Border Security and the Logic of Self-Help

Lord only knows the editorial decision-making processes at the Los Angeles Times. See the title of today's lead article at the screencap? "On a California Ranch, Signs of a Slowdown in Illegal Immigration." Okay. But checking the picture we see the rancher, Robert Maupin, 70, walking along the heavily-fortified California-Mexican border. He's accompanied by two dogs and carries a rifle and a sidearm. Many news readers will just skim the headlines and perhaps a few paragraphs, so the Times in essence buries the most important elements of the story: That heavy border fortifications implemented in the early-1990s have staunched the flow of illegal aliens from Mexico and have returned sovereign control to the United States:

Fencing now lines about two-thirds of California's boundary, with all but remote or mountainous areas blocked. Cameras mounted on mobile and permanent towers alert authorities to incursions in deserts and mountain valleys. Newly cut roads allow access to once-remote areas within minutes.

In the last two years, the number of agents in California has been boosted 12%, from 3,200 to 3,594. They staff 11 checkpoints on freeways and highways leading to San Diego and Los Angeles. Plainclothes agents have locked up many of the load-car drivers who used to speed in their immigrant-laden cars the wrong way down freeways.

After several years of incremental gains — starting with Operation Gatekeeper in the mid-1990s, which sealed off much of the San Diego-Tijuana border — authorities say they have taken back miles of rural terrain once controlled by Mexican smugglers.

"We took away 30 miles that they used to operate in with impunity," said Rodney Scott, acting deputy chief patrol agent in charge of the Border Patrol's San Diego sector. "The days where they could hop the fence and blend in the local population within seconds … those days are pretty much gone."

Not everyone is convinced things will stay this way. Many residents say that the troubled economy, not increased enforcement, is the biggest factor deterring immigrants. And the killing last summer of Agent Robert Rosas by Mexican bandits was a chilling reminder of the ruthlessness of smuggling groups.

Maupin and many other backcountry residents still lock their gates and keep their cameras on every night, anticipating the worst. In 2003, an illegal immigrant murdered a local woman. Earlier this year, an Arizona rancher was killed.

On his daily patrols around his property, Maupin totes a rifle slung over his shoulder and a Glock handgun strapped in his thigh holster. "That Arizona rancher got killed because he dropped his guard," Maupin said.

Here's a snapshot of today's paper delivered to my drive this morning, with the headline, "An Uneasy Peace at the Border: A California Rancher Keeps His Gaurd and His Fences in Good Repair."

That title's more accurate. It conveys the sense that even with the increased border security ranchers can't take any chances.

This reminds me of international relations theory. According to "neorealism," the contemporary theoretical paradigm explaining power dynamics in world politics, nation-states must always prepare for the worst, since no supranational government is constituted that can guarantee the survival of state-actors within the international realm. International politics is a "self-help" system. Those states that can't guarantee their own security fall by the wayside:

Neorealism holds that the international structure is defined by its ordering principle, which is anarchy, and by the distribution of capabilities, measured by the number of great powers within the international system. The anarchic ordering principle of the international structure is decentralized, having no formal central authority, and is composed of formally equal sovereign states. These states act according to the logic of self-help--states seek their own interest and will not subordinate their interest to another's.

States are assumed at a minimum to want to ensure their own survival as this is a prerequisite to pursue other goals. This driving force of survival is the primary factor influencing their behavior and in turn ensures states develop offensive military capabilities, for foreign interventionism and as a means to increase their relative power. Because states can never be certain of other states' future intentions, there is a lack of trust between states which requires them to be on guard against relative losses of power which could enable other states to threaten their survival. This lack of trust, based on uncertainty, is called the security dilemma.

See that notion of "anarchy"? That's a Hobbesian concept. Applied to domestic life on the borders in the American Southwest, California's border is less anarchic than Arizona's. And thus Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizona legislature have acted on the principle of "self-help" in taking affirmative steps to increase enforcement of legal status in the state. (And technically, they shouldn't have to. This is a domestic realm, and the U.S. government is constitutued with responsibility to provide for the security of its members states. Washington's falling down on the job. I'm sure that's something Governor Brewer will bring up when she meets with President Obambanista).