Families carry their belongings through the Zosin border crossing in Poland after fleeing Ukraine. Credit: UNHCR/Chris Melzer

By Rachael Reilly and Michael Flynn
GENEVA, Mar 7 2022 (IPS)

Russia’s brutal and devastating invasion of Ukraine has triggered the largest and fastest refugee movement in Europe since World War II. After only a single week, more than one million people had already fled the country.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) initially predicted that as many as four million people would flee; the UN now thinks that some 10 million will eventually be displaced.

While the EU calls this the largest humanitarian crisis that Europe has witnessed in “many, many years,” it is important to remember that it was not so long ago that the continent faced another critical humanitarian challenge, the 2015 refugee “crisis” spurred by the conflict in Syria.

But the starkly different responses that Europe has directed at these two situations—in addition to its draconian response to ongoing African migration across the Mediterranean—provide a cautionary lesson for those hoping for a more humane, generous Europe.

These differences also help explain why some of those fleeing Ukraine—in particular, nationals from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East—are not receiving the same generous treatment as the citizens of Ukraine.

Ukraine’s neighbours have thus far responded with an outpouring of public and political support for the refugees. Political leaders have said publicly that refugees from Ukraine are welcome and countries have been preparing to receive refugees on their borders with teams of volunteers handing out food, water, clothing, and medicines.

Slovakia and Poland have said that refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine will be allowed to enter their countries even without passports, or other valid travel documents; other EU countries, such as Ireland, have announced the immediate lifting of visa requirements for people coming from Ukraine.

Across Europe, free public transport and phone communication is being provided for Ukrainian refugees. On 3 March, the EU voted to activate the Temporary Protection Directive, introduced in the 1990’s to manage large-scale refugee movements during the Balkans crisis.

Under this scheme, refugees from Ukraine will be offered up to three years temporary protection in EU countries, without having to apply for asylum, with rights to a residence permit and access to education, housing, and the labour market.

The EU also proposed simplifying border controls and entry conditions for people fleeing Ukraine. Ukrainian refugees can travel for 90 days visa-free throughout EU countries, and many have been moving on from neighbouring countries to join family and friends in other EU countries. Throughout Europe, the public and politicians are mobilizing to show solidarity and support for those fleeing Ukraine.

This is how the international refugee protection regime should work, especially in times of crisis: countries keep their borders open to those fleeing wars and conflict; unnecessary identity and security checks are avoided; those fleeing warfare are not penalized for arriving without valid identity and travel documents; detention measures are not used; refugees are able to freely join family members in other countries; communities and their leaders welcome refugees with generosity and solidarity.

But we know that this is not how the international protection regime has always operated in Europe, particularly in those same countries that are now welcoming refugees from Ukraine.

Public discourse in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania is often tainted by racist and xenophobic rhetoric about refugees and migrants, in particular those from Middle Eastern and African countries, and they have adopted hostile policies like border push-backs and draconian detention measures.

A case in point is Hungary: The country has refused to admit refugees from non-EU countries since the 2015 “refugee crisis.” Prime Minister Victor Orbán has described non-European refugees as “Muslim invaders” and migrants as “a poison,” claiming that Hungary should not accept refugees from different cultures and religions to “preserve its cultural and ethnic homogeneity.”

In May 2020, The European Court of Justice found that Hungary’s arbitrary detention of asylum seekers in transit zones on its border with Serbia was illegal.

Hungary was not alone in its harsh response to the 2015 “crisis.” In their book Immigration Detention in the European Union: In the Shadow of the “Crisis” (Springer 2020), Global Detention Project (GDP) researchers detailed the evolution of the detention systems of all EU Members States before, during, and after the 2015 refugee crisis.

Among their key findings: During the years leading up to 2015, migration-related detention had largely plateaued across the EU, but refugee pressures spurred important increases in detention regimes across the entire region, which remained in place long after the “crisis” had subsided.

Fuelling these increases was anti-migrant rhetoric that spread from Brussels across the entire continent, abetted by EU-wide migration directives that allowed for lengthy detention periods. Then-European Council President Donald Tusk argued at that time that all arriving refugees could be detained for up to 18 months, in line with the limits in EU directives, while their claims were processed.

More recently, in late 2021, the terrible treatment of migrants and asylum seekers, most of them from Iraq and Afghanistan, trapped on Belarus’s borders with Poland and Lithuania sparked outrage across Europe. Belarus was accused of weaponizing the plight of these people, luring them to Belarus in order to travel on to EU countries as retaliation against EU sanctions.

Polish border guards were brutal in their treatment of these refugees and migrants, many of whom sustained serious injuries from Polish and Belarussian border guards. Thousands were left stranded in the forests between the two countries in deplorable conditions with no food, shelter, blankets, or medicines: at least 19 migrants died in the freezing winter temperatures.

In response to this situation, Poland sent soldiers to its border, erected razor-wire fencing, and started the construction of a 186-kilometre wall to prevent asylum seekers entering from Belarus. It also adopted legislation that would allow it to expel anyone who irregularly crossed its border and banned their re-entry.

Even before the stand-off between Poland and Belarus, refugees in Poland did not receive a warm welcome. Very few asylum seekers were granted refugee status (in 2020 out of 2,803 applications, only 161 were granted refugee status) and large numbers of refugees and migrants were detained: a total of 1,675 migrants and asylum seekers were in detention in January 2022, compared to just 122 people during all of 2020.

With this recent history as backdrop, the double standards and racism inherent in Europe’s refugee responses are glaring. There are no calls from Brussels today to detain refugees fleeing Ukraine for up to 18 months.

Why? Because, as Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said recently about people from Ukraine: “These are not the refugees we are used to. … These people are Europeans. … These people are intelligent, they are educated people. … This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have been even terrorists.”

Similarly, Hungary’s Orban has said that every refugee coming from Ukraine will be “welcomed by friends in Hungary,” adding that one doesn’t have to be a “rocket scientist” to see the difference between “masses arriving from Muslim regions in hope of a better life in Europe” and helping Ukrainian refugees who have come to Hungary because of the war.

Sadly, these double standards have reared in the response to non-Ukrainians fleeing the war in Ukraine. There are a growing number of accounts of students and migrants from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia who have faced racist treatment, obstruction, and violence trying to flee Ukraine.

Many described being prevented from boarding trains and buses in Ukrainian towns while priority was given to Ukrainian nationals; others described being aggressively pulled aside and stopped by Ukrainian border guards when trying to cross into neighbouring countries.

There are also accounts of Polish authorities taking aside African students and refusing them entry into Poland, although the Polish Ambassador to the UN told a General Assembly meeting on 28 February that assertions of race or religion-based discrimination at Poland’s border were “a complete lie and a terrible insult to us.”

He asserted that “nationals of all countries who suffered from Russian aggression or whose life is at risk can seek shelter in my country.” According to the Ambassador, people from 125 different nationalities have been admitted into Poland from Ukraine.

Several African leaders have strongly criticized the discrimination on the borders of Ukraine, saying everyone has the same right to cross international borders to flee conflict and seek safety.

The African Union stated that “reports that Africans are singled out for unacceptable dissimilar treatment would be shockingly racist and in breach of international law,” and called for all countries to “show the same empathy and support to all people fleeing war notwithstanding their racial identity.”

Similar messages were shared by the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, who said in a Tweet: “I am grateful for the compassion, generosity and solidarity of Ukraine’s neighbours who are taking in those seeking safety. It is important that this solidarity is extended without any discrimination based on race, religion or ethnicity,” and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees who stressed that “it is crucial that receiving countries continue to welcome all those fleeing conflict and insecurity—irrespective of nationality and race.”

The Ukraine refugee crisis presents Europe with not only an important opportunity to demonstrate its generosity, humanitarian values, and commitment to the international refugee protection regime; it is also a critical moment of reflection: Can the peoples of Europe overcome their widespread racism and animosity and embrace the universalist spirit of the 1951 Refugee Convention?

As Article 3 of the Convention holds, all member states “shall apply the provisions of this Convention to refugees without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin.”

Rachael Reilly and Michael Flynn are based at the Global Detention Project in Geneva.

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There has been a growing tendency in recent years for think tanks and military brass to jointly pursue policy objectives, some of which are opposed by the public or the White House.

Recent examples have included the campaigns to promote troop “surges” in Iraq (2007) and Afghanistan (2009). Both of these campaigns involved seemingly coordinated efforts by generals and policy wonks to articulate to the public and policy-makers why they should support costly military policies in increasingly unpopular wars. This trend in joint civilian-military public relations, say critics, raises important questions about the appropriate role of the military in promoting particular policies and whether there is enough transparency and accountability in the work of policy groups.

It is a time-honoured tradition, especially – though not exclusively – on the political right, for think tanks to pack their advisory boards with retired officers (many of whom also segue into defense industry jobs after leaving the military), who despite their apparent conflicts of interest provide an apparent sheen of seriousness and credibility.

Examples include the Centre for Security Policy (CSP) and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, two neoconservative organisations whose boards are chock-a-block with defence industry executives and retired military brass.

In addition, as the New York Times reported in 2008, some of these retired officers -like Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, a CSP advisor, and Gen. Barry McCaffery, a board member of the defunct Committee for the Liberation of Iraq – have developed reputations as “impartial” experts, appearing on TV news programmes while surreptitiously receiving talking points from the Pentagon.

There have also been cases in the past where generals shunned the chain of command to promote tactics and strategies that were opposed by the White House or Congress – for instance, Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s criticism of President Harry Truman’s limited war strategy during the Korean War and, more recently, Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Wesley Clark’s advocacy for direct U.S. military involvement in the Kosovo conflict.

However, say observers, the Afghanistan and Iraq public relations campaigns represent a troubling new trend in efforts by military officers to actively court (or co-opt) organisations – both on the right (for example, the American Enterprise Institute) and the centre (Centre for a New American Security) – in an effort to shape public policy.

One source interviewed for this article, a Washington-based foreign policy writer who asked to be quoted in background so as not to jeopardise his relations in government and the non-governmental policy community, claims that there has been a “structural shift” in civilian relations to the Pentagon that to some extent was initiated by Democrats in the late 1990s.

Concerned over poll numbers showing that the public did not trust Democrats on national security and hoping to cure the “allergy” many liberals had felt for the military since the Vietnam War, some elements of the Democratic Party started actively courting uniformed officers in various policy venues, including at the Council on Foreign Relations, which began a military fellows programme around that time.

As a result of this effort, says the Washington-based writer, many Democrats “became Pentagon huggers instead of Pentagon reformers” (a mantle that was left to Republicans, like the much maligned Donald Rumsfeld, to take up).

These civilian-military collaborations are not all negative, he says, and they can include cooperation on a range of issues, such as how to best address piracy and confront North Korea. The problem arises when the military is shown too much deference. It was out this milieu, he says, that Democratic Party-aligned hawkish think tanks like the Centre for a New American Security were born.

Critics of this trend highlight two main problems. On the one hand, they say, military officers have an obligation not to bias the policy process. Says Bernard Finel of the American Security Project, “In an ideal world, this is a top down situation – civilians make policy decisions, the military implements them. But the military has expertise, so they should be involved in the decision-making process. There needs to be some back and forth.”

“The problem is where to draw line,” he noted. “We reify military figures when it comes to questions of war and conflict, so they should be very careful how they impact the process.”

Other critics highlight the actions of think tanks. Says the Washington-based foreign policy expert, “The problem is that the public thinks these organisations are there to pursue the public good, to challenge public officials, not get co- opted by them.”

But when you see these groups parroting military arguments to promote operations that involve a staggering amount of resources, he says, it is difficult to argue that they are fulfilling their self-defined roles, especially given the current economic crisis.

Brian Katulis of the Centre for American Progress agrees, highlighting the issue of money. When these experts are paraded on television pushing the military line based on their tours of war zones, he says, the public “doesn’t realise that these people were paid to go on these trips”.

More importantly, he says, there needs to be more “transparency and accountability with respect to how these groups are financed” and what their supporters’ financial stakes are with respect to defence policies.

Adds Finel, “Sure, anyone who has a financial stake in the policies promoted by a think tank should be forced to disclose its support. But there will always be this situation of using celebrities, big names, to generate interest and, ultimately, to raise money. Everyone does it, on the left, the right, the centre, thinks tanks, universities.”

“The bigger question is how some groups and individuals game the system, generate influence through connections to the military or government, receive loads of money from corporate sponsors, and then use these connections to become enormously influential in the policy process,” he said. “I mean, who elected CNAS?”

As next year’s deadline to begin troop withdrawals from Afghanistan approaches, questions about the legitimacy of joint military-wonk policy campaigns will likely resurface.

As IPS reported in mid-June, military leaders like Gen. Stanley McChrystal and Gen. David Petraeus may “be counting on pressure from the Republican Party to force President Barack Obama to reverse his present position.” John Nagl, head of CNAS, said as much after his organisation’s recent annual conference, arguing that unless the president changes policy to give Gen. McChrystal more time he will be vulnerable to partisan attacks during the 2012 election campaign.

*Michael Flynn is the director of IPS Right Web and the lead researcher of the Global Detention Project at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. This is the second of a two-part series on the relationship between think tanks and the U.S. military.

In early May, Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, was awarded the American Enterprise Institute’s Irving Kristol Award, which is given to individuals who have “made exceptional intellectual or practical contributions to improved government policy, social welfare, or political understanding”.

During his acceptance speech, titled “The Surge of Ideas”, Petraeus lauded a number of neoconservative “scholars” associated with AEI, in particular “Team Kagan”, for their work in preparing the intellectual ground work that led to the “surge” in Iraq.

He said, “In the fall of 2006, AEI scholars helped develop the concept for what came to be known as the surge. Fred and Kim Kagan and their team, which included retired general Jack Keane, prepared a report that made the case for additional troops in Iraq. As all here know, it became one of those rare think tank products that had a truly strategic impact.”

Three months earlier, in January, Petraeus offered a very similar speech about the “surge of ideas” during a talked organised by Kim Kagan’s Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a “non-partisan, non-profit, public policy research organisation [that] advances an informed understanding of military affairs through reliable research, trusted analysis, and innovative education.”

During his ISW presentation, which was devoted largely to discussing U.S. military priorities in the greater Middle East, Petraeus argued that “far more important than the surge of 30,000 additional U.S. troops was the surge of ideas that helped us to employ those troops.” He said that a number of think tank “heroes” like “Fred” and “Kim” were responsible for developing a “study and analysis that did indeed have a strategic impact unlike that of any other study or analysis that I can think of”.

Petraeus was referring to “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq”, a study sponsored by the AEI and led by Fred Kagan and retired Gen. Jack Keane (an ISW board member), with Kim Kagan and a host of AEI scholars serving as advisers. The group’s report, released in early 2007, played an instrumental role in shaping the surge and building public support for it.

Petraeus extolled his think tank “heroes” for providing “the rationale for the additional forces that were required [and] describ[ing] how they might be used in Iraq”, claiming that their work “serendipitously” made its way into “the West Wing and ultimately even into the Oval Office. …I think it played a very significant role in helping to shape the intellectual concepts and indeed, in helping to shape the ultimate policy decision that was made.”

Petraeus’s “surge of ideas” speech highlights an issue that has drawn increasing attention and criticism from commentators and foreign policy experts. In recent years, there has been a tendency for like-minded think tanks and military officers to jointly pursue policy objectives, sometimes in opposition to the stated preferences of the administration.

According to some observers, this trend raises questions about the appropriate role of both military officers, who are part of a chain of command, and think tanks, which present themselves as “non-partisan” appraisers of public policy.

The Iraq surge public relations campaign is often highlighted as a case in point. Commenting on this case, Brian Katulis, a fellow at the liberal Centre for American Progress, argues that when military officers get involved in policy advocacy, it can have a “narrowing effect” on debate.

Katulis points to Petraeus’s support for the work of Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the centrist Brookings Institution. In a July 2007 article for the New York Times titled “A War We Might Just Win” – a “propaganda piece”, says Katulis – the two analysts cited their military- sponsored tour in Iraq to claim that, as a result of the surge, “morale was high”, the bad guys were on the run, and while the situation remained “grave”, the military escalation merited continued congressional support.

Exactly the message, says Katulis, that Petraeus hoped to transmit.

Bernard Finel, a fellow at the American Security Project in Washington, agrees, arguing that Petraeus’s decision to give a “window shield” tour to analysts like O’Hanlon was patently deliberate. During the months before his Iraq tour, O’Hanlon had helped promote the surge ideas pushed by the Kagans, coauthoring a paper with Fred Kagan and inviting him to talk at a Brookings event.

“Petraeus knew that the Bush administration’s credibility was low, that it was going to have trouble selling the surge,” said Finel in an interview, so he hand-picked a number of civilians who he knew were behind this policy and helped turn them into media “experts”. This effort sidelined critics of the surge, says Finel, who were viewed as “outsiders, people without access, and thus not to be believed”.

Just as importantly, say writers like Foreign Policy’s Laura Rozen, the successful effort to promote the Iraq surge appears to have had an impact on Petraeus, who realised the persuasive power of getting “influence makers” to present situations on the ground “from the command’s perspective”.

Wrote Rozen last year, “It’s a lesson perhaps from the Petraeus team’s famous counterinsurgency doctrine: In the campaign to win hearts and minds, don’t forget the home front.”

This “Petreaus Model” was updated late last year by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. During much of 2009, in an effort to overcome resistance from the Obama administration and push through his preferred war plan, McChrystal waged a public relations campaign that relied in part on a “strategic assessment” team made up of several policy wonks whose views happened to be largely in line with his own.

Team members included the omnipresent Kagans, Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations, Anthony Cordesman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Andrew Exum of the Centre for a New American Security (CNAS), and Jeremy Shapiro of the Brookings Institution.

Some of these civilian experts – as well as several additional high-profile wonks like O’Hanlon, who has a knack for getting invited by the U.S. military to visit conflict zones – began appearing in the media promoting ideas largely in line with McChrystal’s, defending his decision to publicly contradict the administration in a speech, or pushing an optimistic view of the Afghan situation.

Meanwhile, by late 2009, think tanks like CNAS and ISW had begun holding a series of events featuring military brass discussing progress in counterinsurgency campaigns. In September 2009, for example, several CNAS scholars joined Gen. Petraeus at a National Press Club event entitled ‘Counterinsurgency Leadership in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Beyond’, which “explored ways to improve counterinsurgency leadership, with particular attention to the leaders of American, Afghan, and Iraqi forces.”

Comments Finel, “When people like McChrystal and Petraeus come out and argue for controversial polices, they turn the debate into one of patriotism and not policy. It is no longer a debate about the merits of the policy, but about how much respect you have for the military.”

*Michael Flynn is the director of IPS Right Web and the lead researcher of the Global Detention Project at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. This is the first of a two-part series on the relationship between think tanks and the U.S. military.