World events are hard to predict and few would have foreseen that in the second decade of the twenty-first century mass migration would threaten the cohesion of Europe or indeed that it would be the outcome of the ill judged War on Terror.
There are two kinds of migration. That which is legal, organised and approved; EU migration to work in the UK is an example of this. It can bring public resentment and cultural stress, but it is essentially harmless. The second kind is the diaspora of the desperate now engulfing Europe, of people fleeing various civil wars. Here the West, including NATO and especially the US and UK who were the ringleaders, bears a heavy responsibility for starting wars which not only cannot be finished but deliver results opposite to the aim. One can only hope that lessons have been learned, although the outpourings of several of the candidates aspiring to lead America give cause to wonder.
The problem with mass migration is that however hospitable a nation or a group of nations may be to those in need, the concept is framed in hundreds or possibly thousands. When it becomes hundreds of thousands and then millions everything breaks down. Political unity, consensus, tolerance and welcome are all overwhelmed together with resources and services to cope. Those who thought they had set out on a journey to a better life are left freezing in fields while agreements buckle, administration flounders and anger rises.
There is no answer to this or if there is this Blog does not have it. There is a direction of travel which says these wars must be brought to an end, countries have to be rebuilt and conditions must be made to prevail which will draw people back to their homelands. The cost will be vast; a clean up on a scale not seen since the end of WWII. The West will have to foot a lot of the bill, but a major burden must fall on the Arab states who have become mega rich on oil production and who, if not directly engaged in one of the several wars, have in their different ways and without exception, fanned the flames.
