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.