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Oil shaped the geopolitics of the 20th century. People may shape much of the geopolitics of the 21st.
Thirty years ago, international security was largely discussed in terms of military power, nuclear deterrence, energy supplies and control of strategic waterways. All remain important. Yet a new and far more complex element has entered the global contest for influence: human mobility.
Migration is no longer simply a humanitarian story about people fleeing war, persecution or poverty. It now sits at the intersection of economic competition, demographic change, organised crime, climate disruption, technological transformation and geopolitical rivalry.
Borders are no longer merely passport control points. They have become places where economic resilience, social cohesion and the governing capacity of states are tested.
According to UN estimates, 304 million people lived outside their country of birth in 2024, equivalent to almost four per cent of the world's population. Separately, the UN refugee agency estimated that 117.8 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of 2025, most of them within their own countries. These figures describe overlapping, rather than simply additive, forms of human mobility.
The World Health Organization uses an even broader measure. When movement within, as well as across, national borders is included, it estimates that more than one billion people are on the move in one form or another.
These figures represent more than statistics. They illustrate a new reality in global politics.
International relations theory has long distinguished between hard and soft power.
Hard power traditionally refers to military force and economic coercion. Soft power rests on culture, diplomacy, technology and the influence of ideas.
A third strategic capability is becoming increasingly important: the ability to shape, absorb and manage human mobility.
No country can stop migration altogether. But the gap between states that manage it effectively and those that do not is widening.
Migration affects labour markets, housing costs, urban planning and public finances. It can alter political preferences and, in some cases, influence election outcomes.
The debate over the U.S.-Mexico border, the rise of populist parties across Europe, anxieties surrounding migration during the Brexit campaign, and the central role of migration in French, German, Dutch and Italian politics all point to the same conclusion.
Migration is no longer a secondary branch of social policy. It has become a factor that can shape political stability, electoral behaviour and national competitiveness.
It is no longer sufficient to explain migration solely as the search for a better life.
War, repression, poverty and extreme inequality continue to displace millions. Today, those drivers are reinforced by climate change, drought, water scarcity, rapid population growth, state failure, transnational criminal networks and digital communications.
A young person in a remote African village can now observe European living standards in real time on a smartphone.
Smuggling networks advertise through social media and encrypted messaging platforms. Payments move through cryptocurrencies, informal financial channels and conventional banking systems. False documents and transport can be arranged across several jurisdictions.
Migration is therefore no longer merely a physical movement between territories. It has become embedded in global digital, financial and criminal networks.
Countries that believe they can manage this phenomenon solely through fences, walls or patrol boats are attempting to solve a 21st-century problem with tools designed for an earlier era.
This helps explain why enforcement alone so often fails.
To understand the geopolitics of migration, it is first necessary to understand its economics.
Human mobility has become the foundation of a lucrative illicit market. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that migrant smuggling along just two major routes - from East, North and West Africa to Europe, and from South America to North America - generates billions of dollars each year for criminal networks.
The wider ecosystem extends from counterfeit document producers and transport providers to money-laundering networks, corrupt intermediaries and encrypted digital platforms.
Behind many of the boats that sink in the Mediterranean lies not only human tragedy, but also organised criminal enterprise.
These networks move money, information, identities and digital data. Above all, they sell hope.
Poverty, conflict and desperation have become their most valuable assets.
Migration management is therefore not solely the responsibility of border guards. It also requires financial intelligence, cyber security agencies, police co-operation, banking supervision and diplomacy.
One of the most significant concepts to emerge in recent security debates is the weaponisation, or instrumentalisation, of migration.
It describes the deliberate use or facilitation of population movements to exert political pressure, extract diplomatic concessions or create instability inside rival states.
One of the clearest European examples emerged in 2021, when the movement of migrants through Belarus towards Poland, Lithuania and Latvia was described by the European Union as a state-sponsored form of hybrid pressure.
Elsewhere, migration has become part of diplomatic bargaining even where there is no evidence of a centrally orchestrated operation. Relations between Libya and Italy, repeated tensions in the eastern Mediterranean and political crises along the U.S.-Mexico border all demonstrate that human mobility can acquire strategic consequences far beyond the immediate frontier.
Caution remains essential. It would be wrong to assume that every large migration movement is orchestrated by a state or governed by a hidden plan. Such claims require evidence.
Equally, it would be naïve to dismiss the possibility that states, non-state actors and organised crime groups may seek political or financial advantage from population movements.
Modern hybrid warfare is no longer confined to cyber attacks, disinformation, election interference or the disruption of energy supplies and critical infrastructure. Human mobility has become another arena of geopolitical competition.
Events at Spain's North African frontiers in Ceuta and Melilla have provided important lessons for Europe.
Border enforcement alone is rarely enough during a migration crisis.
Diplomacy is essential.
So is intelligence sharing.
Continuous dialogue with neighbouring states is equally important.
Joint operations must target the financing and logistical structures of criminal networks, not simply the migrants at the end of the chain.
Detections of irregular crossings at the European Union's external borders fell sharply in 2025 and continued to decline during the first half of 2026. Yet the figures also reveal a familiar pattern: pressure rarely disappears. It simply shifts between routes.
When one corridor becomes harder to use, another often becomes more active. Pressure may move between the eastern and central Mediterranean, the route from Libya towards Crete, the western African route towards the Canary Islands and the EU's eastern land borders.
The challenge is therefore not simply to close one border.
It is to address the forces driving migration in the first place.
That is why neither European nor Turkish migration policy can any longer be treated as purely domestic matters. Migration has become one of the defining geopolitical issues of the modern era.
Few countries sit closer to the centre of this transformation than Türkiye.
During the past 15 years, the country has experienced one of the largest movements of people in modern history. By mid-2026, around 2.2 million Syrians remained under temporary protection. Once applicants for international protection, legal residents and irregular migrants are included, Türkiye continues to face one of the most complex migration landscapes in Europe and its wider neighbourhood.
Türkiye is no longer simply a transit country.
Nor is it merely a destination.
It is a strategic migration crossroads linking Europe, the Middle East, the South Caucasus, Central Asia and Africa.
This reality extends migration far beyond border security.
Its impact reaches housing, labour markets, schools, healthcare, urban development, municipal budgets, social integration, public finances and foreign policy.
Every success or failure in migration governance directly affects economic competitiveness and social stability.
Türkiye must therefore move beyond temporary crisis management towards a permanent, long-term migration strategy.
For too long, Türkiye's migration debate has been trapped between two opposing narratives.
One has focused almost exclusively on humanitarian responsibility.
The other has reduced migration largely to a security issue.
A capable state must move beyond both.
In democratic societies, it is entirely legitimate to debate the economic consequences of migration, pressure on public services, the impact on wages and housing, and the challenges of social integration.
Doing so is not, in itself, racist.
At the same time, collective blame, hate speech and discrimination based on national or ethnic origin are incompatible with the rule of law and responsible politics.
One Turkish politician who has made migration particularly prominent in recent years is Ümit Özdağ, leader of the Victory Party. His rhetoric and proposals have generated intense controversy. Supporters argue that he forced the country to confront an issue that had been ignored for too long. Critics warn that his language risks deepening polarisation and hostility towards foreigners.
Whatever one's view, the central lesson is clear: migration must move beyond day-to-day political arguments and become a matter of long-term state policy.
Population movements outlast electoral cycles.
The European Union must also reconsider its approach.
The 2016 EU-Türkiye migration statement contributed to a sharp reduction in irregular crossings along the eastern Mediterranean route. However, it neither addressed the structural causes of migration nor created a durable system of shared responsibility.
The EU has increasingly sought to manage migration beyond its own borders. Through arrangements with Türkiye and partnerships with countries including Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, parts of Europe's migration management system have effectively moved south and east.
That may deliver short-term results.
On its own, it is not a sustainable long-term strategy.
Türkiye is indispensable to European security, but it cannot be treated as Europe's permanent holding zone or protective shield.
A lasting solution requires fairer responsibility-sharing, expanded legal migration pathways, credible resettlement mechanisms, stronger action against criminal networks and greater investment in countries from which irregular migration originates.
Migration is a shared challenge.
Responsibility must also be shared.
Today's migration trends may represent only the beginning.
For decades, migration was associated primarily with war. During the coming quarter-century, climate change and demographic divergence may become equally powerful drivers.
Sub-Saharan Africa's population continues to grow rapidly.
Water stress is increasing across the Middle East.
Sea-level rise threatens parts of South Asia.
Drought is reducing agricultural productivity.
Extreme heat and food insecurity are making some regions progressively more difficult to inhabit.
Forecasts vary and should be treated cautiously. The World Bank estimates that, without stronger climate and development action, as many as 216 million people across six regions could move within their own countries by 2050 because of slow-onset climate impacts. Most of that movement would initially remain internal rather than cross-border.
Migration is unlikely to be a temporary feature of the international system.
It is becoming the new normal.
Attempting to manage it solely through border policing is rather like trying to reform a healthcare system simply by buying more ambulances. It addresses the visible symptoms while leaving the underlying causes untouched.
In the 21st century, a strong state is no longer defined solely by the size of its armed forces.
It is defined by its ability to manage borders, data and demographic change while maintaining social cohesion, enforcing the law and building effective international partnerships.
Migration policy must therefore involve the whole machinery of government.
It belongs not only to interior ministries and border agencies, but also to foreign policy, labour market planning, education, healthcare, housing, urban development, public finance and national security.
For Türkiye, the strategic priority is clear: move from reactive migration management to an integrated long-term policy built on reliable data, enforceable law, institutional co-ordination and honest public communication.
The central question is not whether migration can be stopped completely.
It cannot.
The real question is whether states can manage human mobility without sacrificing security, dignity, social cohesion or economic resilience.
The answer will shape not only Türkiye's migration policy, but also its political stability, international standing and long-term competitiveness.
Migration is no longer merely the story of people moving from one place to another.
It is becoming one of the defining forces reshaping the geopolitical order of the 21st century.
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