a makeshift camp at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni, Greece, March 18
Tens of millions of people in Africa, too, aspire to move to Europe in search of a better life, and huge numbers are already crossing the Mediterranean via Libya, Algeria and Tunisia
Everything that has happened since shows that Fukuyama was as wrong as could be. Across large swathes of the globe, authoritarian regimes flourish like the green bay tree. Democracy has never looked rockier, even in the United States.
My think-tank friend in Washington observed last week: ‘Democracy only works where there is a broad consensus about the distribution of wealth and power.’ And it is because this consensus faces unprecedented stresses in consequence of migration in Europe, that he believes some factions may resort to violence, even outright war.
It seems foolish to dismiss this warning out of hand. The threat posed by mass population movement is huge and intractable, and it is hard to have much faith in the deal struck yesterday between the EU and Turkey which seeks to halt the huge numbers reaching the shores of Greece.
What it will actually mean is that 77 million Turks will have the right to travel all the way to Calais unhindered should they so wish.
Tens of millions of people in Africa, too, aspire to move to Europe in search of a better life, and huge numbers are already crossing the Mediterranean via Libya, Algeria and Tunisia.
The entire Middle East is in a ferment, and it is impossible to see any reason why peace should be restored any time soon. This week, President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia’s forces are beginning to withdraw from Syria, where their aircraft have been conducting a murderous bombing campaign against rebels fighting the Kremlin’s client, President Bashir Assad.
The entire Middle East is in a ferment, and it is impossible to see any reason why peace should be restored any time soon
There are signs that the Kurds and Iraqis are making headway in the struggle against Islamic State which, sooner or later, will probably collapse. Children play on a pile of gravel at the northern Greek border point of Idomeni, Greece, March 18
Western governments are pondering the implications of this surprise move. British analysts think Putin judges that his air strikes have put Assad in a position to negotiate from relative strength. Yet whether he stays in power or goes, it is hard to believe that Syria will again function as a single state.
Most likely it will fragment as Libya has fragmented, with rival factions continuing to contest territory. There are no ‘good guys’ in Syria, which makes it hard to anticipate an end to the violence which has driven millions to quit their homes.
There are signs that the Kurds and Iraqis are making headway in the struggle against Islamic State which, sooner or later, will probably collapse. Yet such is the fervour of Muslim extremism across the region that some successor movement is sure to arise, with terrorist branches making mayhem in the West.
Meanwhile, the Saudis and Iranians are fiercely fighting each other through proxy forces in Yemen, while Turkey’s stability is under threat from millions of Syrian refugees on its soil, from Kurdish separatist violence, and from the erratic governance of its own despotic leader, President Erdogan.
Arguably the most sinister symptom of this vast region’s troubles is the flight of money.
I attended a bankers’ meeting this week at which much of the gossip was about the desperate flight of the rich, together with their money, from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and in lesser degree the UAE. Many of those able to liquidate assets and move them to Europe or America are doing so. They fear for the stability of local regimes, and also anticipate more inter-state wars.
Strife will continue, and spread across the Middle East. There is no single, over-arching course of action open to the U.S. or Nato governments that can resolve this alarming state of affairs. It can only be addressed piecemeal, through local diplomatic initiatives and modest military assistance.
For instance, though the West cannot promise the Kurds the independent state they crave in northern Iraq, it can at least provide them with sufficient military aid to resist ISIS, while at the same time seeking to persuade the Turks to stop bombing Kurdish forces.
For their part, the U.S. and European governments are doing their best to avert a military showdown between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
They must also face up to the need to bargain with Russia for a dirty deal that will at least curb the violence in Syria, and drive back the forces of ISIS, even if the odious Assad continues for a time to crow on his dunghill.
Strife will continue, and spread across the Middle East. Migrants are escorted by police through fields towards a holding camp in the village of Dobova on October 26, 2015 in Rigonce, Slovenia
The people on these odysseys are driven by motivations and passions more intense than most of us can imagine
None of this amounts to a ‘solution’, which does not exist, but it may at least help to contain the chain of crises.
We should recognise that the old state borders of most of the embattled countries, notably including Iraq and Libya, are almost certainly defunct. They will fragment into statelets dominated by the local tribe or warlord.
Moreover, it is hard to see any course of action that can stem the flow of migrants to the West, the foremost concern for most of the people who inhabit our continent. Only a proportion of the incomers are fleeing from the immediate consequences of violence. A far larger number, according to every survey conducted in Europe, come from places where there is no war. They simply seek better lives.
The physical difficulties of preventing them from coming are immense. When they are plucked from sinking boats in the Mediterranean, human rights law and the cynical attitude of North African governments make it almost impossible to return them to their ports of embarkation.
The people on these odysseys are driven by motivations and passions more intense than most of us can imagine. They see our societies offering a wealth and security unimaginable in their homelands. They embrace the most desperate dangers to reach our shores.
At present, the governments of Europe have no credible and coherent policies for checking or halting the flood, beyond creating some frail fences on the Eastern margins.
Mass migration now poses the gravest threat to Europe’s stability and tranquillity since the end of the Cold War, and arguably since 1945.
Unless it is checked, over the coming decades it promises to change the character and make-up of all our societies on a scale to make past immigration seem trivial.
One policy to which David Cameron’s government is rightly committed is to work to ameliorate the conditions of refugees and economic migrants in their own countries, or at least nearby. Britain is a generous donor to the UN’s international refugee programmes.
It would be naïve to imagine that aid alone can stem the migration tide, but it can help.
Mass migration now poses the gravest threat to Europe’s stability and tranquillity since the end of the Cold War, and arguably since 1945. Migrants sit on a rescue boat during a rescue operation of migrants by Italian Navy vessels in this March 18
Those of us bitterly critical of Cameron’s insistence on ring-fencing the foreign aid budget might feel better if our money was directed squarely and explicitly to countries from which the principal refugee flow is coming, both in Africa and the Middle East.
Of course, the West cannot aspire to enable Nigerians, Ethiopians or Afghans to enjoy the standard of living that exists in west London.
But we must do everything in our power to diminish the incentives for migration. Fences and border controls at Calais will not suffice.
None of the answers is easy. This crisis can only grow in the months and years ahead. Leaving the EU may well help Britain to control its borders, but will not alone solve this historic problem.
The principal charge against Europe’s leaders today is that none of them, including David Cameron, has begun to come clean with us about the enormity of the challenge.
Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared a towering figure until August, when she made her disastrous unilateral commitment to open her country’s doors.
None of the answers is easy. This crisis can only grow in the months and years ahead. Leaving the EU may well help Britain to control its borders, but will not alone solve this historic problem
We must do everything in our power to diminish the incentives for migration. Fences and border controls at Calais will not suffice
Today some EU members, especially in the east, are striving to reverse the consequences of this policy, and to stem the flow. They are achieving only limited success: it is frightening to behold the numbers of newcomers pouring into Greece and Italy.
I have no doubt that after reading all this, a spokesman for the compassion industry would demand: where is your human sympathy for the millions suffering terribly in their own societies? Fair enough. My words sound harsh. But I would in turn ask that spokesman: where should human sympathy stop?
We are witnessing the beginning — and it is only the beginning — of a game-changing shift of populations, which if it continues unchecked will over the next half-century change all our societies for ever.
Maybe our children’s generation will be content to live with such a transformation. Maybe we can avoid the wars my friend in Washington fears. But our politicians should at least be telling the nation just how profound the coming upheaval threatens to be.
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) maybe a tad over the top, but hey!! there are 33+ million in Iraq, 22+ million in Syria and 30+ Million in Afghanistan. Even 5% of each could change any country.
