There is an almost palatable desire by the NATSEC community to focus on those things it is most comfortable with, what is easy to wargame, what good people can politely in detached manner disagree about alternative Courses of Action in public; territorial disputes in the South China Sea, the Syrian Civil War, the future of NATO, a resurgent Russia.

Yes, these are comfortable subjects, but they are wrapped in the vanity of denial. For The West, they may not be the most important subject worthy of time and treasure to prepare for. It should invest more time in looking at the uncomfortable, the difficult – what is driving conflict and building pressures for the next conflict; the intersection of economics, demographics, and migration.

From pre-history to today, masses of people from Finns to Vikings to Magyars to Bantu to Nuristani have all moved to either escape conflict or the inability of their former homelands to support internal population growth at a standard of living that provided a viable and sustainable future.

People migrate from bad places to better places when they can, invade when they must – but unless the marginal cost is higher where they want to go relative to staying where they are, they will move. Some want to join, other want to take.

Arguments over a few reefs in shallow Asian waters or a few hundred square miles of steppe are not existential threats to The West, but the ongoing unassimilable masses of Middle Eastern and African migrants are.

Already destabilizing the EU project and the post-WWII center-left/right political compromise, all trends show that unless steps are taken to make Europe less attractive, the migrant crisis will build on its own momentum.

One great variable is the gravity that is drawing the migrants in, the open door welfare states of Northern Europe and the porous Southern European borders. Let’s put that to the side and instead look at the more easily quantifiable variable, the one easier to put facts and figures to; the source nations.

While migration figures are declining in parts of Europe, Reiner Klingholz believes now is just the calm before the storm.

The head of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development said: “The large waves of migration have yet to come. Measures such as the Turkey Agreement and the closing of the Balkan Route ensure that currently only a few people come to Europe.

“The causes of the refugee crisis, however, have not changed.” … high population growth and low economic opportunities, combing to push migrants towards Europe. … More than 25,000 migrants arrived at Italy’s borders in July alone … The huge influx is a 12 per cent increase on the same period last year, … More than 140,000 migrants are now housed in Italian shelters, a seven-fold increase on 2013, with the migrant now crisis in its third year.
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He said: ”The forces that are driving more and more people from their homes – weak states, big tumults within the Islamic world, a divided international system. None of these things are likely to abate soon.”

Each source nation has its own story, but let’s look at one that has the greatest potential to destabilize. Yet to be a major migration source, but by its very size and instability as it teeters on the edge requires a lot of thought. We are talking about a nation with 3.5x the 2010 population of Syria; Egypt.

In most countries a youth bulge leads to an economic boom. But Arab autocrats regard young people as a threat—and with reason. Better educated than their parents, wired to the world and sceptical of political and religious authority, the young were at the forefront of the uprisings of 2011. They toppled rulers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, and alarmed the kings and presidents of many other states.

Now, with the exception of Tunisia, those countries have either slid into civil war or seen their revolutions rolled back. The lot of young Arabs is worsening: it has become harder to find a job and easier to end up in a cell. Their options are typically poverty, emigration or, for a minority, jihad.

This is creating the conditions for the next explosion. Nowhere is the poisonous mix of demographic stress, political repression and economic incompetence more worrying than in Egypt under its strongman, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi.
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Arab populations are growing exceptionally fast. Although the proportion who are aged 15-24 peaked at 20% of the total of 357m in 2010, the absolute number of young Arabs will keep growing, from 46m in 2010 to 58m in 2025.
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The regime is bust, sustained only by generous injections of cash from Gulf states (and, to a lesser degree, by military aid from America). Even with billions of petrodollars, Egypt’s budget and current-account deficits are gaping, at nearly 12% and 7% of GDP respectively. … Youth unemployment now stands at over 40%. … in Egypt’s broken system university graduates are more likely to be jobless than the country’s near-illiterate.

What is there to do?

Such is Egypt’s strategic importance that the world has little choice but to deal with Mr Sisi. But the West should treat him with a mixture of pragmatism, persuasion and pressure. It should stop selling Egypt expensive weapons it neither needs nor can afford, be they American F-16 jets or French Mistral helicopter-carriers. Any economic help should come with strict conditions: the currency should ultimately be allowed to float; the civil service has to be slimmed; costly and corruption-riddled subsidy schemes should be phased out. The poorest should in time be compensated through direct payments.

All this should be done gradually. Egypt is too fragile, and the Middle East too volatile, for shock therapy.

What are the odds of that happening? I’m not betting on that. The smart money isn’t that things will remain as they are from here on out. Even though it does not have some of the ethnic and sectarian challenges of some of its neighbors, better odds point towards collapse and conflict. If Egypt heads towards collapse, where will the Egyptian refugees go?

Unlike Syria that had a ready buffer of Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan – where will they Egyptians go? Israel, Libya, Sudan? No. There is just one reliable external safety valve – the path with the best risk/reward ratio is north, to Europe.

No, history is not even close to ending. She never rests.