John Robb makes an interesting point about the expected announcement that President Bush will have the military augment immigration officials in policing the Mexican border:
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.
Sadly, this pattern has repeated itself again and again in the developing world. That it appears to be taking place in the most advanced civilization in world history is, to say the least, worrisome.
