https://www.dw.com/en/the-route-from-iraq-to-belarus-how-are-migrants-getting-to-europe/a-59636629
Accusations and tensions have been rising between Poland and Belarus with the movement of migrants from the Middle East, prevalently Iraq, flowing into the EU. The contention is in the migration pattern that first enters Eastern Europe through the non-EU country Belarus before crossing borders into neighboring EU countries to their final destination. A majority of the Iraqi migrants come from the predominantly Kurdish region in northern Iraq, particularly the three towns of Shiladze, Irbil, and Sulaymaniyah. The migrants’ flight paths from Iraq to Minsk, capital of Belarus, have been diverted through parts of Turkey, Lebanon, Ukraine, and Dubai after the EU pressed Iraq to put direct flights to Minsk from Baghdad on hold. Some travelers have even chosen out of desperation to be smuggled into Europe from their home countries. Those that have made it to Belarus have been congregating on the border with Poland and slipping through Poland’s border security, sparking a response from Poland’s military. Poland has taken Belarus’s disregard for any regulation of the mass migration as a hostile threat and contrived effort of the Belarusians to instigate open violence. This sentiment was publicized on Polish radio by Deputy Foreign Minister Piotr Wawrzyk who asserted, “Belarus wants to cause a major incident, preferably with shots fired and casualties.” There have been multiple accusations from Poland insinuating and outright stating that the Belarusian army is in control of the situation and is orchestrating the migrants’ movements along and across the Polish border as a way of using them to indirectly attack the EU. Many other EU countries including Belgium, Lithuania, and Germany have been affected by the migration and are taking similar stances. In contrast, Belarus has claimed Poland’s struggle with the migrants is due to their own “indifferent” and “inhumane” treatment of the migrants. Poland has been accused of denying asylum seekers, leaving them no choice but to attempt illegal crossings of the border en masse to overrun Poland’s security. On the Polish border, Poland has brought in an additional 2,000 totalling the current number of soldiers on the border at 12,000 troops, all of them preparing to defend the border from migrants and any other threat that might emerge from the crisis.
Out of the many perspectives put forth on this situation, I cannot fully agree with any single one in particular. The EU has always had the option to change their policies on immigration and allow the new surge of migrants into EU countries like Poland through direct and EU-controlled routes. This could reduce the leverage that Belarus has over its neighboring EU countries Poland and Lithuania. Furthermore, it would force Belarus to either pursue an outright armed conflict on the border with Poland, or to continue hiding its true intentions and find a subtler method of pressuring the EU. However, statements from Belarus authorities attesting that they have only taken “necessary measures to ensure the continuous functioning of international transport channels” does a poor job of explaining their response to the influx of immigrants arriving in Minsk. Maintaining free international travel does not mean that they cannot do something about the migrants being smuggled into their country, making it clear that even if Belarus isn’t purposefully sending migrants to Poland’s border, it is also eschewing taking any action to stop it.
From a Realist perspective, Belarus is exercising its geographic power as a border country on the east of the EU. The geographic power of an enemy country remains a primary concern because of its permanence and inescapability, even into the modern time of warfare commonly fought overseas. When fearing aggression from a neighboring country, more focus has to be placed on border security, a principle exemplified by this instance where Poland has placed 12,000 of its troops on its border in an attempt to barricade itself from Belarus. While Belarus is a small country and has been weakened economically by the EU, US, and UK sanctions against it, it is still able to make it into international news and become a priority issue for the EU, fundamentally through geographic power.