Chaos Theory: If a National Security Advisor flapped its tiny wings at the equator, could it trigger a storm that would break up the European Union?

Over the weekend, there was an article in the FT with the headline: “Renzi vents anger as migrant summit ends with modest accord.” The EU is being flooded with illegal immigrants, the great bulk coming through Libya to Italy, which got 170,000 last year. (50,000 in Sicily so far this year.) In addition, there are over 600,000 EU asylum applications annually. The problem is that while the EU will provide Italy with financial support, no other EU country wants to accept these people physically. Renzi said at last week’s migration summit, “If this is Europe, you can keep it.” The president of Lithuania told Renzi that that the immigrants are “your problem.”

It’s not only illegal immigration into the EU that is controversial but also migration among European states. The UK wants to negotiate its treaty relationships so that it can reduce or deny benefits to citizens of other EU countries. Both parties in the Danish election are saying they will re-establish border checks with Germany if elected. (Border checks were gradually abolished by the Schengen Agreement in 1985, which now includes 26 countries, including non-EU members Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.)

The problem arises from the fact that individual countries are responsible for policing their borders while the EU generally is theoretically responsible for welcoming the newcomers and supporting them financially. This is an example of a failure to apply the Public Interest Theory in economics. (As an example, Roger Coase asked, “Who should pay for the lighthouse?” Why devote a lot of resources to policing the borders if a failure to do so is not your problem?)

Here is where the butterfly effect comes in: The immediate crisis was triggered by the overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya as almost all the illegal migrants pass through the territory formerly known as Libya. (Now it has at least two governments and many other groups that don’t recognize either of them.) It costs migrants $200-$1,000 to get to Libya from West Africa or Somalia and another $200-$1,000 to get on a boat in Libya, according to the Economist. The boats issue distress calls once they clear the Libyan coast and migrants are either put on rubber rafts or left on board while the crews abandon ship. Then the Italians come and rescue them. There is a 5% chance of drowning, which are odds I would readily accept were I in the same situation.

The Libyan problem, in turn, arose from the elimination of Gaddafi. So why did we take out Gaddafi? The French and British wanted to do so for some reason, but they needed US support. The State Department was opposed and Obama was reluctant, but the big push came from Samantha Power at the National Security Council. Power was not an expert on Libya and probably didn’t know that the Benghazi freedom fighters represented a small religious faction and that the rest of Libyans would not support them. (This is not to detract, however, from her acknowledged expertise on LBGT rights and women’s issues, and she’s probably learned a lot about foreign policy now that she is ambassador to the UN.) We got the Russians and Chinese to acquiesce in a no-fly policy at the UN, but when it became clear that Gaddafi would be able to suppress the rebellion easily without air support, we bombed Libya back into the Stone Age, thus creating the present situation.

Another unforeseen consequence of the Libyan mistake is that Russia and China feel they were snookered in the UN and this has increased their reluctance to support us in Iran, Syria, and elsewhere.

Of course, knowing that a butterfly might cause a hurricane does not tell us whether it will or not. I guess the only lesson we can draw is that we should be very humble about our ability to predict the consequences of our and other’s actions.

But this is all past wind under the butterfly’s wings. Migration issues, including internal migration, are dividing the EU. Isn’t this a much bigger threat than Greece?