With my longtime colleague Brian Klass, I have authored an article in The Spectator about how the migrant crisis in the Med is a symptom of ungoverned space in Libya, and Africa more generally, and that solutions which attempt to treat the symptom rather than the cause are doomed to failure.
The flow of boats is an international security risk, as human smuggling represents a critical gap in the ability of the UK and the EU to protect its borderlands from jihadists, militia groups, and criminal syndicates – all of which thrive in ungoverned spaces. There is a strategic dimension to the migrant boats crisis as well as a moral one. Yet Europe’s response is predicated on the false belief that the European Union is ‘pulling’ these migrants across the Mediterranean, luring them with the false hope of an overly inviting asylum policy or the possibility of being rescued should their boat falter....The larger lesson is clear: Europe cannot afford to allow ungoverned space on its doorstep. The West cannot end the world’s human suffering, but it can help ensure that at least the scaffolding of a government exists everywhere. Bureaucrats in Brussels cannot patrol every beach and port in Libya, but they can help Libya patrol itself by aggressively facilitating the construction of a semi-functioning state. You can read the full article by clicking here.