Security Arrangements and Migration Crises

This paper investigates maritime military intervention by a security arrangement in an international migration crisis by using a case study approach focused on NATO engagement in the Mediterranean Sea. It is limited in scope and focuses on external, irregular maritime migration to Europe. Using a political economy framework, the central hypothesis is that security arrangements intervene in maritime international migration crises because of a combination of supply and demand factors, which in this case led NATO to engage in a situation that would normally be outside the scope of its crisis management operations. To test this premise of NATO’s unexpected involvement in the migrant crisis, this paper examines the linkage between key factors particular to this situation and argues there were distinct causal mechanisms that spurred NATO intervention, especially the failure of the EU to manage irregular, maritime, extra-territorial migration into the region effectively and the weak relationship between Turkey and the EU in general and Greece in particular.