Immigration and National Security

“Ethnicity, Immigration and National Security”?
by Arthur I. Cyr
China’s Communist leader Mao Zedong famously observed that the guerrilla is a fish, and the people are the sea providing the support leading to victory. That victory might be historically determined, according to strict Communism, but understanding the population was an important component. Mao’s insight was often quoted during the most intense years of the Cold War, the dramatic imagery reinforcing the extraordinarily strong sense of threat that spurred much of the foreign policies pursued by anti-communist governments.
This point from an earlier era provides a useful counterweight to an assumption that demography, the study of the characteristics of populations, is the appropriate bailiwick primarily of the actuary, the economist, and the statistician. Mao’s comprehensive perspective implies that both the revolutionaries and their opponents must focus on winning popular support. The people, not territory per se, are the strategic goal. In turn, the characteristics of the population provide insights into tactical means.
During the early years of American involvement in Vietnam, the U.S. military in general and the Army in particular emphasized such an approach. Doctrine held that the wider economic and social contexts of armed operations had to be included if success ultimately was to be achieved. “Winning hears and minds”? became the catch phrase.
The Army’s Special Forces, severely restricted and restrained by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, became a very high priority during the Kennedy Administration. Using the Green Berets to bridge conventional military operations and effective education and reform at the grassroots level was one incentive.
Dealing with any revolutionary organization, including contemporary terrorists, must respect Mao’s demographic dictum. Al Qaeda clearly seeks to sway Islamic opinion defined in global terms as well as target populations in Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States.
September 11, 2001 brought a very shocking, bloody reminder of global realities. The Soviet Union had collapsed and the Cold War ended, but the world remains a very dangerous place. Nations have undeniable conflicts of interests, ethnic and racial differences create hostilities, and religious and secular ideologies fuel very intense hatreds. In our time, technology opens new opportunities for destruction, and the growth of market economies and representative elected governments has hardly brought an end to ideologies or group hatreds.
The immediate military reaction to the terrorist strikes was the invasion of Afghanistan and overthrow of the Taliban regime. There was virtually no serious international debate about this policy. The Taliban government of Afghanistan sheltered al Qaeda, and the military effort was supported by and organized in conjunction with both NATO and the United Nations.
Beyond direct military operations, the security implications of the Islamic ethnic origins of al Qaeda, including the September 11 killers, were addressed. To the great credit of President George W. Bush and his administration, a moving ecumenical religious service was held at the National Cathedral in Washington. The Imam of North America was featured at the ceremony, which emphasized enduring nondenominational religious themes of compassion, reconciliation and tolerance.
Very extensive efforts also began, especially but not exclusively in the United States and Europe, to seek out and destroy the resources of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. The U.S. Treasury and other law enforcement agencies, working with international and overseas national counterparts, have been particularly successful in identifying, tracking and confiscating al Qaeda money. The computerized global banking networks which have facilitated funding terrorists also have provided opportunities for surveillance as well as seizure by intelligence and police authorities.
Other Bush administration actions and policies have been much more controversial. The invasion and occupation of Iraq was widely unpopular from the start, and has become so within the United States. Even close ally Britain supported the White House primarily because of the personal commitment of Prime Minister Tony Blair, not wide support among the public or even in his government. Casual Bush references to a “crusade”? in the Middle East against terrorism were highly counterproductive.
Opponents of the invasion and occupation of Iraq argue in part that the effort has in fact reinforced anti-Western sentiment and bred terrorists. Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago is a persuasive advocate of this point of view, discussed in detail in his book 'Dying to Win'. In effect, critics argue the invasion has permitted al Qaeda opportunities to generate support that is ethnically based, reaching well beyond the Middle East.1
The struggle against al Qaeda lends urgency to understanding Islamic cultures and religion, but that is not the only incentive. In recent years, the Moslem populations in Europe as well as the United States have grown rapidly. Not surprisingly, anti-immigrant movements have developed. In Asia, Indonesia has a particularly substantial Moslem population. Population growth, and the associated phenomenon of global migrations, should encourage serious policy and political analysis of implications of changes in the Islamic worlds.
United States history is very germane to addressing the national security and other dimensions of demographic change. Again, this is related to but reaches well beyond the current preoccupations with Islamic extremism and terrorism.
First and most fundamental, the United States more explicitly than other nations was founded on the principles of political freedom, equality of opportunity and openness to immigrants. Europe’s history and constitutional evolution has been very different. This is not to argue that Americans have any monopoly on virtue and morality, or that philosophical commitment has always been honored in practice, but rather that the context of life and law has been distinctive.
Second and closely related, while there is understandable current emphasis on Islamic populations in the West, in particular since September 11 on the security implications thereof, Americans have had to confront the challenges of dealing with very diverse populations endeavoring to coexist for a much longer period of time. European populations, especially in Western Europe, have historically been more ethnically and racially uniform.
Inherent diversity has often led to ugly history. Professor Samuel P. Huntington of Harvard University addresses this legacy directly in his recent book 'Who Are We?' He emphasizes the importance of King Philip’s War of 1675-76 in the American colonies. This particularly brutal and costly war between Native Americans and Europeans ended a remarkably friendly coexistence and cooperation between the races, creating an atmosphere of hatred and violence that continued through much of American history. Huntington proceeds to discuss the importance of such events as the Dred Scott decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1857, just before the Civil War, which defined African-Americans as property rather than human beings with rights. In such an environment, a national culture and uniformity of law are essential if positive founding values are to be realized, even in part.2
Huntington’s book is essentially a call to alarm about the extraordinary movement of Hispanic/Latino people into the United States in recent years. He believes this migration is different, in part because of the enormous numbers involved. Also, in contrast to earlier immigrant populations, this one is not motivated by desire to assimilate, achieve citizenship and join the majority culture. These new residents to a significant degree want to remain separate, and can do so thanks to very large numbers and fulfilling generally undesirable jobs.
The present situation follows a history of American immigration characterized by general openness. After the Civil War, very large-scale continuing migration occurred into the United States. This directly reflected the enormous need for workers that characterized the great industrial development of the economy in the decades following that war. More subtly, German and other Central European populations were being repaid for the enormous contributions their immigrants made to the Union victory.
The Twentieth Century brought dramatic shifts in immigration policy. In 1924, economic anxieties, strongly-rooted nativist prejudices, and outright racism resulted in closing doors to immigration. Policy was not reversed until 1965. In recent years, large numbers of legal immigrants have been supplemented by a huge illegal population. The current anti-immigrant backlash provides a strong challenge to American politicians. Hostility to immigrants, primarily but not exclusively those coming in from Mexico, at times is expressed in terms of protecting national security.
Despite current controversies, there are generally positive national security implications to this American immigrant experience. These include but reach well beyond the Islamic dimensions. First, success in achieving historically rooted goals of diversity, equality and tolerance means that the U.S. social environment may be relatively less likely to encourage successful domestically-rooted terrorism. The September 11 killers were recent immigrants, in the country legally, undeniably present only to carry out the bloody strikes.
Contrasting public reactions to the September 11 and Pearl Harbor attacks is instructive. After September 11, there were a few very widely, not always accurately, reported incidents of violence toward Moslems in the U.S. At the same time, the service in the National Cathedral was representative of efforts by many Americans to demonstrate tolerance toward our Moslem population, evidence of which was witnessed first-hand at the time in Kenosha Wisconsin.
By contrast, following Pearl Harbor there were organized reprisals against Japanese-Americans. Federal internment of Japanese residing on the West Coast was demanded by ambitious California Attorney General Earl Warren, later to become governor and the 1948 Republican vice-presidential nominee. The Roosevelt administration cooperated, though Washington did not initiate the imprisonments. Decades later, those interned in the midst of wartime hysteria and racism received Federal financial compensation. Americans collectively clearly have made progress in tolerance.
Second, a diverse population in a free society has advantages of imagination as well as expertise. One dramatic example is the employment of Navajo Indians by the U.S. military during the Second World War. The Allies succeeded early in breaking German and Japanese military codes; the Navajo language was impenetrable to outsiders. The attacks of September 11 demonstrate in the starkest terms that pervasive technology can facilitate terrorism. In consequence, the tools provided by social and cultural openness become even more crucial.
Third, the relative youth of the American population is an advantage. One byproduct of very large-scale Hispanic as well as Moslem immigration, given the relatively large numbers of children produced by family groups, is that the U.S. is unique among advanced industrial nations in not having a rapidly aging population. In the future, growing foreign migration in Europe may bring that region more in line with the American trend.3
All industrial nations are under pressure to reduce military forces. The small size of the British Army, approximately one hundred thousand men and women, was an important factor in the recent decision in London to accelerate Iraq withdrawal. Traditionally the U.S. military, especially the Army, has provided upward mobility to lower-income people. Immigrant offspring should make maintaining needed military force levels relatively manageable.
In sum, evaluating demographic dimensions of U.S. society, past and present, leads to positive conclusions regarding our national security. Enduring American values and current demographic trends are both encouraging. Mao’s revolutionary fish imagery is much more germane overseas, especially in Africa and Asia as well as Europe where large Moslem populations reside. Huntington’s alarm about Hispanic immigrants seems excessive given our history of both absorbing widely disparate groups and changing national policies to deal with evolving realities.
Crucial to our overall national security is not American demography, but the quality of U.S. foreign policy.

1. Robert A. Pape, 'Dying To Win — The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism', New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2006.
2. Samuel P. Huntington, 'Who Are We? The Challenges To America’s National Identity', New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Simon & Schuster, 2004, pp. 53-55.
3. The OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) Web site provides useful background migration data: OECD

Arthur I. Cyr is Director of the Clausen Center for World Business at Carthage College in Kenosha Wisconsin and author of 'After the Cold War' (NYU Press and Palgrave/Macmillan). He can be reached at acyr@carthage.edu