The Geopolitics of Conflict-Actuated Mass Displacement in the 21st Century

Introduction

Ever since antiquity, human migration and displacement have remained phenomena that have contributed towards not only the cultural but also demographic fertility that is so characteristic of the world that we live in. When undertaken voluntarily, migration gives the world its international nature. However, when triggered by conflicts or conflict-like situations, these same migrations and displacements can play havoc with the international social fabric. This is because the traumatic recollections of conflicts and the resultant responses from individuals’ cognitions – mostly expressed via criminal behaviours and radical inclinations – have the proclivity to spillover from one part of the world to another with those displaced.

The twenty-first century has witnessed multiple internal and external migrations around the globe prompted by conflicts. While the number of international migrants increased by more than a million from 173 million in 2000 to 281 million in 2020, the number of internally displaced persons more than doubled from 21 million in 2000 to 55 million in 2020 (International Organization for Migration, 2021). Today, as per the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR] data, these migrants originate from different countries around the world, including (but not limited to) Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Sahel region of Africa, Somalia, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Ukraine, etc. (UNHCR, 2021). Moreover, many of these migrants have been forced to displace more than once. This means that they initially found refuge in a country that itself became engulfed in a conflict a couple of years after sheltering them. An example to this end is of the Iraqis who found refuge in Syria but had to leave the country after its subsequent decline into conflict, too (UNHCR, 2022).

Then again, the conflicts that trigger these displacements come in various forms and varieties. They can be generated by intra-country political conflicts and civil wars. However, today they are increasingly the result of international military interventions by great powers in developing parts of the world. As a policy, international military intervention began garnering support and approval in the 1990s and it was the year 1999 which saw the military intervention of Kosovo by NATO without the United Nations Security Council being in the loop (Batool, 2022a). The US, being the exclusive superpower of the world, not only helmed the policy but also used it on multiple occasions in the name of humanitarian interventions – resultantly making military intervention a recognised international normative custom (Batool, 2022a).

The sheer numbers of individuals displaced as an aftereffect of US military interventions reveal that the twenty-first century is indeed the century of those forcibly displaced due to conflicts. At least 38 million to, at the most, 60 million individuals had to leave their homes to start a new life elsewhere as a direct result of US military expeditions since September 11, 2001. The only political and security turmoil that generated greater displacements than the US military interventions was the Second World War itself – which caused the forced migration of at least 64 million individuals (Vine et al., 2021). However, it should be noted here that the latter was an international phenomenon with various partaking countries. The mere fact that a single country could, and has, spawned displacements to compete with an entire world war, reveals not only the nature of power that the US holds but also exposes the utter ineffectiveness and apathy of the international political and security system.