"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.