In a follow-up to yesterday’s post, here’s a solid explainer from Foreign Policy on how instability, whether it be violence, drugs, or refugees, can spread from one country to another spreading the chaos. Abridged from the article linked above:
SUDAN
The violence in Darfur has created a ripple effect that is bleeding into Chad and the CAR. The Sudanese government has been accused of backing rebel groups in both countries, which has in turn created hundreds of thousands of additional refugees, and disorganized refugee camps vulnerable to the same types of marauding militias that have terrorized Darfur for the past four years.
SOMALIA
Somalia, hostage to factional fighting between warlords for more than 15 years, recently under the short-lived and allegedly stability Union of Islamic Courts and recently overthrown by the invasion of Ethiopian troops in favor of an interim government. But fighting continues and the region remains as unstable as it has in a decade. And refugees from the fighting have spilled into Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Kenya, destabilizing a large portion of the Horn of Africa. Prospects for the further development of Kenya and Uganda, and the stability of Ethiopia and Eritrea, are in jeopardy as long as Somalia continues to export instability
AFGHANISTAN
Fighting by a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan and in the lawless Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan has the potential to spread instability across Central Asia. That’s stating the obvious. But what really has neighboring states such as Pakistan and Uzbekistan concerned is that Afghanistan’s record poppy yield and the drug trafficking routes used to export them will cut into the former USSR and bring with it crime, addiction, and HIV/AIDS.
The point of these three examples? Tackling hot spots across the globe isn’t just altruism. It’s common sense. Because places like the Sudan, Somalia, and Afghanistan will inevitably export their misery to other countries that affects the developed world too.
What is the chance that Mexican economic refugees and drugs could destabilize the US the same way? I ask as someone in favor of open borders and free trade.
It already happened internally within Mexico. The last PRI governments encouraged mass immigration from the poorer, more backwards states of southern Mexico into the more prosperous northern states, which were also the core of support for the opposition PAN. What we’re now seeing is a spillover of those migrants across the border into the US. Mexican immigration used to be primarily from the border states — Sonora, Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon — into the American west. These migrants went from farms and ranches in Mexico to essentially similar kinds of places in Texas, Colorado, and California, to do similar work. Most had some familiarity with the US West; most of the people they dealt with had some familiarity with northern Mexico. It was a comfortable situation although it had its problems. The sources of Hispanic immigration have changed, the destinations have changed, the work has changed, and there is much more spillover of the much deeper problems of southern Mexico and Central America. The big Salvadorian immigration was specifically a byproduct of their civil war.
Bush still thinks of the problem in terms of the old-time migrants he saw growing up in Texas. That’s one reason why he is so out of touch wi ppular sentiment on the issue today.
I have only contempt and distrust of popular sentiment; I’m sure the failure of the bill hasn’t slowed illegal crossings. “Anglos” welcomed the cursed welfare state; now they resent non-Anglos using it. As with the debacle in Iraq, my schadenfreude runneth over.
Mark’s opinion of popular sentiment is his own business and he is welcome to it. The point about Bush’s inability to understand popular sentiment is that it has caused him to throw away his last shreds of political capital on a bill and policy doomed to failure.
And the Mexican situation is certainly an example of the sort of spreading instability this post is about.
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There’s another side to this issue that’s being ignored: the stability of the countries on the receiving end of the flows. If Chad and CAR weren’t already dirt poor and (in Chad’s case at least) possessed of their own dictators and dissatisfied ethnic minorities, would the violence in Sudan have hurt them as badly? Ditto Somalia and its neighbors, two of whom- Ethiopia and Eritrea- also have a bitter rivalry going with each other.
In the case of Mexico and the US, how much of the problem is the immigrants and their country of origin, and how much is how we treat them? We have companies in this country who depend on them, but don’t pay for the extra costs society incurs by their presence. And in the case of the illegal immigrants, their illegality means we’re not always able to monitor and control their activities as well as is needed.
Though I tend to be a “non-interventionist” (an isolationist in today’s newspeak) I think that when the U.S.does intevene in instable regions around the world, we go about it wth a flawed, and often arrogant, attitude. There’s a fatal assumption that local foreign populations want what we want. If we can learn one thing from Iraq, it should be that not all foreign populations identify with our vision for their future. Unfortunately, the final version of Army Field Manual 3-24, “Counterinsurgency” merely pays lip service in recognition of this fact. Parenthetically, I bring up the FM because regardless of the degree of diplomatic efforts, its the “boots on the ground” guys that are going to determine the ultimate sucess or failure of the mission. Until we get this right, and stop saying things we think will make everyone, especially flag-waving American Nationalists, feel good about themselves, we are doomed to experience many more Vietnams, Somalias, and Iraqs upon ourselves and future generations.
pakistan is turned into a hopeless state,and an international terrorist hub.its not inviting investorns globally but inviting terrotist globally to open there centers in pakistan as its turned into a revenuse genrating industry in pakistan, the political and social life are dominated by the military rule and when the governing power wents into a single hand its just like a puppet show just keep watching and don’t enjoy it as it also illegal thing in pakistan…… GOD SAVE PAKISTAN AND THE WORLD.