Europe's Migrant Policing Initiative Has Nothing to Do with Migration

Sending a navy to the Mediterranean makes it look like the EU and the UN are doing something. It's not accomplishing much else.

In an act of utter redundancy last month, the UN Security Council passed a resolution approving an EU naval operation that was already underway. The Security Council rubber-stamped Operation Sophia, which was ostensibly devised to stop Mediterranean smugglers. But the operation is unlikely to deter smugglers from continuing their illegal trade, and might actually encourage migration by making it easier for migrants to reach Europe.

Operation Sophia, which was named after a baby born during a migrant rescue mission, aims to disrupt the smugglers' business model by searching, seizing, diverting and sinking boats used for smuggling, and by arresting and trying smugglers in Italian courts. European navies may board smugglers' boats and use military force as necessary to capture smugglers. The EU announced the operation last spring, despite warnings by government advisors and a former EU ambassador to Libya that the plan was "moronic and delusional," that it would result in significant collateral damage to boats that could be confused with smugglers' crafts, and that it would endanger migrants' lives....

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