The Polish-Belarus Migration Crisis

The international news, grazing like cattle from the climate change field to the threat of war field, has moved on to Russian mobilisation on the borders of Ukraine and the migration crisis on the Polish-Belarussian border. This presents us with a line of converging confrontations from Latvia to the Crimea (with Moldova and Georgia lurking there somewhere in the background). We will not spend too much time on the Ukraine problem ... the posturing on all sides, fuelled by the usual suspects in the media, is now just embarrassing. There is a complex history to this but the bottom line is the usual realpolitik operating under apparent issues of principle.

The 'mauvaise foi' on both sides is exemplified by the simple observation that Russia has adopted the Wilsonian attitude to the national self-determination of peoples (meaning the Donbas) as cover while the West has suddenly abandoned it in favour of the sort of sovereign rights and non-interference arguments that Lavrov used to defend so vigorously at the United Nations against American 'imperialist' incursions to effect regime change. Basically they are all rascals. The only solution is to split Ukraine, hold referenda, send two thirds into NATO and towards the EU, one third to the Russian Federation and then agree respective spheres of influence at the shared border. This, of course, is far too intelligent a solution for international relations experts who are happy to risk the Third World War.

More interesting is the crisis in Belarus because Russian mobilisation beside the Ukraine is almost certainly just willy-waving. Macron and Johnson are past masters at futile willy-waving while that wise old owl Merkel (whose departure we may come to regret despite her past errors over migration that are at the very root of the current crisis) has the sense to pick up the phone and talk to Lukashenko: this is probably all that he wanted to start with - to be respected and not be subject to a programme of inept regime change.

What we should justifiably fear is the militarisation of the crisis as the migrants mass for what may be deemed an ‘invasion’. This raises an interesting technical point. If the migrants cross the border in force, is this a technical ‘invasion’ by Belarus, that is, if (although only if) the claims that the Belarussians are encouraging them to do so are regarded as 'proven'. Simply shouting in a loud voice that this is the case is not proof. Paranoia about the Eastern Slavs promoted by the Western Slavs is not policy. But if it is 'proven' (that is, if the Poles and Latvians shout loudly enough and Boris, say, takes up the cry) would this justify retaliatory action involving a border crossing in the opposite direction??Could NATO’s protection and support be invoked by Warsaw?

After all, the Eastern border states are said to be considering an invocation of Article 4 of the NATO Treaty. Apparently a few thousand Middle Eastern migrants represent a threat to "the territorial integrity, political independence or security" of these states rather than a problem of border control and an embarrassment in the light of European values. It is not the Belarussians who are putting up the fences - many a Russian may have a quiet chuckle at past Western pride in tearing down the Berlin Wall only to build more walls further East when it suits them. But it seems unlikely that Article 4 could be interpreted in the way that the Poles and others might like it to be interpreted (the invocation is political theatre, or a magical invocation perhaps). However, the Russians are taking no chances with an increasingly large regional mobilisation (big bombers flying close to the Belarus-Polish border for a start) to deter any such or related (Ukrainian) moves. Those who recall the mobilisation processes that got out of control after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914 might have the odd sleepless night in the coming days.

The process by which the migrants get to Belarus has been explained by Reuters and I refer you to that article but it strikes us that Minsk is simply taking opportunistic advantage of what is a ‘free market’ operation by cynical Belarussian private sector tour operators who are in it for a quick buck but operating perfectly legally - embarrassingly so. They bring the Middle Easterners to Minsk and what the latter do then is up to them. Being one of the last closed societies in Europe, Belarus’ failure to police ‘what the latter do then’ is certainly a political act but it is still their sovereign territory. There is no obligation on them to undertake any of the policing demanded by Warsaw or Brussels.

The EU (it could be argued) is certainly not owed any special consideration by Minsk after doing its utmost to overturn the regime and replace it with a liberal Europeanist one. One of the ironies of the situation is that Brussels and virtually every other European nation is trying to do the same to Poland as it tried to do to Belarus - effect regime change. EU outrage is actually based on its being thoroughly outplayed in a brutal game yet Minsk is doing nothing illegal here and morality is in the eye of the outraged beholder. The background is that the foreign policy team in Brussels has been staggeringly inept for quite some time - its handling of this crisis is merely the latest in a series of blunders driven by a malign combination of excessive unthinking idealism ('European values' to be extended well beyond borders) and the lack of hard power to back up the moral imperialism. Of course the targets of such a strategy are going to kick back. The surprise at this of the Brussels big-wigs is perhaps sign and symbol of their ineptitude.

There is no reasonable law enforcement or military response to this other than the Polish one of putting up wire fences. The internal contradictions within the EU are exposed by this fact. The fences are deeply offensive to EU liberals who would like some form of legal processing although this would soon lead to the same consequences (notably severe political disruption) that we saw arising from the Syrian crisis some years ago.?Imagine what happens if the fences are removed and Minsk does not do anything to stop the flow - everyone with enough dollars to give to a Belarus travel agent (who needs organised crime?!) will be jumping on a plane and turning up to get into the EU (some of those will be on rickety boats across the Channel before too long). Once the principle of legal processing is accepted, Belarus could look humanitarian by siphoning vast numbers of Kurdish, Syrian, Afghan. Iranian, Iraqi and Lebanese (maybe Ethiopian and African) refugees through Minsk towards the kindly liberals in Brussels and Berlin. It could become a state-capitalist people trafficker taking its cut and offering humanitarian aid to peoples whose conditions of life were shattered by Western intervention less than two decades before

In the end, having got itself into a corner over inept diplomacy, the EU is reduced to the standard method of trying to deal with crises – threats of sanctions – although sanctions have a decreasing effect on the political opponents of the liberal West as they cohere in self-supporting blocs and find work-arounds. No Western policymaker appears to have read Nietzsche who wisely reminded us that 'what does not kill strengthens'. It is either fences with armed guards and embarrassing film footage riling up liberals and populists for totally different reasons or it is negotiation and diplomacy that ‘de facto’ not only recognises the Lukashenko regime but comes to rely on it to maintain order – much as things would have been very different for Southern Europe and the beleaguered Eurofederalists if Ghaddafi and Assad had been left alone.

Whether we believe their good faith or not (and we should not believe anyone's good faith in international relations unless there is some barrel of a gun pointing at them from somewhere), the Russians have now set themselves up as arbitrators and peace-makers – ‘nothing to do with us, guv!’ No one should be in any doubt of the price that they too may be expected to charge for bringing Lukashenko to heel (even if they can). It is important ('amour propre') for the EU to bluff it out with sanctions and slow certification of Nordstream 2 but what happens if this winter is exceptionally cold. Will the 'West' (those who rule us) persuade us all that this is the fault of the Russians, maintain some kind of sub-war fever and ask us all to pull together as the lights go out and some old people freeze to death or will voters ask some pertinent questions about how we got to this point and who is responsible? Who knows?

I may be in the minority in being a cynic. I suspect even the clowns who got us here will come to understand that a face-saving deal is going to be necessary - Nordstream 2 on line by January (in fact, it could have been supplying gas days ago) and a self-denying ordinance on over-turning the Lukashenko regime in return for stifling the last hope of the miserable victims of the West still stuck in the chaos of the Middle East. Perhaps there will be some quiet 'processing' of those still in Belarus in a way that everyone hopes is not noticed by the populists in the run up to the next round of elections in Europe. Maybe the migrants get on flights back to Tehran or Baghdad as economic migrants but end up at German provincial airports as refugees when the liberal Press 'exposes' what is happening.

The problem in terms of a solution is that the level of distrust on all sides is now very high. The EU is flinging out accusations in order to represent the rage of the Baltic States and Poland while the Belarussians deny the conspiratorial claims of the latter. The Ukraine crisis complicates matters because a wrong move by Kiev (which has a material interest in making wrong moves to help suck the Atlantic powers into its maw) or by Moscow could remove even the small vestiges of a Merkelian solution before she departs. However, whichever way you look at it, short of military intervention, there is not much the Europeans can do until Lukashenko decides to act in some way beneficial to the resolution of the crisis. His incentives for doing so without Russian intervention or a ‘deal’ (back to Nordstream 2 and possibly Ukraine), following the Western attempt to overthrow his regime in Minsk, are low.

This now gives us two central zones of immediate if indirect superpower confrontation which are unlikely to spill over into war but which could do so on an ‘accident’ – Belarus-Donbas and Taiwan. Add these to a number of temporarily quiescent flash points elsewhere (Caucasus, unfinished business in Afghanistan, the Lebanon-Syria-Iraq complex, the Gulf oil routes, Kashmir and North Korea) as well as third level instabilities that could pull in the superpowers further (Colombia/Venezuela, Greece-Turkey, Libya, the Sahel, Horn of Africa and so forth) and things start looking very complicated. The point about both Belarus and Taiwan being particularly critical at this time is the alliance systems' control of the situation is very weak. It is unclear what each major player can and would do in the event of an escalation.

Belarus can rely on Russia if it is attacked but, if European support for regime change is not seen as an act of war, then pouring migrants towards the Polish and other European borders cannot be regarded as one either. It is difficult to invoke NATO here or in Ukraine since Ukraine is not a NATO member. Similarly China lays claim to Taiwan as its own territory but, although very much part of the Western sphere of influence, Taiwan is not recognised by the United Nations because of China’s veto while the US has given it only informal and not formal defence guarantees.

US ambiguity emboldens China and amplifies the risk as the same ambiguity may be doing in the Ukrainian situation. In the latter, the Russians may look at the letter of treaty arrangements (as Communists and ex-Communists generally do) without understanding the political pressures manufactured in democracies where executives are required to 'do something' even if that something is downright stupid. Military force by Moscow ‘in defence of the Russian people after provocation’ cannot in itself invoke a lawful Western military response, especially as the Russians would veto a UN resolution, but an enraged Congress aware of the mid-terms coming up next year might force one through anyway. In short, the entire crazy system is perhaps two steps or so from getting completely out of control ... and all this in an age of hypersonic technology with nuclear warheads.