Acts of War? Weaponizing Mass Migration

In these modern times, the definition of what constitutes an "act of war" is evolving to meet new threats. For example, when does a "cyber intrusion" into the governmental and private networks of a nation reach the level where it a virtual act of war, akin to an invasion albeit with electrons and not bodies? This is a hot topic.

Currently less discussed but of rising interest involves a foreign government actively encouraging and abetting segments of its own population and those of other countries to migrate to another sovereign state. When does this "soft invasion" reach the level that the target state would be justified in declaring war on the encouraging state?

In her book Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion and Foreign Policy, Kelly M. Greenhill quotes Samar Sen, India Ambassador to the UN

If aggression against another foreign country means that it strains its social structure, that it ruins its finances, that it has to give up territory for sheltering refugees . . . what is the difference between that type of aggression and the other type, the more classical type, when someone declares war, or something of that sort?

Ms. Greenhill describes her book focus,

. . . on a very particular non-military method of applying coercive pressure -the use of migration and refugee crises as instruments of persuasion.

While "non-military" this sort of coercion is, according to Ms. Greenhill's research, widely used. She cites 56 instances since 1951. This list of 56 does not include the mass influx of refugees spawned by the Syrian civil war, Venezuela's collapse, nor things like the large flow of immigrants from nations into the U.S. from nations of Mexico, Central and South America.

Why include Mexico?

Because the president-elect of Mexico has raised the issue as set out in here The then Mexican presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) stated

“And soon, very soon, to the victory of our movement — we will defend all the migrants in the American continent and all the migrants in the world, who by necessity, must leave their towns and find a life in the United States, it is a human right we will defend.” (Google translation) (see Spanish language article from which the Google translation came)

I fully support legal immigration. The U.S. is a better country for the millions of immigrants who have arrived legally in this country and contributed to our society. However, the intentional effort to offload a country's poor or problems onto another country is something more. Some of you may remember Castro's cynical Mariel Boatlift:

On April 20, 1980, the Castro regime announces that all Cubans wishing to emigrate to the U.S. are free to board boats at the port of Mariel west of Havana, launching the Mariel Boatlift. The first of 125,000 Cuban refugees from Mariel reached Florida the next day.
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In all, 125,000 Cubans fled to U.S. shores in about 1,700 boats, creating large waves of people that overwhelmed the U.S. Coast guard. Cuban guards had packed boat after boat, without considering safety, making some of the overcrowded boats barely seaworthy. Twenty-seven migrants died, including 14 on an overloaded boat that capsized on May 17.

The boatlift also began to have negative political implications for U.S.President Jimmy Carter.When it was discovered that a number of the exiles had been released from Cuban jails and mental health facilities, many were placed in refugee camps while others were held in federal prisons to undergo deportation hearings. Of the 125,000 “Marielitos,” as the refugees came to be known, who landed in Florida, more than 1,700 were jailed and another 587 were detained until they could find sponsors.

But let's go back to Ambassador Sen's quote for a second and ask, "When does a foreign government's complicity in encouraging its own people and/or those of other nations to violate the borders of another state become "aggressive" enough to be the "act of war?"

Let's see what Liam says in Warfare Today has to say in Weaponized Migration is the New Battlespace:

We have already heard much talk about weaponized narrative and seen the results of cyber warfare from the Ukraine to the US Elections, allegedly. We can now add to the hybrid warfare arsenal a new strategy concept, the weaponization of mass migration, or, to coin a phrase, sociological warfare. Simply shifting a large mass of people into the enemy’s territory produces chaos, conflict and economic erosion without the aggressor having to fire a single shot, or even appearing to have done anything.
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Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and commander of US European Command, suggested to the US Senate Armed Services Committee in 2016 that “Russia and the Assad regime are deliberately weaponizing migration from Syria in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve.” Russia denied this, but the New York Times reported that, "The one group that needs no convincing about Russia’s manipulation of the migrant issue is the migrants themselves."

Back to the Greenhill book, in which she offers several definitions of the migrations she is interested in, including,

... coercive engineered migrations (or migration-driven coercion) as those cross-border population movements that are deliberately created or manipulated in order to induce political, military and/or economic concesssions from a target state or states.
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After intentionally generating crises, weak actors can offer to make them disappear in exchange for financial or politcal payoffs.

The effect on the engineered migration target state is accentuated by the domestic political divisions of that target. More Greenhill:

Like immigration and refugee policy more generally, real and threatened migration crises tend to split societies into (at least) two mutually antagonistic and often highly mobilized groups: the pro-refugee/migrant camp and the anti-refugee/migrant camp.

The domestic political environment is important because,

...coercive engineered migration can be usefully conceived as a two-level, generally asymmetric, coercion by punishment strategy, in which challengers on the international level seek to influence the behavior of their targets by exploiting the existence of of competing domestic interests within the target state(s) and by manipulating the costs or risks imposed on their civilian population(s).
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... a key (norms-based mechanism that can enhance the coercive power ... is the imposition of ... hypocrisy costs - defined as those symbolic political costs that can be imposed when there exists a real or perceived disparity between a professed commitment to liberal values and norms and demonstrated actions that contravene such a commitment.
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Hypocrisy costs are not necessary for coercion to succeed; however, they can serve as effective force multipliers for weak challengers, allowing them to punch above their weight and to influence the behavior of actors normally outside their ambit.

That being stated, let's look at the most recent immigration crisis facing the U.S. - the process in which children may be separated from their families - a situation that, it must be understood by now, that did not suddenly arrive in 2018, but which is now being exploited by both domestic and foreign nations to coerce the current administration to change a long-standing policy and as a political lever by the party not in power to keep protests going against the current administration in hopes of influencing voters in upcoming elections.

One of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals pushed exploitation of something akin the Ms. Greenhill's "hypocrisy costs" -

"Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules"

If the administration is "pro-family" - attack the enforcement of this policy as being "anti-family" and therefore hypocritical, regardless of history or facts. We see the opponents of this policy employing another Alinsky rule when they go after administration members personally. That rule

"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)" (source

Bottom line - when watching the news reports of immigration issues, be mindful that behind the protests, behinds the sad pictures (whether or not they were taken during this administration) there is a political agenda being played out - partially domestic, but most certainly also driven by foreign governments to attempt to coerce the U.S. by the asymmetric weapon of both the threat and reality of mass migration, which may "engineered" to force concessions by our government.

It's Almost Like They Have a Plan: "Indiscriminate Russian Bombing in Syria Worsening European Immigration Crisis"

Map source UNHCR

U.S.General in charge of European Command says "Indiscriminate Russian Bombing in Syria Worsening European Immigration Crisis" reports USNI News:

The U.S. senior commander in Europe warned the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Syrian regime’s continued use of barrel bombs and Russia’s use of indiscriminate strikes in backing President Bashar al Assad is exacerbating the European immigration crisis.

Even after an agreement to a cessation of fighting between the Syrian regime and moderate opposition groups “we have not really seen a change in the type of sorties being flown” by the Russians, U.S. European Command commander Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove said.

“We need to see how [the ceasefire] works [because] actions speak louder than words,” he said.

But, “What we have seen is an intense flow [of refugees] into the neighboring countries” such as Jordan and Turkey, as well as Europe, that is continuing even after the ceasefire, Breedlove said later in the hearing.

Breedlove said, “What we have seen growing” in the flow of refugees fleeing Syria and migrants leaving depressed countries in the Middle East and North Africa” are “criminals, terrorists and [returning] foreign fighters” coming into Europe.

Why, it's like Russian might want to destabilize the West or something.

General Breedlove knows this:

Regarding a resurgent Russia, he told the committee Moscow “had chosen to be an adversary,” in part “to re-establish a leading role” for itself on the world stage.

Yep.

Illegal Immigration Quote of the Day

Victor Davis Hanson in "Progressive Elites vs. Western Civilization" at National Review Online

Only in the West does a migrant fault his host for insufficient hospitality while exempting his homeland, which drove him out.

However, it's not just the migrant - here's a sad tale from The Daily Tar Heel of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Noncitizen students face federal, local financial aid shortage:

Even though Islas has lived in North Carolina since she was 6 years old, she has had to pay $50,000 a year to attend UNC as an out-of-state student without the help of federal money. Eric Johnson, spokesperson for the Office of Scholarships and Student Aid, said his office can only help pay for undocumented students when they find nonrestricted private money. “As you know, we are very limited on what we are doing because of the politics around this and because (undocumented students) are treated as out-of-state students who are not eligible for state or federal aid,” Johnson said.

Politics? How about a violation of the law? If I were to start occupying the office of Mr. Johnson because I like it better than mine, I'm sure that I would find police officers ready to help me depart that location and find myself relocated in . . . jail. Yes, her parents brought her to the U.S. - illegally. So, as far as I can tell, she has been treated just like any other foreign student who chose to attend UNC. Which seems fair enough. But:

“I was just concerned about being treated differently,” she said. “Even now, I’m a senior, and I’m applying for jobs. I hate bringing that up because I want them to see me for who I am, not my documentation status.”

Really? Does she know it is illegal to hire "undocumented workers?" I sure she is a nice person, but . . . documentation means something.

In any event, some of this discussion of accepting the rules of the place you move to reminds of a bumper sticker I use to see in Texas as a response to the migration from the Rust Belt:

"We don't care how you did it up North."

Perhaps those suffering from an invasion of Californians have similar slogan.

Read the VDH piece here. Newspeak is also alluded to. I mean "non-citizen students?" Really?

Arizona: Court Punts Decision Upstairs

Good analysis of the recent federal court decision concerning the Arizona immigration law by Andy McCarthy at Arizona Immigration Decision:

In essence, Judge Susan Bolton bought the Justice Department’s preemption argument — i.e., the claim that the federal government has broad and exclusive authority to regulate immigration, and therefore that any state measure that is inconsistent with federal law is invalid. The Arizona law is completely consistent with federal law. The judge, however, twisted to concept of federal law into federal enforcement practices (or, as it happens, lack thereof). In effect, the court is saying that if the feds refuse to enforce the law the states can’t do it either because doing so would transgress the federal policy of non-enforcement … which is nuts.

The judge also employs a cute bit of sleight-of-hand. She repeatedly invokes a 1941 case, Hines v. Davidowitz, in which the Supreme Court struck down a state alien-registration statute. In Hines, the high court reasoned that the federal government had traditionally followed a policy of not treating aliens as “a thing apart,” and that Congress had therefore “manifested a purpose … to protect the liberties of law-abiding aliens through one uniform national system” that would not unduly subject them to “inquisitorial practices and police surveillance.” But the Arizona law is not directed at law-abiding aliens in order to identify them as foreigners and subject them, on that basis, to police attention. It is directed at arrested aliens who are in custody because they have violated the law. And it is not requiring them to register with the state; it is requiring proof that they have properly registered with the federal government — something a sensible federal government would want to encourage.

You know the judge knows that no matter how she decided, it was going up on appeal - and now it goes up with illegal aliens getting protection - until either the Supremes rule or the next amnesty act passes.

No word on how long legal residents have to suffer and pay for this illegal activity.

Suing Arizona:Silly Move by a Joke of an Administration

You can read the pleading here:

The United States understands the State of Arizona’s legitimate concerns about illegal immigration, and has undertaken significant efforts to secure our nation’s borders. The federal government, moreover, welcomes cooperative efforts by states and localities to aid in the enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws. But the United States Constitution forbids Arizona from supplanting the federal government’s immigration regime with its own state-specific immigration policy – a policy that, in purpose and effect, interferes with the numerous interests the federal government must balance when enforcing and administering the immigration laws and disrupts the balance actually established by the federal government. Accordingly, S.B. 1070 is invalid under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution and must be struck down.

Apparently, the "interests" of the federal government include allowing "sanctuary cities" and more or less open borders and forcing legitimate immigrants to jump through hoops not required of those who sneak across borders. UPDATE: To clarify, I mean it seems unusual for an administration to argue that its interest in not enforcing the law of the land somehow rises to an act of supremacy that forbids states from enforcing the law of land. Heck, if you don't like the federal law on which the Arizona statute is based, Mr. President, why not ask your gang in the Congress to repeal it and replace it with something more to your liking?

I told you this would be fun, and here, here, here.

UPDATE: James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal sees signs of an "imperial presidency":

Brennan expressly cited "the predominance of federal interest" in immigration (as opposed to employment law), and the federal government's complaint against Arizona alleges, plausibly, that the state law will impose burdens on legal aliens.But he also makes clear that the power to pre-empt or sanction state laws in an area of federal interest rests with Congress, not the president. This would seem to suggest that if the Arizona law is consistent with federal law and Congress has not expressly barred action by states, the Arizona law should stand.

A large part of the administration's argument, by contrast, is that the Arizona law is inconsistent with federal immigration policy--i.e., with the executive branch's decisions about how to enforce laws passed by Congress. An important question for the court, then, will be whether Congress has delegated its authority to pre-empt state laws by granting discretion over law enforcement to the president.

In other words, this is a case about the balance of power within the federal government, with the Obama administration on the side of expanding the authority of the executive branch.

Wait, Obama as an emperor? Who'd a thunk it?

Monday Reading

Is the idea that North Korea might be a threat slowly dawning on you? You should be reading One Free Korea regularly. Parts 1, 2 and 3 of Joshua Stanton's four part series on "What to do about North Korea" are posted: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. UPDATE: Part 4.

Socialist political hackdom meets illegal immigration (from Investors Business Daily):

 I told you that it would be fun seeing the federal government trying to take on a state for attempting to enforce existing federal law that the feds have decided not to enforce. For a link to the Arizona law (read it before President Obama and Attorney General Holder do!) go here and for comments by the law professor who helped craft the bill, go here. Of course, it you were really thoughtful, you might contemplate what would happen to Mexico's ruling oligarchy if the U.S. border was controlled and all those unhappy souls who vote with their feet were sitting at home wondering why such a potentially wealthy country isn't doing better.

Defending Arizona

A defense of the Arizona immigration law by the law professor

who helped draft the law:

SB 1070 — that prohibits the harboring of illegal aliens and makes it a state crime for an alien to commit certain federal immigration crimes. It also requires police officers who, in the course of a traffic stop or other law-enforcement action, come to a “reasonable suspicion” that a person is an illegal alien verify the person’s immigration status with the federal government.

Predictably, groups that favor relaxed enforcement of immigration laws, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, insist the law is unconstitutional. Less predictably, President Obama declared it “misguided” and said the Justice Department would take a look.

Presumably, the government lawyers who do so will actually read the law, something its critics don’t seem to have done.

 Once again, Mr. Obama seems fuzzy on the law and whether or not a state has the right to act in the absence of federal action.

I'm beginning to wonder what sort of "Constitutional law professor" Mr. Obama was.

After a couple of these hip shot judgments of his, I think it might be he was of the "shoot, shoot, aim" school. He sure is judgmental about some things about which he has limited knowledge.

Of course, if you think it's a "living constitution" perhaps you don't have to worry about what it actually says. But then again, if it's a living document, perhaps the time has come to interpret it in light of the harm illegal immigration is doing to this country...

UPDATE:

UPDATE: Another defense (and much more) here:

So when the president hastily pronounced Arizona’s new immigration bill “misguided” and “irresponsible,” Arizona residents — whom the federal government has abandoned to the siege of Mexican warlords, narco-peddlers, and squatters — may be forgiven for snickering. Come to think of it, snickering has become the default reaction to pronouncements on the law by our ex-law-prof-in-chief , particularly those prefaced by his most grating verbal tic, “Let me be clear . . . .” 

Why “misguided” and “irresponsible”? The president elaborated that the Arizona law “threaten[s] to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans.” To be sure,  Obama has notions of fairness, but they are his own, marinated in doctrinaire leftism. As for the American ideal that he ceaselessly invokes but clearly doesn’t get, our Constitution’s framers thought fundamental fairness would be fatally undermined by two things: the inability of the governed to consent to legal arrangements because it had become impossible to know what the law is, and the failure of central government to tend to its first responsibility: the nation’s security.

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Our elected officials and judicial officers don’t rule us. They are there to govern, to implement our will. When they resort to impenetrable legislative monstrosities to implement their own will without our consent — indeed, over our objection — that is not governing. It is dictating.

Maybe that’s the Obama administration’s problem with Arizona’s new law: It is too short (16 pages), too clear, and too reflective of the popular will. Unlike the social scientists in Nancy Pelosi’s federal laboratory, state lawmakers didn’t need to pass the law first in order to find out what was in it. Essentially, it criminalizes (as a state misdemeanor) something that is already illegal (namely, being present in the United States in violation of federal law), and it directs law-enforcement officers to, yes, enforce the law. Democrats and their media echo-chamber regard this as radical; for most of us, it is what’s known as common sense.

And here’s another commonsense proposition: A government that abdicates our national defense against outside forces is no longer a government worth having. 

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Arizona is a sovereign state. Its citizens have a natural right to defend themselves, particularly when the federal government surrenders. The state’s new law does precisely that, in a measured way that comes nowhere close to invoking the necessary, draconian powers Leviathan has but refuses to use.

Which is kinda what I was saying here.

Arizona: The Actual Statute

Don't embarrass yourself, read the real Arizona Immigration Statute here.

Funny, they left out the part about "racial profiling" that I've heard about all day on the radio from callers in New York, North Carolina and people in Chicago.

Illegal Immigration from the Sea

From here:




Recent attempted landings reported here (8 people) and here (23 people),
More here.

UPDATE: A look at the U.S. Coast Guard and the illegal immigrant problem off the east coast of the U.S. here. Photo nearby is of a Yola used for people smuggling from the Dominican Republic.

North American Common Border Security Efforts

A report on some potential results of the Security and Prosperity Partnership among Canada, Mexico and the U.S. here:

Just exactly who's allowed into North America - and how long they can stay - could be heavily influenced by the complex web of initiatives known as the Security and Prosperity Partnership.
Canada, the United States and Mexico are collaborating on more than a dozen traveller security programs that fall under three umbrellas: creating trusted border documents, developing compatible immigration measures and sharing information on high-risk travellers.
The goal is to ensure none of the three countries is a weak link in the continental security chain.