Military Review English Edition November December 2016 | Page 31

MIGRATION AS A WEAPON

far exceed the expected costs of conceding in whole
or in part. For instance, as disconcerting as West
German leaders found the periodic inflows of large
numbers of Eastern bloc refugees, neither they nor
their NATO allies were ever going to be willing to risk
starting World War III by taking retaliatory military
action against East Germany.32 Likewise, if a coercer is
already internationally isolated, the methods short of
war that powerful states may employ in response may
be slow-acting—e.g., sanctions—and thus inappropriate as a method of counter-coercion during a crisis.
And, war itself can be a risky option. Conflicts are
costly, and their outcomes are uncertain.33
Simply put, in traditional military coercion,
potential adversaries tend to be deterred from even
attempting coercion unless they possess superior
military capabilities that can protect them from
retaliation. However, in the case of CEM, coercers
are frequently undeterred by their targets’ military
superiority, because retaliation is only rarely a politically feasible option. This is because targets generally
value the issues at hand less than do the coercers, who
tend to be highly dissatisfied with the status quo and
more resolved than their targets. This makes sense in
that coercers are often fighting for their very political
survival, whereas for targets the issues at hand tend to
be of more limited importance.34
Moreover, compared with more conventional military operations, catalyzing out-migrations is
usually relatively cheap, particularly as the number of
troops required is frequently small, and the manpower
necessary to effect population displacement need not
be highly trained or well equipped.35 Inducing mass
migration does not rely on direct combat, but rather
on the expectations associated with the demonstrative
capacity of the violence that can be brought to bear.
Sometimes no force need be used at all; the fear of future violence may be sufficient to cause people to flee.36
Furthermore, because of the widespread belief
that liberal democracies possess particular characteristics that make them and their leaders behave
differently than those in other regime types, “fellow
liberals benefit from a presumption of amity; nonliberals suffer from a presumption of enmity.”37 Hence,
illiberal actors—already viewed with suspicion and
contempt by the most powerful members of the
international community—have little left to lose
MILITARY REVIEW  November-December 2016

should they choose to abrogate the norms associated with the generation of migration crises. In short,
nondemocratic, “illegitimate” states and nonstate
actors face a double whammy: few are strong enough
to impel their strong counterparts to take them
seriously under normal conditions, and still fewer are
likely to be trusted to negotiate in an above the board
manner. Therefore, not only are the reputational
barriers to resorting to such norms-violating tactics
lower, but the bargaining advantages of doing so are
far greater. Hence, this kind of coercion can be an
attractive method of influence for those with limited
resources and few other options at their disposal.
Consequently, it is unsurprising that the vast majority of would-be coercers have been weaker in capabilities terms than their targets.
In terms of the obvious exceptions—namely, those
cases where strong or democratic actors have employed this tool—coercers’ goals have usually been the
achievement of political goals at lower cost than they
could possibly have been achieved through military
means. While John F. Kennedy’s administration was
understandably reluctant to use force to influence
Soviet behavior vis-à-vis Berlin in the early 1960s,
U.S. officials—at the very least—entertained the idea
of using CEM to “encourage” greater cooperation
from Moscow.38 And, more recently, Iran’s episodic
threats to expel Afghan refugees to influence Afghan
government behavior have surely appeared less problematical and potentially less costly than engaging in
overt military operations in furtherance of the same
political goals.39

Coercers’ Objectives and
Rates of Success
As is the case with traditional military coercion,
challengers’ demands have been highly varied in scope,
content, and magnitude. As the discussion above suggests, demands have been both concrete and symbolic
and have comprised entreaties to undertake actions
or to cease undertaking them (compellence) as well as
to eschew taking them at all (deterrence). Demands
have run the gamut from the simple provision of
financial aid, to the termination of insurgent funding,
to full-scale military intervention, and even to regime
change. Broadly speaking, we can usefully divide these
myriad objectives into three key (and nonmutually
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