Crossing Borders: Physical & Economic Security

Charles W. King

With the ubiquity of air travel and the trivial cost of ocean freight it is easy for contemporary policy-makers to neglect the importance of land borders as a conduit for trade. The North American Free Trade Agreement has allowed American manufacturers to spread their supply chains to Canada and Mexico to take advantage of economies of scale and cheaper labor prices not possible in the United States. This, along with the movement of other American manufacturing, has garnered the ire of both labor unions on the left and economic nationalists on the right, but a number of other examples demonstrate how open borders not only facilitate trade that is good for domestic consumers, but are an important method for creating safe and stable regional communities.

The Good Friday Agreement has been the bedrock of peace in Northern Ireland since it was signed in 1998. The prospect of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union and the makeup of the ruling coalition in Westminster threatens this tenuous peace because it threatens the status of the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Theresa May, the current Prime Minister of the U.K., has committed to leaving both the E.U.’s customs union and common market, known as a Hard Brexit. After a disastrous snap election last year May’s Conservatives were forced into a coalition with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland to create a majority in Parliament. The nature of a Hard Brexit would establish a customs border between the Republic and Northern Ireland, requiring checkpoints and the other institutional features of a regulated border. The Democratic Unionists are in favor of this because it would weaken ties between the province and the Republic. Republicans both in the Republic and Northern Ireland object to this vehemently, and point out that such a border would be indirect contravention of The Good Friday Agreement. The status of the Irish border remains one of the major issues of Brexit negotiations, it will take compromise and creativity to fulfill the Article 50 requirements without violating the Agreement, but violating it would imperil twenty years of peace and progress in Ireland.

In recent years, India and Pakistan have increased the size of their border posts on their mutual border. Rather than increasing their military presence on the border, and therefore tensions, the construction and staffing has been to facilitate cross border trade between the two countries which has been anemic for decades, despite the two countries location and the existence of large markets for each other’s goods. While the relationship between India and Pakistan remains fraught with tension, especially when terrorists with links to the Pakistani intelligence services conduct attacks in India, the increase in trade has helped to create a more stable foundation for the official diplomatic relationship between the two countries. Conversely the relationship between Israel and Gaza has deteriorated since Israel established a military blockade in 2007. The Israeli Defense Forces now contend that the reliance on aid and inability to cross the border for trade and employment has been ineffective at best, and likely counterproductive to improving Israel’s security.

These relationships demonstrate that even in an increasingly connected world the relationship between neighboring countries should have a place of preeminence in the thoughts of policy-makers. It can be frightfully easy to turn a peaceful relationship into one that is only a spark away from violence. They also demonstrate that closed and fortified borders do not necessarily translate into physical security, but that economic security can.