Prof. David Betz: Mass Migration To Civil War – OpEd
For decades, but especially over the last one, Europeans have been told to embrace multiculturalism as a net positive for society and for the economy. They were told to open their hearts and their doors to newcomers and to give them a chance to culturally enrich their nations. Of course, they weren’t actually given a choice in the matter, as their leaders opened the doors anyway, without asking anyone and without securing consent though democratic mechanisms. This famously peaked in 2015, when over 1.3 million arrived to the continent seeking asylum, following Angela Merkel’s “Wir schaffen das” (“We can do this”) speech and the iconic “Refugees Welcome” events. Today, 11 years later, the promised benefits of this policy and the “enrichment” Europeans were told to expect have not materialized. What they got instead was a shortcut to civil war, as David Betz predicted.
David Betz is a Canadian scholar and Professor of War in the Modern World in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Having earned his PhD from the University of Glasgow, Betz built his academic career examining insurgency and counterinsurgency, civil and culture wars and information warfare. In the extremely interesting interview that follows, Betz posits that Western political institutions are experiencing a profound crisis of internal legitimacy. He argues that political elites have systematically undermined the implicit social contract by ignoring public mandates, citing the political fallout and elite resistance followingthe 2016 Brexit referendum as a prime domestic turning point. In his view, when a population perceives that the legal political apparatus no longer addresses or represents its interests, governments lose their legitimacy in the eyes of the governed. As Betz frames it: “When your legitimacy is low or absent, your costs of government go very high because people… look for ways to achieve their aims outside of the political system, which in effect is what an insurgency is.”
This applies to broader strategic and military realities, as Betz highlights how rapid demographic shifts and elite-driven mass migration have created an unresolvable three-way tension between native populations, “post-national” ruling elites, and recent arrivals. He asserts that this cultural and political alienation directly degrades a state’s defensive capacity, noting that people who feel betrayed and left behind by their own leadership will refuse to volunteer or sacrifice. Betz also has an explanation for all the new wars and conflicts we are seeing in recent years. If things are falling apart at home, leaders seek foreign wars to distract from crumbling internal cohesion.
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