US BORDER MILITARIZATION

"I think the Bush administration and the federal government should put up the money to create the kind of protection the federal government is responsible to provide. We have to press the federal government. It's their responsibility, not the state's responsibility." Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

On Monday, President Bush is expected to announce the deployment of up to 10,000 National Guard troops on the US border with Mexico. On its face, this is a political move, intended to shore up support among the Republican base going into the mid-term elections. However, it is indicative of something much more.

It is an example of the inexorable erosion of nation-state sovereignty due to the emergence of a neutral global platform. As the nation-state continues to lose control, it will increasingly militarize civil problems. In this case it is in response to the nation-state's realization that its loss of control of the US southern border has become an acute problem (particularly for the states on the border). This problem is due to a combination of rapidly increasing economic immigration (no end in sight) and increased violence from armed open source smuggling networks that have "liberated" large sections of Mexico from state control (please read this review of Moises Naim's book to learn more about smuggling networks). Unable to offer a political or civil solution, the nation-state will increasingly opt to use the only organization that still appears functional: the military.

Unfortunately, like the pro-immigration protests that set this ball in motion, this action will yield the opposite of the intended effect. It will both speed the unravelling of the American domestic fabric and undermine any remaining confidence that the US federal government (particularly by its dependence on a grossly underfunded and overstretched National Guard) can provide anything of meaningful value.

Further, as we escalate the conflict, we may find that open source economic networks are more than able to defend themselves (as we are seeing around the world) as global guerrillas.

Comments

[Andy]

I suspect there will be a human tidal wave moving towards the border in the next 24 hours.

This is going to get ugly.

[John Robb]

All it would take to turn every illegal immigrant in the US, and those that abet them, into felons (as per the original draft of the immigration bill from the House of Representatives) are a couple of attacks (particularly something that involves system disruption of LA or Dallas -- or -- a particularly brutal murder of US border control agents to include beheadings like we saw in Acapulco recently). The innevitable crackdown these attacks would generate, more than the attack, would cleave the US domestic fabric assunder. Hopefully, some smart global guerrilla doesn't figure this out.

[Cardenio]

This also might erase the national guard, which they'd be all too happy about as they could then hire Blackwater or whoever else.

[Andy]

The Guard is safe unless we see units from the border states with large hispanic percentages resist...then we've got a major, major domestic problem.

[Adam]

John,

Reading this note I suddenly remembered the Joseph Wamburgh book "Lines and Shadows".

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553271482/qid=1147583765/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/102-9157763-4985724?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

Historical and set in San Diego a group of police are sent to the border to stop bandit attacks on the illegal immigrants. They were, in many respects, the last of the Western gunfighters.

Whilst its a fascinating - and vaguely disturbing (question: is the military the only part of the US government able to operate?) - issue that the national guard are being deployed to "defend the US borders " from hordes of washerwomen or gardeners (at a rate of roughly 1 soldier per KM with one sleeping and one doing maintenance) the politics behind this are odd. The border is 3,000km long, the soliders are playing defence, the illegals have time to outwait the US troops.

But even so this plan is guaranteed to upset the Hispanics. Throw a PTSD-suffering soldier just back from Iraq into a dark night on the US border and he will shoot someone dead. If he's lucky it'll be someone crossing the border, and not a US citizen. Hopefully the victim will be a man or boy, but the way the US's luck is running it'll be a pregnant woman. Rather a lot of Americans have stories of mothers or grandmothers crossing the border. This is not going to play well.

So if its not going to work, and there are internal political reasons not to do it, there must be a very good political reason to go for it. Is keeping the Southern whites on board enough? Any thoughts?

[le biel]

I very much want to see the border secured, but I don't really think Bush does. He may be trying to shore up support for the upcoming elections, he may be trying to play ball regarding the senate bill (Look, the border is secured! Now, can we get that amnesty passed, please?), or perhaps he forsees an impending need to actually have the border militarized, which would be rather spooky.

[Veteran]

Bush is trying to distract us from the Iraq imbroglio. The border is not collapsing.

[anon]

1. "a particularly brutal murder of US border control agents to include beheadings like we saw in Acapulco recently" ... "Hopefully, some smart global guerrilla doesn't figure this out."

2. "This also might erase the national guard, which they'd be all too happy about as they could then hire Blackwater or whoever else."

mmmm cui bono, perhaps?

[Marcello]

"Is keeping the Southern whites on board enough? Any thoughts?"

Immigration is a rather thorny issue, with strong political forces applying pressure in both directions.For example (there are many others factors) you have your traditional southern whites base pushing for border control.On the other hand more immigration means a downward pressure on wages, which will make employers happy.
A muscular show of force which accomplishes little in practical terms should please the former without damaging the interests of the latter.
Therefore seen from the point of view of a narrow minded opportunist politician bent on maximizing short term political advantage (which to say practically all politicians) it would appear as a "good enough" solution.
Note also that I just picked two factors among many, the issue is very complex.

[John Robb]

I've taken a stab at improving this brief. I think it is much better now. Thanks for the feedback and the patience.

[John Robb]

BTW, a good general strategy for global guerrillas is to force the state to militarize its activity. Any action that requires the state to opt for military force as a primary solution accelerates dissolution.

[Peter]

David Neiwert, over at Orcinus has been keeping track on rightwing extremism for many years. The "Minuteman Movement" in recent years are the embodiment of white supremacists. In past years, you'd have called them Klansmen. Today, they've been whitewashed into appearing respectable.

Orcinus:
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/

Minuteman story from Phoenix station:
http://www.kpho.com/Global/story.asp?S=3183042&nav=DIH7YQL2

There is a word for this: astroturfing. Organizing fake "grass roots" movements for political purposes. And something has the taste of Gleiwitz about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident

[tim]

Looks like the 10,000 NG troops are a replacement for the ~10,000 border patrol agents cut from the budget:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/02/09/MNGOKB837T1.DTL

It's interesting to speculate who will pay for the NG troops on the border--will it be the states or the federal government?

[Carleton]

This issue should be separated into 2 parts.

The first is the "Tex-Mex" culture area. Historically the border has always been open and really closing it will be a new and upsetting issue to that part of the country.

The second is that, post-WWII, America has pulled so far ahead of Mexico that we're sucking immigrants from the deep south of Mexico. This is historically new.

Somewhere between the two issues a compromise has to be found....

[John Robb]

Tim, Schwarzenegger thinks it will be the states. He's probably right.

Peter, there appears to be real people behind the Minutemen, despite the origins.

Carleton, this is a bigger problem than just Mexico. The world is driving towards open interconnections, but our systems can't accomodate it.

[Cliff Nickerson]

I have to take issue with the idea that the world is moving toward open interconnectedness. At best, the world is moving to tightly controlled interconnectedness. Look at trends in telecomunications in the US and the air travel industry. As far as import/export taxes and subsidies, these things are increasing world wide, not decreasing. Acceptance of the other is worse than it's ever been in my 35 years of life, whether we consider racism, religious hatred, or nationalism. The richest government in the world is increasing military spending by an order of magnitude while arguing that the education system is irreparably broken and cutting educational spending. The separation of church and state is eroding; the separation of the political parties with the state is eroding. In most civilized nations, there is no real "Opposition Party"! It seems to me that interconnectedness as far as free and open trade and exchange of ideas peaked pre-WW I. Despite some great new technology, society isn't progressing, if you view opening up as progress. We are going in a different direction, probably more akin to anti-utopian literature than traditional sci-fi. Whether they intend this or not, the global guerillas will help to push us there, make it easier for the governments of the civilized world to go that way.

Why should the fact that a government is going to patrol the border with soldiers be so strange? Isn't that the historical norm? Sure, the border is huge. Sure, the countries are allies. But it's an international border, and the world is changing. No one really knows which way it's going, either.

Could the US afford to make immigration an actual felony in and of itself? The criminal court system is now overburdened principally because of drugs. Can the US handle a few million more inmates? The government would fail at any promise to make illegal immigration a felony. The political weight of this failure might prove too much for the US at this point. Might be attractive for an "al Quaeda" cell to stage an act of butchery or an attack against the NG on the Mexican border just to force the government's hand. Should be easy enough to make it look like Mexicans did it.

Brown faces already draw suspicion in the US. I've got an Italian-American friend in Delaware that says he's been the victim of anti-Arab racism. Add this to the mix? Kristallnacht, anyone?

[Jeremiah]

It's interesting to me how this discussion is still framed around a physically impossible concept..."secure a border" is an absolutely meaningless phrase in that it can mean anything. People are fleeing Mexico (and other S. American countries) because it's better here. Our "immigration" problem is another nation's exodus.....hence, IMHO, our "immigration" policy is really our foreign policy.

Or is that what you were saying, John?

With respect to your noting the state's reflexive response to lean on the military (the only component that seems functional and retains the faith and support of the public), I wanted to point out that only certain types of states will behave in this manner....y'know, like BATSHIT INSANE ones....

I probably articulated that pretty poorly...

-j

PS - Your blog makes a consistently good read. Thank you for taking the time to write and share with us.

[confusedponderer]

I remember that in a discussion the late german chancellor Helmut Schmidt said, that Germany is as indebted as it is, because they decided from the 1970s on to spend lots of money on welfare, because they weren't sure of the democratic moorings of the population in face of hardship. That I found highly sobering.

The state in itself, in Europe at least, has long moved beyond the 'Nachtwächterstaat', focusing only on law and order, to a system that also takes care of basic needs of the popultion. That was logical considering the unrest the social (especially socialist) movements brought into the monarchies of the 19th century. They bought peace by bribing their population.
The opposition of the US right to welfare is IMO quite peculiar, as they seem to overlook what welfare is there for. Not to feed the few no-goods and frauds as a result of liberal stupidity, but to buy internal stability. Sure that's inefficient, but I'd say inefficiency is a good buy here. What I always wonder is if these über-patriots do get that they are sawing on the perch they're sitting on.

The problem we in the West see ourselves faced with today is that we might cease to be able to fund our stabilising welfare that is part of the modern state image. In that case that will undermine support for the state.

State welfare is a vastly underestimated factor when it comes to keeping the peace. The successful counterinsurgency campaign in Malaya included lots of that, and so did the more successful US operations in Vietnam. Hamas an Hezbollah have set up social networks and with them bought loyalty and confidence of their local populations.
Contrast that to the Bush administration's wrecking of FEMA and the outsourcing of public aid services to privates undermine the state at local, state and federal levels - and the failing of these privatisation efforts thanks to curruption and incompetence only add to the damage already caused. FEMA coming to the rescue would have built trust in the public government. Since FEMA was wrecked the Bushies sent in the military, not to mention religious aid groups that offer aid and proselytizing.
I wonder how the long US, in absence of a social network worth the name, and effective state control, can hold in case of a recession or serious economic mayhem. Katrina to me showed up a significant lack of social coherence. And so do gated communities with private guards and a repressive penal system.

To close in on the actual topic at hand: The border militarisation follows the path opened by the drug war. The US 'get tough on drugs' approach has been an abysmal failure.
What the US might need is a federal uniformed police, maybe from the behemoth department of homeland security, that is trained like police even when roughly organised along paramilitary lines. As one Babak said very well on another blog: "Soldiers should not be deployed for law-enforcement. They are not a police force. Every time that soldiers have been deployed against civilians, any where in the world, it has led to massacres. Soldiers are trained to obey the orders and to kill. They are not trained as policemen to show restraint and to exercise individual judgment. The responsibility rests with the chain of command." Nothing to add there.

Another, IMO poorer but much more American alternative to military operations at the border would be to allow for militias like the minutemen. Drawback is that they would further undermine the monopoly of the force of the state - but then, that monopoly has nowhere been weaker in the West than in the US. Still, they could still label a militia a posse and add a sherriff to save face and give them a bit of state legitimacy. However, problems would unavoidably emerge when, and that will be just a question of time, militia types use violence against illegal immigrants. People from down south go to the US because they seek an economic chance, they are driven by poverty. It is predictable that they, when facing increasing difficulties crossing the border, will go to greater lengths - as their motication remains despite greater and more effective obstacles on the way. When facing violence, they will respond in kind. Illegal immigration could then become an insurgecy, backed by the hispanic community in the US.

[John Robb]

Another indicator: the rapid growth of SWAT teams across the US over the last five years. They've exploded in numbers.

You are also right, escalation breeds escalation in 4GW conflict.

[confusedponderer]

I fear so. The problem with the increased SWATing police is that they become virtually indistuigishable from military troops. Being specialised as virtual shock troops, they end up forgetting what policing is about.

A federal police as I imagine it, as they are in other countries, should be armed lightly, that's handgungs and at max shotguns and SMGs, and look like cops, not troops: That means no humvees, no fatigues, no helmets. In Germany the federal police now wear about the same uniforms as normal state police, and are armed like them, means: They have handguns. That's in itself a de-escalation measure.

I consider civil unrest, as in American city riots after Katrina or in LA, as basically a counterinsurgency problem. It's rarely a result of the rioters being depraved being evil or greedy, though this is certainly is a contributing a factor.

Such riots happen in America with a certain regularity, every couple of years or so. I doubt that's just a coincidence. I rather think that it's a symptom of something deeper. When in times of crisis order dissolves so easily, how healthy are the structures that hold society together in normal times?

When I told a rightwinger this, he replied: "rioting and civil unrest are just a sympton of selfish people that have no respect for others or themselves, no values, no dignity, no integrity and should be in prison. Those are the people that don't deserve a damn thing." I don't buy that. How many middle-class suburbia riots have you heared of? How went that saying? "Poverty is not a sin, but certainly makes suspectible for sins."

I see a parallel in denying an insurgent local public support by offering the population an alternative - a state that cares for their safety and wellbeing - and to counter high crime in social hot spots, by offering the people there just that: A perspective, stability and a chance to make a living.
And that includes welfare: Building schools, clean water supply, electricity, roads, hospitals. That's what governing is all about. If a country lacks that today, it has been governed badly.
Maybe Americas needs civic A-Teams made up of cops, intelligence folks, social workers, doctors and teachers to adress their local problems in their respective hotspots. Repression isn't going to make the problems go away, it'll only push the problem elsewhere, usually a less repressive neighbour district.

Insofar, effective action against illegal immigration into the US should best start with aid and support to Mexico - but sadly they are so hopelessly corrupt that this will probably be doomed to fail.
So, I'm somewhat at a loss as to what America can do against illegal immigreation. Legalise it? Live with it? No real solutions either.

[confusedponderer]

To make my point clear: I'm not for social engineering, but rather for something much more realistic and simple: Making the state work through good governing - to keep the state legitimate, to prevent its decay, and where neccessary win back terrain lost. The modern state has moved well beyond the 'Nachtwächterstaat' and so it has to deliver not only security but a degree of welfare, too, to remain legitimate, or win back legitimacy.

In the rightwing perception in the US didn't make that step, for them it's the 'Nachtwächterstaat' all along. Well, that view certainly limits the options the state has at its disposal to persuade the population that it cares for their wellbeing.
Repression leaves root causes unadressed. There certainly is the question in how far they can or should prudently be adressed - there clearly is a limit for empathy. It's not about being altruistic, but about being pragmatic.

The issue of border security is a question of the raison d'etat, as unauthorised border crossing is illegal, and the credibility of the state requires it to enforce the rules it has set up. And so, they are just like my rightwinger suggested above, in confrontation and escalation mode.
I have seen sites where people discussed the merit of installing the US pendant of the berlin wall fortifications along the Mexican and Canadian border, minefields included.

Will that help? Probably not. It'll lead to people digging tunnels under the fences, or breaching the fortifications. Any breach will undermine the credibility of the fortifications, and thus prompt a harsher response, to restore deterrence. I can imagine the headlines of cases of immigrants dying in US border fortifications, hanging on the mexican side in the barbed wire, or die in a minefield, or being shot by US troops guarding the fortifications. It will be a PR defeat for the US government, just as comparable cases were PR defeats for the East German government, and probanly prompt massive protests in the US by hispanics and human rights activists (and probably rightly so). People can hardly be blamed for wanting a better life.

[Marcello]

"The opposition of the US right to welfare is IMO quite peculiar, as they seem to overlook what welfare is there for."

The modern welfare state was introduced by Bismarck in the 19th century to defuse the communist threat.
My pet theory is that when put under socio-economic stress the average american tends to turn against minorities (immigrants and the like),foreigners and embracing ultranationalism.The average european on the other hand has a greater chance (I am speaking in relative terms here) of turning against the government and businness owners (which is not to say that there will not be anti-immigrants reactions) and embracing leftist ideals.
The latter needs to be placated with some carrots (welfare state) or kept in check with sticks (fascism).The former can be pretty much left to run amok, within some limits, without risks for the status quo.
In the 4GW world however the picture begins to change, as there is no guarantee that the people at the bottom will just take it.
And while if the shit hit the fan in a really big way you could always stuff the arab-americans in concentration camps, I doubt that you could do that with the mexicans.
Interesting times lay ahead.

[Marcello]

For the chronicle most of european states have been, since the 90's, in a phase chracterized by economic stagnation and the chipping away at the european social
model(s).There are some exceptions like Spain which has been playing catch up or Finland which has made very good choices but that is the general trend and insofar I can gauge there is no way out.
The american system seems more succesful at first glance but frankly I suspect that there are more issues brewing than the America uber alles nationalists and the free market admirers would care to admit.

[confusedponderer]

"The american system seems more succesful at first glance but frankly I suspect that there are more issues brewing than the America uber alles nationalists and the free market admirers would care to admit."

Agreed. To an extent (take infrastructure for instance), the US are a giant on clay feet, a point the America uber alles nationalists absolutely refuse to accept. The interesting question is how long the US phenomenon is sustainable.

The underlying brewing is what I referred to when I talked about the rioting and why I brought up welfare as a suggestion for a response that might help to restore loyalty to the state.
I find many of the explanatory models of 4GW compelling, but I refuse to see the possible outcome, the decay of the state, as inevitable. I try to figure out for myself how the state can survive against such odds, or prevent the worst through smart choices.

[Marcello]

"why I brought up welfare as a suggestion for a response that might help to restore loyalty to the state."

The problem is that you are suggesting to copy a system which the average american would probably perceive as a failure.
And that will not fly politically.

[confusedponderer]

To recognise a copy one needs to know the original. You imply that the average American knows what or who Bismarck was: The inventor of those famous herrings? The herring itself? A battleship?

It could be sold as being an adaption at home of what US Special Forces delivered to the Vietnamese villagers: Civic action. And there you would not only have a nice, genuinely American name for it - you could also claim that this repetition of a proven British strategy from the Malayan war is not only as American as apple pie, but a well established American tradition.

After all, after Boeing swallowed McDonnell-Douglas, Boeing praised itself, to my great amusement, as the company whose famous DC-3 airlifted the 'Luftbrücke' to Berlin.

[confusedponderer]

Of course I was being silly. But there sure is a point to make that there is an American tendency to 'americanise' imports: Rumour has it, that apple pie was known before America declared independence from the British!

Think of the implications!

[Tangurena]

We really have no intention to secure the borders because too many businesses depend upon cheap labor.

Last year, here in Denver, there was a rukus when a police officer was shot and killed. The alleged assailant was an illegal immigrant dishwasher. What was a tiny part in the story, was the claim by the employer of the dishwasher that he was only able to get illegal immigrants, and that was even offering $15-18 per hour plus benefits. Since I thought that was a very high wage for a non-skilled job, I though I could grab a second job for evenings and weekends. Alas, all the restaurants and bars that I contacted said that they paid $7-8/hour for *experienced* dishwashers. So kindly sod off.

Many employers of illegal immigrants pocket half of their wages as kickbacks to keep their jobs. So what looks respectable on paper is really making the managers far wealthier - and tax free too.

And the LA Times recently posted some fiction where the central character in this astroturfing claimed that she couldn't get workers, even at $34/hour.
http://insideriverside.blogspot.com/2006/05/34-hour-job-americans-wont-do-not.html
which links to:
http://langamp.com/borderblog/?p=2519

Why are we getting this "story" that immigration is all of a sudden a big concern after 5 years in office? It appears to me to be a two-minute-hate sort of thing.

A "federal police" force would probably run up against the "posse commitatus" laws. As it is, the FBI was so politicized that the DEA was made a separate agency.

[confusedponderer]

The border issue has long been a pressing issue for the rightwing fringe.

I think it is not very surprising that it comes up now, that Bush's popularity is plummeting and his base is increasingly annoyed about what they see as Bush ignoring the conservative gospel - fiscal responsibility, security, values.

My take is that the GOP campaigners are trying to cook up all these issues in an attempt to regain ground before mid-term elections. Except for the deficit you'll likely hear of all the classical conservative themes in the next time: Abortion, gay marriage, ex-gays demanding their say in school, christian schooling, evil trial lawyers, climate change as a liberal lie, gun control and so forth - and immigration and border security prominently. Bush is the 'national security president' after all.

[confusedponderer]

Tanguera,
posse commitatus referred to the use of military troops inside the homeland if I'm not mistaken. The US states are already cooperating with federal agencies, more or less smoothly.

A federal police, of course used in accordance with the respective state, say after a contract with each state, or an agreement between the states and the federal level, would be able to 'bridge the gap' in capabilities that's evident here. Isn't the US border partol such a federal police already, or are they state level entities?

Bringing in the military to me suggests that the federal government is not willing to fund the neccessary increase in manpower for police units, and to instead use military troops they already have. Militarisation, in this context, looks like the quick-fix on the cheap.