In Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion and Foreign Policy, you argue that states and non-state actors use engineered migrations as a tool of state-level coercion, a strategy you call “coercive engineered migration”. Would you consider the current move by Pakistan to deport around three million Afghan refugees to be an instance of coercive engineered migration? If so, what indicators suggest it is being used as leverage rather than purely domestic policy enforcement?

It is not necessarily an either-or proposition. Pakistan, like many states before it, may be deporting people for both domestic political and foreign-policy focused reasons simultaneously. Indeed, strategically engineered in- and out-migrations are commonly employed tools of statecraft, of which coercive engineered migration is just one of four variants. They are distinguished by the objectives for which they are undertaken. 

Dispossessive engineered migrations are those in which the principal objective is the appropriation of the territory and/or property of another group or groups, and/or the elimination of this group or groups as a threat to the ethno-political or economic dominance of the perpetrators. Exportive engineered migrations are those engineered either to fortify a domestic political position—by expelling political dissidents—or to discomfit, humiliate, create unrest or (in extremis) destabilize foreign government(s). Militarized engineered migrations are displacements conducted, usually during active conflict, to gain military advantage against an adversary on the battlefield or to enhance one’s own force structure, via pressganging the displaced into military service and/or figuratively or literally “raping and pillaging” to seize their resources for use by one’s own combatants. And coercive engineered migrations are actual or threatened cross-border population movements that are deliberately created or manipulated in order to prevent or induce changes in behavior, often in the form of political, military and/or economic concessions by a target state or states.

So, if we think beyond coercion alone to strategic engineered migration more broadly, what we’re witnessing in the case of Pakistan today could be a combination of domestically-driven exportive engineered migration and externally-focused coercive engineered migration.  More specifically, if Pakistan is worried about domestic stability, it might engage in exportive engineered migration to expel Afghans, who it fears could undermine the stability of the country, politically, economically, or both. And certainly, we've heard the Pakistani leadership voice concerns along these lines in recent months as well as in years past. 

At the same time, I understand that Pakistan has also said that it was intending to deport three million Afghan refugees in an effort to force other countries to follow through on promises to resettle many of these people in third countries. Interestingly, however, Pakistan, announced that it intended to wait until June to execute the plan, giving countries time to fulfill their earlier promises before Pakistan follows through on its threats. 

This situation is reminiscent of what Ugandan President Idi Amin did back in 1972, when he first threatened and later actually expelled large numbers of Asians from Uganda for what were domestically-focused economic and political reasons—a combination of dispossessive and exportive engineered migration. But Amin also used this mass expulsion as an opportunity to attempt to coerce the British government not to drawdown military and financial aid to his country. Amin announced to the British that he was aware that many tens of thousands of the potential deportees held British passports and noted that he could decide not to deport those passport holders, if the British agreed to his demands. 

Just as Pakistan is doing at present, Amin offered the British three months to change their minds with regard to aid assistance in advance of the threatened mass expulsions.  It is possible, albeit not certain, that Pakistan is trying to exert pressure on target countries in a similar way: we're going to deport these people unless you find the promised permanent homes for them and/or otherwise assist us. 

Based on your analysis, do you expect Pakistan's deportations of people, especially those connected to the former Afghan government and Western forces, to lead to more people joining extremist organizations like the TTP or ISIS-K? Are there certain trends that you've noticed depending on the conditions of the reasons for migration, where settlers do end up in these types of groups? 

It is very hard to predict ex ante. Much depends on what happens to these people if and when they are actually deported. Do they end up in safe and secure, assimilated environments, or in new homes? Or do they end up destitute or simply disenfranchised or alienated back in Afghanistan or elsewhere in the world, and thus have incentives to become radicalized? Do they end up in areas where the Taliban or other groups are incentivized to exploit them? Do the returnees generate ire and resentment among Afghans who never left, or are they welcomed back? Moreover, we are likely to see significant variation across individuals and groups of individuals, wherein the influence of trusted authorities, kith and kin can play a big role in whether individuals become radicalized (or do not).

As for conditions that lend themselves to joining these groups, it is often (but not always) less about the act of deportation itself than about the consequences thereof. There are reasons individuals can become aggrieved either directly because of—or indirectly, sometime after—they have been forcibly deported. In this instance, many of those under threat of removal may have spent their entire lives in Pakistan. Like Palestinians, many Afghans were born as refugees and may spend their whole lives as refugees. Pakistan has hosted Afghans for decades. Indeed, Pakistan hosted over three million Afghans during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, as did Iran.

That being said, the act of being forced to migrate can serve as a source of disillusionment and grievance, but radicalization is rare relative to the number of people forcibly displaced. If forced migration alone were always sufficient to spur radicalization, then we would see much more of it globally.

In Weapons of Mass Migration, you also highlight how states and non-state actors manipulate forced migration to achieve political, military and/or economic goals. Given Bangladesh’s recent pushback of Rohingya refugees, would you categorize this as an instance of strategic engineered migration? How does it compare to other cases you’ve studied?

Data on this case is particularly hard to come by right now, so I am not confident I can give you a definitive answer. However, it is certainly possible that Bangladesh is trying to extract some compensation from states and international organizations, resources that may be needed more acutely than ever in the midst of massive cuts in US aid. As the present and previous governments of Bangladesh have noted, hosting large numbers of Rohingya has placed significant economic, political and socials strains on Bangladesh, already itself a rather fragile state. For instance, after the military assault on the Rohingya in 2017, the refugee population in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh swelled to over 1.1 million Rohingya, then the largest refugee settlement in the world. At the same time, Bangladesh may also perceive domestic political, social and security-related incentives to change the composition of the refugees living on their territory. 

So, is it possible, if not certain, that we are seeing one or more variants of strategic engineered migration in play? Yes. And, if it is happening, it would not be the first time. Bangladesh engaged in coercive engineered migration against Myanmar over the Rohingya at least twice in the past—in the late 1970s-early 1980s and in the late 1980s-early 1990s. As it proved successful on both past occasions, if there is any lingering institutional memory of these episodes, the government have decided to try again. Does that mean it is happening? No, but it might be.

Coercers in migration-driven coercion are divided into three categories in your book: generators, agents provocateurs, and opportunists. Some analysts argue that Myanmar’s military and armed groups are intentionally targeting the Rohingya so as to push them into Bangladesh, further destabilizing the region. Is Myanmar's mass deportation of the Rohingya primarily the result of internal ethnic and political conflict, or would you categorize it as a strategic generator for geopolitical advantage?

As several of my previous answers might suggest, this is not an either-or proposition. And, as indicated, given how the conflict has developed inside Myanmar, there may be acute operational reasons for the Burmese military to pursue demographic reengineering for military gain. I do not mean to imply that this behavior is legal, legitimate or remotely humanitarian, but there are strategic migration-driven reasons why it might nevertheless be happening. And at the same time, there may also be domestic political reasons to engage in strategic engineered migration. It may be a distinction without a difference to try to isolate or disentangle whether the pushbacks and deportations are happening for domestic or externally-driven reasons; both can be in play at the same time. 

A recent study from Jawaharlal Nehru University emphasizes the socioeconomic and political effects of Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants in Delhi, alleging that local leaders are encouraging illegal migration in order to win elections. From your perspective, is this a regional political tactic or does it fit into larger trends of coercion brought on by migration?

I have not read the study, so I don’t know the details of what they are alleging. Based on what little I do know, I would not necessarily code this as coercive, but it is nevertheless an example of strategically engineered migration that fits within the broader framework. It also sounds like a clear example of what I call in some of my other work “the politicization of the weaponization of migration,” wherein actors exploit concerns and fears around uncontrolled or irregular migration for domestic political gain.

How has Russia allegedly weaponized migration, and what evidence supports or contradicts these claims?

There are numerous specific examples I could give, but broadly speaking, in my work, I categorize these kinds of allegations against Russia and its allies as taking three possible forms: one, direct weaponization of migration in the form of one or more of variants of strategically engineered migration—dispossessive, exportive, militarized, or coercive; two, directly through information operations designed to create and exacerbate fears and political divisions over migration inside potential target states; and three, through indirect weaponization. This is to say, when Russian-supported private military firms like Africa Corps (formerly the Wagner Group) work to support their paying clients in Africa, in places like the Central African Republic, Mali and elsewhere, myriad human rights abuses tend to occur, leading people to flee for their lives, often to Europe, thereby generating “happy accidents” and further “dilemmas” for Western target states. 

Trying to disentangle direct and indirect actions, and intentional activities from so-called “happy accidents” can be difficult. However, there are some cases where it is hard to explain observable events in any way other than Russia actively participating in, or at least tacitly, permitting, engineered population movements to occur. One such case is the arrival of hundreds – a few thousand migrants at the Russia-Finland border. The migrants that were showing up in 2023 and 2024 were not Russian, but rather mostly from Middle Eastern and South Asian countries, meaning they had to travel a significant distance from their homes, along what are not traditional smuggling routes, to reach the remote northern location that is the Russia-Finland border region. Although far from definitive, this suggests either direct facilitation by Russian authorities or private actors operating with the government’s tacit approval. 

While the number of arrivals was small and far from sufficient to destabilize Finland, the implied message was clear: Russia could escalate and increase numbers, if it wanted to. Finland’s legal and logistical responses, advertised as designed to combat such weaponization, were equally clear: we are ready to stop you, if you try.

Less speculatively, there have been credible reports that some Russian state- owned aircraft were for a time moving migrants to an island off the coast of Venezuela. From there, individuals would be transferred to Nicaragua, making it much easier for those transferred from the Middle East, Near East and/or south Asia, to reach the U.S. southern border than would be otherwise the case. Since those transported were allegedly on Russian airplanes and were moving through countries allied with Russia, it strikes me strong circumstantial evidence that—whether or not the Russian government was actively engaged in weaponization itself—it was at least condoning this behavior by its proxies and/or private actors.

More speculatively, starting early in the spring of 2024, claims emerged that Putin’s regime sought to establish a 15,000-strong private militia in Libya to control migration flows into the EU—or at least threaten to do so. While Russian-affiliated private actors and Libyan militias were unambiguously present in the region and on the ground in Libya, and pre-conditions existed for such a strategy to be implemented, as of yet, I have not seen any concrete, open-source evidence that this has actually happened. However, it may be enough for Russia to signal that it could take this action, feeding already extant fears among some European leaders Moscow holds leverage and power over migration flows into the bloc.

How can states best manage migration crises—through early diplomatic intervention, strengthening border policies, or modifying their approach to refugee eligibility—while balancing humanitarian commitments and avoiding externalization of vulnerability to partner states? How do these strategies affect the long-term security of target states, and can they prevent coercion or simply shift the vulnerability elsewhere?

The short answer is that different situations call for different responses and often multiple different responses simultaneously. At the same time, while there are steps potential target states can take—some of which you highlight in your question—there is no silver bullet solution to this set of multi-faceted challenges. Moreover, all options tend to have advantages and disadvantages. And, due to the nature of policymaking and of political incentives, states frequently embrace short-term band-aids rather than sustainable solutions. For instance, many countries are moving toward reducing their vulnerability by redefining who qualifies or counts as a refugee and who is eligible for protection. States are also making it harder for asylum seekers to reach their borders by striking deals with intermediary countries that stand between potential destination states and the source countries of migration. The idea is that if asylum seekers cannot reach the destination country, they cannot claim asylum there or disappear into the system. We have seen an increasing number of these “transactional” partnerships and a growing willingness of states to abrogate their humanitarian, normative, and political commitments in ways that harm the refugee system and those seeking protection. 

Such moves can be expedient in the short-term, but they can come at high costs over the longer-term and also counter-productivity make states more vulnerable to future acts of coercion and other forms of weaponization. Once a country hands its partner state the power to "warehouse" migrants, that partner gains leverage. Partners can demand more resources and further concessions by threatening to stop enforcement or release the people they previously agreed to detain.

We’ve also seen evidence of target states making deals where, in exchange for warehousing, hosting, or preventing migrants from reaching Europe or the U.S., the partner states will be subject to less criticism of their domestic human rights records, their interventions in neighboring states, etc. For instance, when Rwanda was negotiating the ultimately failed UK-Rwanda deal, one of the benefits Rwanda received was a marked reduction in criticism of its support for insurgents operating inside the Democratic Republic of Congo. Previously, there had been significant condemnation of this support—then suddenly, nothing.

Nicaragua, for its part, has weaponized immigration against the United States. And one of Nicaragua’s key demands was that it be left alone—no pressure to democratize, no external interference. While Nicaragua may also want sanctions relief, it is my understanding, that, at least under the Biden Administration, Nicaragua’s main priority was non-interference by the US. This kind of diplomatic self-deterrence is a known goal. So, while these policies might seem like they reduce vulnerability, they often just shift it elsewhere. That’s the complexity of the issue.

How frequently do states collaborate with non-state actors, such as private military groups like the Wagner Group or smugglers, to influence migration flows, and are certain countries more likely to engage in these partnerships than others? Is this phenomenon becoming more visible, and do these collaborations often result in unintended consequences, like increased migration or the creation of "happy accidents" that affect Western states? Additionally, how do alliances between states and non-state actors contribute to the strategic engineering of migration?

I cannot answer the question of how often such collaborations occur. However, they do happen. For instance, there have been cases wherein non-state actors, such as traffickers and smugglers, engage in strategic engineered migration on their own. Separately, as intimated above, groups like Africa Corps/Wagner—while not necessarily pushing people out themselves—operate in ways that can drive people to flee, creating the aforementioned dilemmas for the West.

Are some countries more likely to do this than others? Probably. Not every country has the resources or proxies to hire groups like this. But it’s not just Russia. If someone were to ask whether the U.S. has used private entities, I’d point to the Cold War, for instance, when the U.S. helped stimulate the outflow of Vietnamese from North to South Vietnam. That was a U.S.-backed exercise, supported by the CIA, aimed at discouraging North Vietnam from holding elections. It ultimately didn’t work, but in that case, it wasn’t private military actors, but rather more of a public-private partnership. Many of the people who fled south were Catholics, and the church played a critical role in encouraging them to leave. (The photo on the cover of the first edition of my book, Weapons of Mass Migration, shows this operation in action.

For a long time, these dynamics operated in the shadows, but as awareness grows, they are now seen more clearly. However, it bears noting that far from every instance of migration pressure is intentional. While strategic engineered migration happens far more than people long realized, the challenge remains in distinguishing when states are strategically engineering migration and when it’s a byproduct of broader geopolitical shifts.

How does the increasing visibility of global migration crises through news coverage and social media impact public awareness and the potential for humanitarian solutions? Do you think this heightened awareness leads to tangible action and support, or does it contribute to compassion fatigue, where people become desensitized to crises outside of their immediate concerns? Additionally, how do media coverage and political leadership intersect in driving action, as seen with the European response to Ukrainian refugees, and how does this compare to previous situations like the Syrian refugee crisis?

In a different time and place, this might matter more than I believe is the case at present. There’s just so much happening right now throughout the world that many people are experiencing compassion fatigue. Also, many people are understandably concerned with what’s happening close to home, and, with the sheer volume of emergencies, conflicts and crises, some individuals become a bit numb. Nevertheless, as has long been the case, if elites decide they are going to act and they effectively exploit the bully pulpit and employ elite cues, they can get much of the public behind them. In other words, what fundamentally matters is often more what actors in positions of power are making what decisions, which are then followed, rather than proceeded by, media coverage and public support. This is not to say that what was once commonly referred to as “the CNN effect” never holds, but more often, leaders act first, and then the media and the public follow. 

That being said, some groups get a lot of media coverage, while others barely get any. For example, there are more than 120 million + involuntarily displaced people today. Some of these people have been victims of brutal and violent ethnic cleansing campaigns, such as what has been happening in Darfur. Yet, the media coverage is almost nonexistent. The numbers involved in that crisis in Sudan far surpass those in many other emergencies, yet it remains a largely invisible crisis. 

In a crowded field with many conflicts and crises, for a host of reasons, not every conflict gets covered equally; not every refugee population gets attention; and not every migrant group gets the spotlight.