# The Engineers of Europe's Migration Crisis # The Geopolitical Pincer of Washington, Moscow, and their Trojan Horses The European Union has spent the last decade grappling with an existential crisis fueled by unprecedented waves of mass migration, especially to Western and Southern Europe. This phenomenon is not merely an accident of history. This essay argues that the mass migration flows into Europe were, to varying degrees, engineered or opportunistically exploited by the United States and Russia. Through a convergence of strategic interests — what military theorists might call a _pincer movement_ — both superpowers have utilised migration as a tool to destabilise the European Union. Furthermore, this destabilisation has birthed a bitter political irony: the rise of Anti-EU, pro-MAGA, pro-Russian populist parties like the AfD, who claim to oppose migration yet seek deeper alliances with the very architects of the crisis. # I. Introduction: The Weaponisation of Migrants In the lexicon of modern warfare, the term “Strategic Engineered Migration” (SEM), coined by the political theorist Kelly Greenhill, describes the intentional creation or manipulation of population movements to achieve political ends. The premise is simple: refugees are not victims; they can be weaponised. For the European Union, the migration crisis of 2015 and subsequent border tensions were not just humanitarian disasters but geopolitical attacks. While it is hard to find direct evidence of a secret treaty between the White House and the Kremlin to jointly destroy Europe, their parallel actions created a suspiciously perfect storm; especially during both the Obama and Trump Administrations. Russia acted as the hammer actively driving populations toward European borders to overwhelm its infrastructure. The United States acted as the metaphorical anvil, pursuing foreign policies that destabilised the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and abandoned Ukraine, while simultaneously undermining European political unity. The result was a destabilised Europe, too fractured to act as a global competitor to either Russia nor the USA. # II. Russia: The Hammer of Hybrid Warfare Russia’s involvement in engineering migration is direct, tactical, and well-documented as part of its “hybrid warfare” doctrine. For Moscow, the EU is a geopolitical rival that encroaches on its sphere of influence. Weakening the EU from within is a primary strategic objective. **The Syrian Intervention (2015):** The timing of Russia’s military intervention in Syria was not incidental. NATO’s then-Supreme Allied Commander, General Philip Breedlove, explicitly accused Russia and the Assad regime of “weaponizing migration.” By deliberately bombing civilian infrastructure in anti-Assad strongholds rather than just military targets, Russian forces terrorised civilians into fleeing in masse. The resulting exodus pushed directly into Turkey and then Europe, triggering the 2015 crisis that nearly collapsed the Schengen zone. **The Belarus Border Crisis (2021):** If Syria was the strategic long-game, the ongoing Belarus-Polish border crisis was the tactical proof of concept. Russian ally Alexander Lukashenko, with Kremlin backing, liberalized visa rules for migrants from Iraq and Syria, flew them to Minsk, and physically escorted them to the Polish and Lithuanian borders, pushing the migrants actively into EU territory. This was a state-sponsored operation designed to force the EU into a dilemma: abandon its human rights values or accept the migrants and fuel internal discord. **The Sahel Instability:** More recently, Russian proxy groups like the Wagner Group have expanded into the African Sahel (Mali, Niger). By displacing Western stabilising forces, Russia nurtures an arc of instability south of Europe, ensuring a constant pressure valve of migration that can be turned up or down to pressure Brussels. This is also the reason why both the USA and Russia have been operating with mercenaries and proxies in Lybia for over a decade: to keep the gates to Europe open. # **III. The United States as the Anvil of Destabilisation** The American role is more complex, rooted more in destructive indifference and the pursuit of hegemony. A too-strong, independent Europe threatens American dominance; a fractured Europe remains a dependent vassal. Especially the recent updates to the National Security Strategy explicit state the goal of the Trump Administration to dismantle Europe. **Regime Change and Power Vacuums:** The primary driver of the migration crisis was the collapse of order in the MENA region, traceable to U.S. foreign policy decisions in Iraq, Libya, and Syria. By toppling dictators like Gaddafi—who famously acted as Europe’s gatekeeper for African migration—the U.S. removed the cork from the bottle. The resulting anarchy turned the Mediterranean into a highway for human smugglers and trafficers, leading to Millions of Migrants flooding the Eurozone, beyond the capacities of the infrastructure to integrate them properly. **Strategic Benefit of a Weakened Euro:** Geoeconomically, the U.S. benefits from a Europe that is economically anxious. The migration crisis placed an immense burden on the Eurozone’s social welfare systems, making the U.S. Dollar relatively more attractive as a reserve currency. **Ideological Assault:** Under the “America First” doctrine, parts of the U.S. political establishment openly cheered for the EU’s fragmentation. Strategies employed by figures like Steve Bannon, Elon Musk and JD Vance involved networking with European eurosceptic parties, effectively encouraging the internal dissolution of the Union. # IV. The Trojan Horses of Anti-European Populism If the geopolitical pincer movement describes the external pressure, the rise of European right-wing populist parties—most notably the **Alternative for Germany (AfD)**—represents the internal mechanism of this destabilisation. The bitter irony is that these self-proclaimed defenders of the homeland, who campaign most aggressively against mass migration, are politically and financially aligned with the very architects of that migration. **The Arsonist’s Ally:** Parties like the AfD, France’s National Rally, and Austria’s FPÖ frame the migration crisis as an invasion. Yet, they consistently cultivate deep ties with Vladimir Putin—the man who engineered the largest refugee flows since WWII. Recent scandals, such as the allegations regarding the “Voice of Europe” suggest that leading AfD politicians may have received funds linked to Russian propaganda networks. They are, in effect, voting for the arsonist while complaining about the smoke. **MAGA Franchises**: The European Anti-EU Populist Rights draws heavy inspiration from the American “MAGA” movement. By aligning with the “America First” worldview, which treats the EU as a competitor to be divided, these parties undermine the only institution capable of securing the continent’s external borders: the European Union itself. **The Great Misdirection**: These parties have effectively become or have been for a long time “Trojan Horses”. They shift the blame for the migration crisis away from the actual engineers (Russian and American interventions around Europe) and onto the European Union (the victim). By obstructing EU-wide border solutions, like Hungarys opposition to migration treaties, in the name of “national sovereignty,” they ensure the borders remain porous, perpetuating the very crisis they claim to oppose and want to solve. # **V. The Brexit Trap** Perhaps the single most devastating example of this pincer movement is the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union. Sold to the British public by figures like Nigel Farage (a frequent guest on Russian state media) and supported by American “alt-right” networks like Steve Bannon’s Cambridge Analytica, Brexit was framed as the ultimate act of “taking back control” of national borders. The reality has been a cruel inversion of that promise. Since leaving the EU, net migration to the UK has not fallen but skyrocketed to record highs—far exceeding pre-Brexit levels—as the government replaced EU workers with non-EU migration to plug labor shortages. Crucially, by severing ties with Brussels, the UK voluntarily forfeited its access to the **Dublin Regulation** and the **Eurodac** database, the very legal tools that allowed it to return asylum seekers to other European countries. The result is a geopolitical masterstroke for the pincer’s architects: the EU is weakened by the loss of a major military power, and the UK is left isolated, facing an intensified migration crisis with fewer tools to solve it, and more dependent than ever on the United States. In the tragedy of Brexit, the “Fortress” did not raise its drawbridge; it merely burned down the bridge to its only allies. There is little doubt, that should other countries in the EU fall for the Trojan Horse, mass migration would not be stopped, but just get intenser and weaponised more effectively by Moscow and Washington. # VI. Conclusion The Mass Migration Crisis that is wrecking havoc in the UK and the EU, is not a natural disaster; it was and is an orchestrated geopolitical event. The European Union finds itself in a double pincer. To its East, their is Russia that actively pushes migrants across borders to sow chaos. To its West, there is the USA whose interventions in Lybia, Afghanistan and Syria opened the gates and set the the impulses for masses of migrants and whose political class occasionally applauds the EU’s resulting unraveling. Most dangerously, the internal political reaction has been captured by this pincer; or rather a second, internal pincer of external foreign powers and internal traitors. The voter who casts a ballot for the AfD to “stop migration” is, paradoxically, empowering the geopolitical forces that thrive on migration as a weapon to destroy Europe and European Civilisation. They are seeking protection from the storm by voting for the storm-makers, leaving Europe fractured, vulnerable, and exactly where Washington and Moscow want it to be. For those who genuinely seek an end to uncontrolled mass migration, the answer cannot be found in the ballot boxes of the AfD or other populist “Trojan Horses.” Voting for these parties is a strategic error; it is an act of handing the keys of the continent to the very foreign powers—Russia and the United States—that not only benefit from Europe’s fragmentation and chaos, but have and are actually causing it. The only viable solution to the pincer movement is not to retreat into weak, isolated nation-states, but to forge a new, impenetrable geopolitical reality. This requires strengthening and uniting the continent into a single, cohesive **European Federation**. **Ave Europa** offers the blueprint for this transformation: turning the European Union from a loose economic alliance into a united Fortress Europe. Only a federalised Europe, with a single border force, a unified military, and total strategic autonomy, can effectively seal its borders and stand as an equal superpower, capable of challenging both American hegemony and Russian aggression. To save Europe, one must not destroy the Union, but complete it. Join Ave Europa today: [https://ave-europa.eu](https://ave-europa.eu/)