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Frank R. Pfetsch

Borders: Obstacle or Facilitator for Peace? Cause of Conflict or Catalyst for Peace?

First Draft, not to be quoted

Frank R. Pfetsch, Institute of Political Science of the Ruprecht-Karls University of Heidelberg

Address: Institut für Politische Wissenschaft

Marstallstrasse 6

D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany

Tel. ++ 49 6221 542872

e-mail: frank.pfetsch@urz.uni-heidelberg.de

Seminar

“From Kaliningrad to the Black Sea

Intercultural Dialogue and the New Interpretation of the Frontier”

Oradea, June 5.-9. 2007

Frank R. Pfetsch: Borders: Obstacleor Facilitator for Peace? Cause of Conflict or Catalyst for Peace?

Introduction

Territoriesand their boundaries belong to the primary goods which are the foundations ofpossession, greed and claims to power among tribes and states. Territory is according to Jean-Jacques Rousseau the foundation of the civil society: “Le premier qui ayant enclos un terrain s’avisa de dire, Ceci est à moi, et trouva des gens assez simples pour le croire, fut le vrai fondateur de la société civile» (Rousseau 1962: 169).Such an archaic delimitation of territories seems to be an anthropological and socio-psychological constant that requires a line between the self and the other, between the own group identity and the other group, between the “friend and the enemy” (C.Schmitt). Conflicts about territories are among the classical conflicts between pre-states and governmental entities. Politically the possession of land or oceanic territory or the control over territories impliesan increase of national pride and political power. With the formation of the territorial state, territory since absolutistic timesbecamethe base of dynastic domination and later on of ethnic or cultural identity. This territorially defined rule is protected by the principle of state sovereignty; international law has codified this principle in almost all statutes of International Organisations, especially in the UN-Charter.

Territory and borders in political history

Since the Westphalia state system territories and their borders belong to the sovereign right of non-interference. Territory was considered as a resource on which the power of the state was based. The desire to posses a certain territory is determined by national prestige as well as by factors like the fertility of the land, climate, natural resources and geo-strategical position; the external importancefor third states is determined bytheir economic and military relevance that makesthe territory attractive to others. Natural resources in particular as well as general economic goods were important reasons for territorial conquests. The history of states is at the same time a history of their economic and geo-strategically importance that can be based on other factors like the degree of industrialisation or qualified workers in addition to natural resources. Nationalism and Imperialism focused on territories and their borders in order to determinewhat belongs to us and what to others. The conquest of territories was driven by the desire to increase the power of the state. Not necessarily does foreign territory need to become integrated into or joint to the territory of the aggressor. Controlling territorypolitically fulfils the same purpose. Whereas the war between Iran and Iraqin the eighties as well as the war between Iraq and Kuwaitin 1991were mainly based on territorial claims, the recent war between the US and Iraq was about political and economic control. Carl Schmitt states in “Nomos der Erde”: “The territorial status of the state in question is not altered to the effect that its territory will be incorporated into the intervening state. However, the state territory will be integrated into the spatial sphere of the controlling state and its special interest that is integrated into its spatial sovereignty… Political control or leadership is based on interventions whereas the territorial status quo is guaranteed.” State borders need not be altered with reference to claims of political domination. The Soviet Union didnot change the physical borders of its satellite states, and the US carried out their influence without territorial alteration. However, the victorious states in the First and Second World War changed arbitrarily the occupied territories which explain a great deal of later warlike conflicts in the second half of the twentieth century.

The geographic location also may have an impact on the conflict behaviour of riparian states. According to Whittemore Boggs, boundaries can be assessed firstly according to whether they are geometric or morphologic, and, secondly according to their genetic nature (Boggs 1940: 22-28). One would expect geometric boundaries to have a high conflict potential, because they may be artificially drawn by political considerations in some instances by foreign powers. Religious, ethnic, and/or economic groups are likely to be separated by such lines. Morphological boundaries are related to the nature of earth’s surface. Lord Curzon (1907) emphasized the superiority of natural” boundaries being dependent on physical geographic features, over “artificial” boundaries of latitude and longitude (Prescott 1965:13). One would, therefore, expect a boundary following the crest of a rugged mountain range to have a lower conflict potential than one following a line of hills, and lower yet than one drawn across a low-lying plain. Furthermore one would expect river boundaries to possess a lower conflict potential because rivers are more likely to follow natural morphological situations and they unite rather than separate. But as the river Rhine shows it united riparian states like Germany and Switzerland but separated Germany and France.

A more meaningful approach to boundary classification is the generic one, that is, the relation of the boundary to the cultural pattern existing at the time the boundary was delimited. Here, three types of boundaries can be distinguished in order of increasing conflict potential: antecedent, subsequent, and superimposed. The first predates settlement, so that the evolution of cultural patterns, if any, is related to the establishedboundary. The second is preceded by settlement, and tends to take that settlement into account. The third is independent of the existing cultural pattern, and in fact may be forced upon them, as the case of truce and armistice lines, or superimposed boundaries in the event of political division of a territory between two independent states.

The role of the state

The state can be defined by three characteristics: territory, rule, and population. Among the various functions of the state belong: internal and externalsecurity and peace, national frame for integration and identification, sense of belonging together, borderline between the self and the other, securing territorial integrity, resources for economic development, wealth and social welfare, historically grown self identification, securing the ‘individuality’ of peoples, providing the legitimacy of the rulers.The world as a state world is based on the assumption that modern nation states possess these functions internally as well as externally and is able to implement its lawsauthoritatively and effectively. In these capacities the state has become indispensable and on the whole was not substituted by another agent. In cases the state could not fulfil these functions disastrous warlike conflicts erupted and led to the dissolution of the state altogether. A Hobbesian state of war is the result.

Changes in the territorially based state monopoly

After the end of World War II the territorial based state system eroded. The classical meaning of territory and border lost their original meaning. The end of nationalistic power politics brought about a differentiation between the OECD world of industrialized countries and the world outside to which two thirds of the states belong. Whereas in the OECD world the state remained more or less the agent of rule, security and welfare; in the periphery and outside the OECD world a multitude of states lost their function of controlling the national defined territory and protecting borders.

In the so called failing states in various parts of the third world the central government lost control over the nationally defined territory. In these cases two developmentscan occur: either the national territory fell apart as in the former Soviet Union or Yugoslaviaand led to new independent states, or the territorial state was divided and separated into new states as in Pakistan or Czechoslovakia; in the so called weak states with restricted state rule civil wars broke out and led to a multitude of separate territorial rules by the so called warlords.

But also in the OECD world changes happened as regards the state: Parallel to the process of national territorial delimitations an overarching non-governmental process of market opening has taken place (“globalization”). The state is territorially bound, capital is fluid and has crossed borders and made national boundaries permeable.The control of such sub-governmental fluxes has become a new preoccupation of state rule. Due to global challenges like terror, humanitarian catastrophes, drug smuggling, environmental disasters etc. states are no more able to cope with these challenges alone. International cooperation between states, International, Non-governmental and regional Organizationshave to deal with such global problems.

A second new development occurred when in Western Europe regional integration became the practice of originally six later 27 countries. This system of supranationality is based on the assumption that the territorial based state gives up national competences and transfers some of its sovereign rights to a common to all agent. By doing this some of the state functions have become a common enterprise to all the member states. Especially in the economic field through the liberalization policies the Economic and Currency Union have made frontiers practically non existent.

Conflicts about borders

Since World War II conflicts have escalated more frequently about territories and boundaries; in fact, they have been the most controversial issues in the post-war period. Border conflicts are about physical boundaries on land or on the sea. Especially in international disputes conflicts about territory and borders are by far the most frequent. It goes without saying that internal conflicts are dominated not by territorial claims but by conflicts over power positions. The same holds with violent conflicts, whereas non-violent conflicts are mostlyover territorial issues (Pfetsch/Rohloff 2000: 130-131).Compared to conflictsabout ethnic, religious or regional autonomy;and aboutideology, national and international power or resources, territory and its border has been the most contended issue on nearly all continents. Out of the 661 conflicts that wereobserved between 1945 and 1995,conflicts about borders were involved in 223. However, as mentioned, these border conflicts possessa considerably less violent potential than,for instance, ideological conflicts.

The hypothesis stating that the higher the number of neighbouring countries, i.e. the number of boundaries, the higher is the probability of conflicts,was empirically tested. It seems plausible to assume that the more borders a state has, the more conflicts emerge. However, there was only a weak statistical relationship (see graph 1). Borders are therefore not automatically causing conflicts and especially not violent ones. Germany as a central continental power with its high number of borders is a good example for the change of significance of boundaries: The unification of the “Reich” under Bismarck was achieved by fighting three wars, and World War I and II lead to wars both with Eastern and Western countries. For the first time in German history the Federal Republic of Germany exists within safe borders, which are accepted by her and its neighbours.

Graph 1: Non-violent conflicts and the number of state borders

Regression Statistics

Multiple Correlation Coefficient 0,1830735

Observation- 93

From thisfollows that physical borders remain important for the preservation and the security of national societies. Border protection must be considered an important mission of governments. If central governments cannot secure their borders, the state collapses and the so-called “war lords” control parts of the territory as in Somalia, Peru, in former Afghanistan, or in numerous states on the African continent. In such cases protecting state borders and preserving their integrity is peace preserving or peace making. However, this is not true in all cases. If the will to separate through self-determination is high, giving up borders and therefore the separation can be a remedy of securing the peace. The division of Pakistan, of Czechoslovakia, of Ethiopia, and even of Yugoslavia can be judged as peacemaking.

Also the geography of states can determine external threats: Central locations are threatened more than peripheral regions, states with many neighbouring states show a higher conflict potential than states without any borderlines, islands are safer than central continental locations, but geography also determines the degree of controllability.

Mental maps: a constructivist approach

Space becomes a conflict factor also outside the national territory: in foreign policy doctrines of leading states air, sea and land are declarednational zones of interest that have to be respected by other states. They are no neutral geographical dimensions. So-called “mental maps” divide territory according to spheresof interest. Since the time of President Monroe, who declared the “American continent” as US American spheres of influence, to most of the Presidents after World War II regions or states (China, Santo Domingo, Greece and Turkey, Middle East region, the gulf region, the Dominican Republic, etc.) have been claimed to belong to American’s “spheres of interest” or “spheres of influence”. At times of the superpower rivalry the Soviet Union under Stalin and his followers claimed their spheres of influence (“Two Worlds”, “Two Camps”) in Eastern Europe and tried to get a foot down in South East Asia, Africa or even in Central America (see Pfetsch 1995: 60-76). Territory is also evaluated according to the range of military capabilities. During the Cold War the super powers tacitly acknowledged the respective influence sphere of one another. Neither the USnor the “West” intervened in East Germany in 1953, in Hungary and Poland in 1956 or in Prague in 1968, nor did the Soviet Union interfere in the Central American backyard with the exception of Cuba. Where it was attempted (US intelligence in Eastern Europe, positioning of Soviet missiles in Cuba), it was stroked back by political threat or violence.

After the conquest and settlement of territories outside of Europe (colonialism, imperialism), the sea has become more important recently due to the mineral resources as well as the waterways and the fishing zones. The 1994 UN-Maritime Convention divides the sea into different zones: The territorial water base of 12 sea miles falls under the sovereignty of the coastal state, an area of 200 sea miles is reserved forexploitation by the coastal state. Only then begins the “liberty” of the high sea, the “common heritage of humanity” and the area which is regulated by the International Sea Bed Agency as to the exploitation of resources. This convention, however, has resulted in numerous conflicts between neighbouring states on all continents due to overlapping sea territories.Between 1945 and 1995 we counted 15 of these sea conflicts in Europe, particularly in the North and Baltic Sea as well as in the Aegean Sea. Wheresea borders of neighbouring countries overlap, conflicts emerge about fishing or drilling rights as well as about other resources on the sea bed.

After all land has been distributed among states, only sea and space still offer room for manoeuvre. Further processes of nation state-building result in a distribution instead of a gain problem. Interstate relations become more frequent and closer due to their density and can lead to conflicts or to regional integration. Especially in Western states, borders have become more transparent, modern communication technology transcends space and time, relates peoples closer to another and makes events in different parts of the world synchronic experiences. In the age of CNN there doesnot exist stable andisolated space and a diachronic sequence concerning the perception of events. What counts is the way in which political events are set in scene and which kind of information is transported.

Conditions for peace promoting borders

There are two main strategies to promote peace within and among states: through strengthening governance of individual states and through political integration. Whereas the former secures identity and promotes security by effective state control (national state function to be observed), the latter solves the so called security dilemma – which consists of the fear to become attacked by another state – by bringing states closer to each other through regional arrangements forming an integrated political system such as today’s European Union. In both cases by giving up national power politics states can gain more than they would gain if they played a zero-sum game.

Along with the changes of state functions in Western societies, state borders have attained a new quality. The European integration model reduced the fear of war and made borders permeable. The same holds for territorial based ethnic groups that according to the four freedoms can move freely between states. The will to unify Europe resulted in the ratification of numerous border treaties i. e. between Germany and the Netherlands (concerning Elten, Tuddern and Dinxperlo), betweenGermany and France (concerning the “Saarland”), between Poland and Germany (“Oder/Neiße”), between Belgium and the Netherlands (concerning Baerle-Duc) which either implied the acceptance of respective territories or a territorial compensation. The voluntary integration of states into a regional alliance made such agreements about borders possible. Furthermore, the East-West-conflict has neutralized the arbitrary borders created by former power politics. German unification, the peaceful separation of Czechoslovakia, the formation of independent nation states after the fall of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia would not have been possible without such changes after 1989.