Germany needs young people. Its population is dwindling. It doesn't have enough of them to support a rapidly aging German population.
- A smart solution to this shortfall would have been to actively recruit millions of young people from around the world -- from India to Tanzania to Argentina to Malaysia to the US.
- Instead, for some reason, the people running Germany thought it would be a good idea to use the Syrian crisis as a way to bring millions of young people to their country.
- It worked. Germany imported 1.1 m migrants last year.
However, if you dive into the details, it's clear this policy is very dangerous.
- Almost all (~800,000) of these migrants were young, single men (Canada, in contrast, refuses entry to young single men) from Syria. Insurgencies and terrorism run on a fuel of young men.
- These young men are culturally incompatible with EU/US standards re: women, homesexuality, free speech, etc. With a group this large and cohesive, cultural integration will be nearly impossible over any meaningful time period.
- Most of these young men (~500,000-700,000) have recent combat experience earned on the killing fields of a fractured Syria, fighting for a variety of bad causes. This makes them potentially dangerous.
Here's how I believe this will play out:
- Social disruption will rise. We are already seeing this with recent attacks by roving gangs of immigrants in Cologne. Further, Schengen will disintegrate as transborder attacks by radicals ramp up. We saw this with an attack by a "German" migrant on a police station in Paris and the flow of weapons/attackers from Brussels during the Paris attacks last year.
- Over the medium term? Terrorist violence. This population, and those that soon follow, will soon become the main conduit for extremism in Europe. Its large size, antagonism and cohesiveness will make it impossible to police.
- Over the long term? As the demographics of these countries rapidly shift in favor of the new arrivals: open source insurgency. An insurgency that will spread far from the borders of Germany. An insurgency I'm not sure Germany, nor the EU, can win.
PS: What a missed opportunity for Germany and the EU. Instead of recruiting millions of economically and socially beneficial migrants from countries across the world...