BORDER FIXITY AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
by Boaz Atzili

Harvard International Review
September 23, 2008
MA

Boaz Atzili is an Assistant Professor of International politics
at the School of International Service of American University in
Washington, DC. He received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. His publications include articles in International
Security and SAIS Review. He writes about weak states’ international
relations, territorial conflicts and policies, and the Middle East.

Border Fixity: What is it and why does it matter?

International borders are seldom natural in any meaningful sense. They
are human creations – a social construct. The functions of borders
differ markedly across time and space. Borders could be sealed or
permeable. They may allow some kind of transaction (say, of goods)
but restrict another (say, people). They could be based more on people
(as in nomadic societies) or on territory (as in the modern state
system). Regardless of the function of borders, however, the locations
of borders have always changed throughout human history. And these
changes have never been easy. Ample anecdotal and statistical data show
that disputes about the location of borders — that is, territorial
conflicts — have been among the primary motivations for war. This
was true in antiquity and probably even more so in modern times.

Imagine, then, a world in which people do not fight over territory. A
world in which borders are fixed and, therefore, there is no need
to fight over their location. Would it not be a far more peaceful
world? Wouldn’t this world lack one of the chief reasons to go to
war? We need not really imagine, because we are, to a significant
degree, living in such a world – a world in which "border fixity"
is the defining territorial norm. Border fixity is the prohibition of
foreign conquest and annexation of homeland territory, a prohibition
that became increasingly potent in the last half century.

To be sure, the process of fragmentation of the big multinational
empires, which began around the First World War, still
continues. Secessions, while not common, still happen as well. Yet
conquest and annexation of a neighbor’s territory, a phenomenon
very common until the mid-twentieth century, has become increasingly
rare. The few such cases that took place in the last fifty years either
involve minuscule territories, or are still not legally recognized by
the international community. Some such well-known examples include
Israel’s 1967 conquests and Armenia’s Nagorno-Karabakh territory
(the only such case in the last thirty years, if one discounts the
brief annexation of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990). With this transformation
in territorial norms comes a parallel development in international
law. As historian Martin Van Creveld notes in The Rise and Decline
of the State, "All but gone are a whole series of terms, such as
‘subjugation’ and ‘the right of conquest,’ which as late as 1950
formed a normal part of legal discourse in a work on international
law." This transformation is codified and institutionalized, moreover,
in numerous charters, resolutions, and declarations of the United
Nations and various regional international organizations. This does not
mean that states are always satisfied with their territorial status
quo. Many people in Poland, for instance, still consider parts of
Ukraine as rightfully theirs. Bolivia still resents its territorial
losses to Chile in the 19th century’s War of the Pacific. But states
in Europe and South America are less and less likely to go to war
over these issues. They accept current borders as a fact of life,
if not always fair.

But do we really live in the world described in the aforementioned
thought experiment? The answer is most certainly mixed. The same
factors affect relations between states differently in different
situations. In some parts of the world the norm and practice of
border fixity are greatly contributing to the creation of a much more
stable, peaceful, and cooperative environment. Ironically, in other
parts of the world, the same principles and practices create new
logics and incentives for conflict. What determines whether border
fixity transforms international relations for better or for worse
is the socio-political strength of the majority of the states in a
given region. In regions where most states are relatively strong,
such as Europe (save the Balkans), North America, South America,
and to some extent north Asia, border fixity begets stability and
eliminates border conflict. In regions where most states are weak
or failing, such as in Africa, the Middle East, some parts of Asia,
the former Soviet Union, and Central America, border fixity often
generates more international conflict.

As used here, the socio-political strength of states refers first
to the efficiency and the extent of reach of a state’s institutions
and, second, to the level of identification of the residents with
the state. The first component measures the degree to which the
institutions of the state are capable of governing the state. It
thus contains, such measures as the degree of monopoly on the use of
violence, the ability of the state to extract taxes and to distribute
collective goods and the efficiency and geographic reach of the
bureaucracy of state institutions, such as the judicial system, the
police force, and the education system. The second component measures
the degree to which the state is socially cohesive and the citizens
identify themselves with the state per se (not necessarily with its
regime or government) and are loyal to the state. The stronger these
two essential socio-political components are, the stronger the state
is judged to be on this basis.

Border Fixity and Strong States: Providing the Conditions for Peace

In regions in which most states are socio-politically strong, border
fixity contributes to peace and stability by eliminating the option
of territorial wars, reducing anxieties of the security dilemma, and
providing an environment for cooperation. Since territorial conflict
has historically been among the most salient justification for war,
the fact that borders no longer change, by itself, significantly
decreases the likelihood of waging a justifiable war. Alsace and
Lorraine, for example, were at the epicenter of Franco-German conflict
for centuries, changing hands repeatedly. The provinces were given
to Louis XIV of France in 1648, taken by Bismarck’s Prussia in the
Franco-Prussian War of 1871, annexed by France in the 1919 Treaty of
Versailles, conquered by Hitler in 1940, and returned to France by the
Allies in 1945. But in the era of border fixity, Alsace and Lorraine
cannot be (and are not) a matter of international dispute. Germany
accepted Alsace and Lorraine as permanently part of France by its
1955 regaining of sovereignty, and nowhere in the current German
polity can one find any significant reference to Alsace and Lorraine
as a part of Germany. Thus, border fixity has all but eliminated this
cause of prolonged German-Franco conflict