Outlook: Fluid Borders Pose Security Challenge

Moisés Naím / The Washington Post

Moises Naim , editor of Foreign Policy magazine and author of " Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy ," was online Tuesday, May 30, at 2 p.m. ET to discuss his Sunday Outlook article on how today's fluid and non-traditional borders pose unique security challenges. Naim says that in the 1990s "political unions, economic reforms and breakthroughs in technology and business came together to revolutionize the world's borders." Globalization and increasing technology changed how business transactions, legal and otherwise, take place and have altered long-held concepts of sovereignty.

The transcript follows.

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Washington, D.C.: Does anyone seriously think the world can return to an era with controlled borders? Does anyone want that Berlin-Wall-style life? A friend is a factory manager in China and complained that they had to raise salaries 20% in the last year because their employees complained to their cousins via cell phone NOT to go work for his company. So recruiting in the villages dropped to zero. If CHINA can't control it's people, then what country can or should?

Moises Naim: In fact, the idea that borders can be substantially sealed through a combination of physical obstacles, electronic surveillance, and military checkpoints is alive and well. This for example is the position of a significant number of U.S. lawmakers and commentators in the current debate about immigration.

While there is no doubt that a nation state has to do what it can to ensure control of its borders and that there is much that the United States can do better in its border control, there is equally no doubt that a policy that just relies on the assumption that sealing the borders is the solution maybe a dangerous illusion. It creates the illusion of security while distracting the government and the public from addressing some of the deep rooted causes of the problem.

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Harrisburg, Pa.: Smuggling has existed for a long time. Is it any more a significant impact on our economy today than in the past?

Moises Naim: As so many other aspects of international trade, illicit commerce has also been transformed by the revolutionary changes in technology and politics that occurred in the 1990s. It is now more varied, more global, and has more severe political consequences. In the past, governments did not have to worry about the smuggling of human organs for example, or illegally copied music or software. These are new industries that have grown immensely in recent years. Smuggling also tended to be regional, and it normally took place among nations that shared borders.

Today's new technologies allow smuggling to be far more global in scope. Moreover, international smuggling networks have acquired an unprecedented political potency and a defining political influence in the politics and economics of many countries. This is in fact the central thesis of my book, "ILLICIT: How Smugglers, Traffickers and Copycats Are Hijacking the Global Economy."

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Lyme, Conn.: How easy is it to smuggle something in by ship? My understanding is that inspections are so few that a major smuggler can well risk having a small portion of shipments caught just by playing the odds that most will get through. Is this correct? Shouldn't we be doing more to check shipments of goods into America?

Moises Naim: Yes, smuggling by ships continues to be a relatively low risk undertaking. While after 9/11 especially in the United States stricter controls and safeguards were implemented, the reality is that the explosive growth in international trade makes it very hard for authorities to provide a failsafe system of monitoring and inspecting all cargo containers coming into the U.S. ports. While more needs to be done and new methods and technologies will soon be available to make smuggling weapons of mass destruction, for example, more difficult, no system will be perfect. There will always be a tension between ensuring the smooth and efficient operation of the international trading system that brings so many benefits to the United States and the need for this country to safeguard its citizens' security.

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Washington, D.C.: To play 'Develi's Advocate' a bit, one argument I've heard is that a lot of pirated products are simply unaffordable to people who buy them in third world countries in their original format. A $50 PS2 game or $20 DVD might be a double digit percentage of $150 a months income but a $1 or $2 pirate version is affordable. Thus, companies aren't losing money since these products would never even be bought legitimately. Note this is not in reference to governments of these poor countries or pirated products circulating in the US (who both SHOULD be buying legit products) but rather at the individual consumer level in these poorer nations.

Moises Naim: It is true that cheap counterfeits are providing access to otherwise unaffordable products to millions of people-- and not only in developing countries. Walk the streets of any major city of a wealthy country and you will see people purchasing fake bags, glasses, watches or DVDs. The same is true of course in poor countries. While there is no doubt that in some industries the counterfeits have eroded the revenues of the legitimate owners of these products (for example in music or film) it is still true that these companies are still in business and have found ways of compensating for their losses.

Nonetheless, it is important to keep in mind that granting and protecting property rights of legitimate owners is a very important tenet of a market economy. Furthermore, what is being counterfeited today is not just "lifestyle" branded products like running shoes or fancy handbags. Medicines that instead of curing, kill, or faulty machinery components that lead to fatal accidents are also part of the booming trade in counterfeits.

While governments are being asked to do much to protect intellectual property, there is no doubt in my mind that in the future we will see a far more active role for technologies that protect products from being copied and a lesser role for the laws that grant this protection-- and therefore for governments in charge of enforcing these laws.

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Arlington, Va.: Haven't borders always been hard to define in a strict geographic sense? Tribal, ethnic and national groups have often transcended boundaries. It seems that now technology and communication have only added to an ages old problem.

Moises Naim: You are right. In the general conversation there is a nostalgia for a past that never existed. Everywhere borders have been fluid, porous, and often ill-defined. As you say, the difference today is that technology has changed the nature of borders, adding complexity to the definition and making their strict enforcement a far more difficult challenge for governments. It is no longer just individuals illegally crossing geographic borders, it is also electronic "cybersmuggling" that crosses virtual national borders.

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Alexandria, Va.: How do weak borders elsewhere affect us when it comes to trade? For example if something is shipped via one nation but originates somewhere else, does it have domino effect?

Moises Naim: Yes. One of the realities of the new global economy is that products no longer have one origin and one final destination. It is now common for products to travel through several trans-shipment locations in different countries and move about before reaching its final consumer.

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Washington, D.C.: What can countries do to improve border security? Is electronic surveillance a significant component of border monitoring, especially in nations (such as ours) with very long borders?

Moises Naim: Better monitoring and surveillance using new technologies is certainly a very promising avenue for future improvements in border control in the United States. But the most powerful tools are selectivity and intelligence. Selectivity in what, where and how will the government try to enhance border security. A government that is mandated to control an increasing number of cross-border activities, on all borders--real, virtual, electronic, financial, health-related and so on--will inevitably face an impossible task. In addition to selectivity, relying more on intelligence and the smart screening of borders, and those crossing them will allow governments to deploy their efforts (human, technological, institutional, military) in a more selective and therefore more efficient way.

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Moises Naim: Many thanks for your interesting questions and have a nice day.