Weapons of mass migration

Belarus, egged on by Russia, is trying to shepherd thousands of Muslim migrants across the Polish border.

Polish border guards are trying to stop them with barbed wire and tear gas.

Belarussian border guards are threatening to fire at their Polish counterparts.

The EU is trying not to notice. And I’m trying not to overstate certain troubling analogies. Yet the temptation is strong.

Hitler had a moustache; so does Lukashenko. Hitler was an ex-soldier; so is Lukashenko. Hitler was a dictator; so is Lukashenko. Hitler flouted international laws; so does Lukashenko. Hitler secured an alliance with Russia before striking out; so has Lukashenko. Hitler stirred trouble on the Polish border; so does Lukashenko. Hitler treated Western democracies with disdain; so does Lukashenko. Hitler imprisoned dissidents; so does Lukashenko.

True, there are differences as well. Unlike Hitler, Lukashenko is rumoured to have a full testicular complement. Unlike Lukashenko, Hitler saw action at the front. Unlike Hitler, Lukashenko is far from teetotal.

More to the geopolitical point, Hitler, though supported by Russia, attacked Poland of his own accord. By contrast, Lukashenko is Russia’s proxy. And while Hitler attacked Poland with masses of tanks, Lukashenko is attacking her with masses of Muslims.

Now we must all pray that Lukashenko, with Putin pulling his strings, will further diverge from Hitler’s path. By not triggering a world war.

Meanwhile, Minsk has become the favourite tourist destination for young Iraqis and Syrians. This though, having visited the place as an observer at Lukashenko’s first sham election, I can testify that Minsk has few tourist attractions to offer.

Moreover, flying to or even across Belarus is unsafe. Back in August, Lukashenko’s air force committed an act of piracy by threatening to shoot down a Ryanair airliner and forcing it to land – all to kidnap a single dissident journalist who had neglected to check his flight path with due care.

Since then Western airlines have severed aviation links with Belarus, and Western governments have imposed a raft of sanctions. That, however, has failed to deter young Muslims, and Minsk airport is still doing brisk business.

Eight full flights from Istanbul and five from Baghdad reach Minsk every week. And Baghdad isn’t the only Iraqi city with such departures. Basra, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah also offer weekly flights to Minsk, catering to the Iraqis’ hunger for that city’s meagre cultural highlights.

The migrants, most of them young men, jampack Minsk hotels and dormitories. But they don’t do much sightseeing. Instead, they form units that are then trained by Belarusian special forces. The locals report that the phrase “our march on the EU” is resonating through the chilly Minsk air.

Other arrivals bypass the capital and proceed directly to the country’s western border. There some settle in a refugee camp and many more hide in the thickets all along the Polish border.

Their exact numbers are hard to ascertain, but Poland has registered some 30,000 attempts to cross her border this year. According to the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, some 4,000 have managed to cross Poland and reach Germany since August, almost 2,000 of them this month.

Łukasz Jasina, Poland’s foreign affairs spokesman, correctly observed that “nothing happens in Belarus without Russia’s complicity”, which raises the question about the exact plans hatched by Messrs Putin and Lukashenko.

For one thing, I doubt they wish to bring Europe to its knees by flooding it with Muslim migrants. The EU is doing a sterling job of it by itself, no outside help needed. Even if Belarus manages to ship 100,000 Muslims over, that’ll only add 10 per cent to the swarm that has already descended on Germany over the past few years.

Provoking an armed conflict at the border may be a part of the plan, and I suspect some skirmishes will break out, but I don’t think the two fascisoid dictators have far-reaching military designs. In keeping with Putin’s stratagem of hybrid war, their plans are not to conquer Europe but to destabilise it.

One time-proven trick is divide et impera: turning allied enemies against one another by exploiting potential tensions among them. The tensions are numerous, especially between the western and eastern parts of the EU.

The fissure could become even deeper if the EU doesn’t come to Poland’s aid. It hasn’t yet, with EU leaders limiting themselves to expressions of deep concern and threats of imposing even stiffer sanctions. Business as usual then.

If nothing more tangible is forthcoming, the Poles may lose what little affection they have for the EU, although their affection for the EU’s money is probably more enduring. But even that may prove weaker than their fear of again becoming Russia’s de facto colony.

Hence Poland may appeal to NATO over the EU’s head, and there too Putin-Lukashenko’s strategy may bear fruit. Unlike the EU, which is a strictly political contrivance, NATO is a collective defence alliance. It’s held together by Article 5 of its Charter, stating that an attack on one member is an attack on all.

Even though Poland has still only suffered pinpricks, not sabre thrusts, major wars have been known to start over less provocation than what she is experiencing at the moment. NATO must act immediately and resolutely to forestall any escalation. If it fails to do so, and the conflict does escalate, Article 5 and consequently NATO will be dead.

Weaponised migrants are yet another prong in Putin’s hybrid attack on the West. The prongs are many: propaganda, energy blackmail, warplanes overflying Western countries, troops amassed at NATO borders, diplomatic offensive, financial and moral support of disruptive parties and movements.

The West responds by imposing mild sanctions with one hand and reaching out for Russia’s gas with the other. The latter encourages Putin (and Lukashenko), the former won’t discourage him.

So please stop me before I invoke Munich, circa 1938. Following Euclid, historical parallels shouldn’t be allowed to converge.