The Dossier Center, an investigative entity funded by exiled Russian political activist Mikhail Khodorkovsky, recently revealed that Russia has increasingly positioned itself in at least 13 African countries by building relations with rulers, concluding military deals, and nurturing local pro-Russian forces. While it remains to be seen whether the Russian pivot translates into economically beneficial payoffs, from a European geopolitical vantage point, it is a double-edged sword: Russia presents itself as part of the problem and part of the solution in localities from which millions of refugees recently arrived.
The migration crisis that hit the EU in 2015 upended the entire continent. Notwithstanding that the issue has paralyzed the EU, particularly epitomized by the Brexit vote, European societies are more divided and polarized than ever. If the Kremlin seeks to control the flows of migrants from Africa and the Middle East toward Europe, Russia becomes a geopolitical threat to Europe. Supporting this view, U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, then-commander of the U.S. European Command, said in 2016 that Russia was "deliberately weaponizing migration in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve."
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While migration is not a new phenomenon, its use as a potential weapon has been almost absent from public discourse. According to political scientist Dr. Kelly M. Greenhill, coercive engineered migration (CEM), a "nonmilitary instrument of state-level coercion," intends to create domestic instability and public unrest within a target state and seeks to convince its leadership to concede to the instigator's insistences. By and large, in locations where ethnic tension is already present, a large influx of people poses a fatal threat, as it splits societies into two mutually exclusive camps – one of which is pro-refugee and the other, anti-refugee. Unsurprisingly, for quite some time, Russia has been funding left- and right-wing groups across Europe, implicitly contributing to the cleavage.
In fact, for a relatively weak state such as the Russian Federation, CEM is a suitable tool to deter and compel Europeans. As research on negotiation strategies shows, for a relatively weak state, crisis generation is a required harbinger to negotiations. After intentionally generating a crisis, the weak party can offer to make it disappear in exchange for military, financial or political concessions. In fact, it is exactly what Russia is doing, for instance, calling on the EU, by its very nature the stronger player, to contribute financially to the reconstruction of Syria.
Harvard Professor Joseph Nye Jr. coined the term "smart power," referring to a need for "smart strategies that combine the tools of both hard and soft power." The EU is engaged in the region through the European Neighborhood Policy and through other vehicles, such as the Union for the Mediterranean and the Africa-EU Partnership, which in general seek to foster stability, security, and prosperity, promote sustainable development, and engage in political dialogue. More recently, controversial deals with Turkey and a number of African countries sought to curtail and reverse further in-migration. However, in the wake of the growing Russian presence in Africa and the Middle East, soft power such as public diplomacy and development assistance is inadequate, lacking hard-power elements such as the use of military means to protect one's fundamental interests. Therefore, climactic calls by the Trump administration, which is "looking for allies, not protectorates," are not so far-fetched. Indeed, it is imperative for Europeans to come out of hibernation and invest in their own security.
The proximity to continental Europe to Africa and the Middle East demands that European policymakers rise to the occasion. In an anarchic world, with a lack of a supreme authority that can enforce rules over states, smart power is crucial to defend Europe's vital interests in the region. Relinquishing all influence to Russia and others runs the risk of making Europe an essentially passive bystander vulnerable to future developments in these areas.
