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Immigration as a weapon [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-08-18
There’s a story in Guardian about Denis Sharonov, a one time Minister in Russian local government, who now drives a truck between Texas and Michigan.
www.theguardian.com/…
This reminded me of my thoughts about using immigration as a weapon.
Immigration in Europe
The indigenous population of Europe is shrinking fast. Some countries, like Italy, are shrinking almost as fast as Japan.
Example data www.euronews.com/…
The EU’s population is roughly steady, thanks to about 1 to 2 million immigrants per year. The UK’s population is rising thanks to immigration (mostly from Africa and Asia) of over 1 million in 2022 (on a population of roughly 70 million).
This translates to a massive shortage of both skilled workers and manual workers.
The USA and Canada, though they have growing populations (in some areas), are bringing in immigrants. About 1 million per year in the case of the USA.
Despite all the fuss about “irregular migration” — whether it be crossing “Trump’s wall” or crossing the English channel in small boats, the vast majority of this immigration is approved and legal. Often it is essential to the economy, though in many cases — especially in the UK — it is used as an alternative to training locals.
A typical example is the UK health system. It hasn’t trained enough Doctors and Nurses for decades, and instead prefers to poach them from India and other developing countries. Everywhere we are poaching skilled workers from developing countries, leaving their economies worse off.
What about Russia?
Russia is even worse off. For example, The Moscow Times reports “Russia would need to attract as many as 1 million new migrants every year until the end of the century to maintain its current population levels”
www.themoscowtimes.com/...
But Russia was hardly an attractive destination for skilled workers even before their war. Since the war, about 200,000 Russians — mostly skilled and young — have left Russia. Add that to the 200,000 that have been “taken out” by Ukrainian shells and bullets (Ukraine’s own figures of “liquidated enemies” probably suffers from optimism bias, but if we include badly injured who cannot return to fighting, then 200,000 may be close).
Immigration as a Weapon
Can we in the west — mostly in Europe, but the US and Canada can help — use immigration as a weapon. Use it to damage the Russian economy, instead of African and Asian developing economies?
How about we offer any Russian with a technical qualification (From Plumber and Electrician to Rocket Scientist and Brain Surgeon), under the age of 40, a 1 year “look for work visa” and €5,000 to help them. They would have to have sign a war disclaimer (confidentially), and agree to a code of conduct. If after a year they have a job, have learnt the local language and have integrated (and avoided Russian ghettos and mobs) they can stay and apply for citizenship.
The official reasons for doing this would be to help our economies, and to help Russian citizens advance their prospects. (Not being in a hole in Kherson province is a major advance).
The unofficial reason would be to bleed Russia’s economy dry. We (“the west” could take a million young skilled people out of Russia and barely notice, except for the uptick in GDP. Ukraine meanwhile, for all their efforts, have only “taken out” 200,000. Without enough young and skilled people, Russia will not be in a position to threaten other countries (Except with nuclear weapons — a cold, old, arthritic hand will remain on the trigger).
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