Protecting Borders

Infrastructure and Personnel are Critically Important for Border Security

D.B. DES ROCHES/NEAR EAST SOUTH ASIA CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES

Border security is a consideration for every nation in the world. Drug use, prostitution, terrorism and petty theft all have a border security dimension, although this is often overstated. In the Middle East and Central and South Asia regions, border security is a key consideration whenever rich states border poor states (as with Yemen) or stable states border states in conflict (as with Afghanistan’s neighbors).

Border infrastructure is widely but erroneously thought of as a simple matter of engineering and construction. Metrics such as “miles of fencing constructed” are easy to evaluate. It is a significantly more complicated and holistic undertaking to build effective border security infrastructure.

Focusing on construction and physical facilities to the neglect of other aspects is more likely to produce a counterproductive result. For instance, changing trafficking patterns may render a border crossing obsolete, yet the crossing continues to siphon off scarce manpower and money to justify the original investment.

A holistic approach to border security infrastructure will help guide decision-makers to ensure that their investments are productive and made efficiently, and to enable the necessary flexibility to react to changed patterns in legal and illegal trafficking. This paper proposes an analytical framework for the analysis of border infrastructure proposals. These analytical considerations will help policymakers determine the necessary policy and infrastructure support implications for a given border infrastructure program.

Personnel

Many border security infrastructure programs fail to achieve their policy goals at the outset because of flawed personnel policies and practices. These tend to fall into two major areas: corruption and incompetence.

Any border infrastructure program, regardless of technological excellence, requires people to maintain, monitor and operate it. A border guard who is corrupt or who simply can’t perform his job will soon render any amount of poured concrete ineffective.

Corruption is the danger most commonly associated with border issues. In many parts of the world, border guards are drawn from local populations who have relatives on both sides of the border. In border security, errors of omission (overlooking cargo that may contain contraband) are just as serious as errors of commission (such as actively facilitating smuggling). This simple fact makes the threshold where corruption has a policy impact much lower for border issues than for other types of law enforcement misconduct. A minor change in how a border guard exercises discretion could have a major impact on the flow of contraband. 

Compounding this issue is the requirement that border security personnel possess local knowledge to be most effective. In many underdeveloped regions of the world, this local knowledge is obtained only by recruiting local citizenry as border personnel. Unfortunately, local knowledge inevitably comes with local ties, which can quickly compromise an individual border guard.

Countermeasures, such as vetting or requiring frequent rotation and reassignment of personnel, thus take on added importance in a border security setting. Locally recruited personnel should always be viewed with a healthy degree of detachment, if not skepticism, and their performance should be judged objectively to discourage pressures exerted by cross-border familial, ethnic and tribal relations.

Additionally, many border security personnel are expert in their assigned sector but know little of larger trends or developments in the field of border security. This inevitably creates a sense of complacency that flexible criminal organizations exploit to their own ends.

Border security personnel need an operational and strategic worldview to recognize subtle changes and developments in trafficking, as well as the tactical local knowledge to operate effectively in an area where traffickers are often drawn from the local population. 

Achieving these goals requires initial training in the use of equipment and continuing education for more senior leaders (such as sector commanders) in abstract skills such as critical thinking and analysis. Training can occur under the auspices of the military, which in most countries operates a professional education system.

Strategy

Because of the large capital investment required for most border infrastructure, it often becomes a strategic end in itself. The same can be said for command centers, fixed observation points and other capital investments.

This mode of thinking is wrong-headed and counterproductive. A country’s border control strategy should drive its infrastructure, not the other way around. Infrastructure rendered redundant, whether by shifting trafficking patterns or enforcement successes, should be periodically evaluated and considered for repurposing, repositioning, inactivation or abandonment.

Every law enforcement agency in the world could use more money and people. Maintaining suboptimal infrastructure drains these resources and prevents their use against emerging or established threats elsewhere.

Border control strategies themselves require constant feedback and evaluation. The infrastructure that supports these strategies is part of the same evaluation cycle. Because infrastructure is capital intensive and politically difficult to challenge, consideration should be given toward making facilities lean and mobile as much as is possible.

Because strategy must be modified according to circumstance, strategy takes a secondary role to personnel. Personnel in a border security system must be educated to understand the considerations of their strategy and to make adjustments, refinements or changes when needed. For example, the extremely erratic nature of maritime smuggling off the Horn of Africa has led the Yemeni Coast Guard to step up patrols in areas of high activity and to cooperate with naval forces of other countries to intercept arms being smuggled into Yemen.

Equipment

Equipment and infrastructure are paired in importance in most border security settings. Infrastructure should permit equipment to operate to its fullest capability (as with observation equipment), and equipment should keep infrastructure requirements to a minimum. 

Achieving this level of efficiency requires joint planning and harmonization. Capabilities of equipment (both on hand and projected to be on hand) must be incorporated into infrastructure planning and construction requirements. 

Interoperability, particularly of communications and information technology equipment, requires special emphasis. Interoperability needs to be evaluated within and across ministries, but also with partner nations if any border control operation is to be truly effective. In the anti-piracy realm, for example, Combined Task Force 151 has operated since 2009 as a multinational naval force using common procedures and techniques to thwart regional threats.   

It is tempting to view new equipment as a panacea. One should recognize that a temporary advantage in technology is likely to be negated by any adaptable trafficking organization, and that equipment should be selected not just for a technological capability but with an eye toward multifunctional adaptability. 

Conclusion

Border security is a universal challenge rarely approached holistically. Part of the reason for this revolves around the complexities involving personnel, education, infrastructure, budgets and the evolving tactics of criminals who seek to exploit weaknesses.

Border security infrastructure is expensive yet often provides only a temporary increase in security. The United States has seen this along its own Southwest border. Officials must develop a comprehensive border control strategy to identify critical and adaptive infrastructure and equipment needs, as well as address internal corruption and offer appropriate education and training to border guards and customs officials. Taken together in a climate of examination and self-criticism, these measures will ensure efficient use of scarce border enforcement manpower and resources.  


130110-Des-Roches-CapitalAbout the Author: D.B. Des Roches is an associate professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Security Studies. Previously, he served as the director responsible for U.S. defense policy concerning Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. He has also served in the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense as the Department of Defense liaison to the Department of Homeland Security; as the senior country director for Pakistan; as the NATO operations director; and as the deputy director for peacekeeping. He is a British Marshall Scholar and has attended the U.S. Army War College, the Federal Executive Institute, the German Staff College’s Higher Officer Seminar, the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School and the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. An Airborne Ranger in the Army Reserve, he was awarded the Bronze Star for service in Afghanistan. He has commanded conventional and special operations parachute units and has served on the U.S. Special Operations Command staff as well as on the Joint Staff.

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