Does It Do Any Good At All For Nations To Put Up Borders

Why doesn't any country expand their borders any more?

Nowadays all of the land on earth is taken up by properly constituted nation states.In the past, empires often expanded into territory that was sparsely populated, by people who didn’t have official government structures, at least not ones that could form relationships with other nations.Also, modern-day morality has changed. Many of us no longer see valour as a virtue, and armies just taking over new peoples for no good reason isn’t seen as an obvious thing to do. So countries can only invade if they can convince us there’s some moral or historical justification for doing so.Another thing too is that when we look back at the sweep of history, we jump from one interesting event to another, and skip over long periods of time. This makes us feel like nothing much is happening now, which we experience quite slowly.But it’s only three years since Russia annexed Crimea: Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation - WikipediaThere are many conflicts of non-government forces such as ISIS trying to take over territory belonging to other countries, and breakaway groups creating new nations (ten new countries in the last 20 years, see: http://travel.usnews.com/feature... - and that’s not counting unrecognised countries like Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Transnistria, Somaliland, etc.). But as well as these, there have been a few land grabs by larger nations taking land from smaller nations, even in the last few decades.Before it became independent, East Timor was occupied by Indonesia since the 1970s. I already mentioned the annexation of Crimea. You also have the Territorial disputes in the South China Sea - Wikipedia, and Israel’s occupation of Palestine - although that one depends on how far back you want to go.Look at this map of Europe in 1910, and you’ll see Europe was massively different then:But if it has stopped, as I said it’s because all land is now closely protected by large nation-states. Also there’s supernational organisations now, notably the UN, that would attempt to put a stop to things like this.

What if there were no political borders between countries? What would it look like? Is this scenario possible? If so, what conditions would be required for the elimination of borders? Are we currently seeing the emergence of any of these conditions?

It is one thing to ask for a free movement of labour and goods, and another to say we have to wipe out borders of all kinds. When you wipe borders you are asking for a common world government.Whose laws will you follow?Any kind of authority needs a boundary. Think of this simple scenario. A guy commits murder and runs off to a distant country. Without political boundaries how will you bring that guy to justice?Some of you would attempt to say, we will have an international police [a bigger Interpol] and have anyone committing crimes anywhere can be arrested anywhere.There in lies the problem. What a crime is depends on a particular legal system. A crime in one place would not be a crime elsewhere. In Saudi Arabia being a gay is a crime, while marrying multiple women is not. If you don’t have any boundary with Saudi Arabia, what kind of laws will you have - yours or theirs?How about having a world government that can manage? A world without open borders will need a single world government. That government will follow the laws of the majority. Who is the majority in the world? Is it the liberals of Sweden or the communists of China?What economic system?Will you follow capitalism, communism, socialism or some such combination? Economic systems are more like cuisines. Not everyone will like a particular combination. Will it be labour friendly or business friendly? Will it allow equal rights for women? Will it keep religion from the workplaces and Parliaments?What options do you have if you don’t like?Let’s say the whole world comes under the control of an Asian government [in a democracy that will be the case and same in a dictatorship]. What if you don’t like their laws and execution? Where will you immigrate to? How will you escape such a government? What if someone like Assad is the President of the World Republic and is casual about the use of poison gas on dissidents?We need nations - a group of people who aspire for a particular legal system/political system/economic system/cultural system. Just as not everyone likes the same cuisine, not all of us like a common system.For nations to exist, there needs to be political boundaries. Otherwise, the authority enforcing the legal/economic/political system cannot do anything.

Which countries in the world have open borders today? Did open borders have a positive or negative effect on the country?

Many European nations are part of the Schengen Treaty which means that once legally entered (or a citizen of one of them) you have freedom of movement between them. So no internal border controls. EU nations have freedom of residence and work for its citizens, but may still have border controls if not Schengen states. Overall it has allowed for easier transfer of skills between nations, greater competitiveness, broadening of understanding between nations and an enrichment of culture. Of course, it also provides a good excuse for xenophobes and racists to blame foreigners for everything from stealing their jobs to sticking pins in their babies.

What would our world be like if we did not have any borders?

You asked "How would life be if our countries didn't have borders?"There are two ways to answer this question. One is to consider a world where governments simply do not have boundaries between them. They overlap and change and flow. That is a very different world than the one we live in, and it poses very difficult legal challenges.If there are two countries that overlap, how do I know whose laws apply to me?How do law enforcement officers know what laws to enforce?I could write a science fiction book on this idea. Not sure how it would work to be honest.The other way to answer your question is to interpret it to mean "what if there were a free and unfettered flow of people across government boundaries?"And we can see the answer to that every day. The large countries of Earth have many regional governments and, for the most part, citizens of those countries have the freedom to move across those border easily.In Mexico, a citizen can move from Sonora to Chihuahua freely. In Canada, a citizen can move from Alberta to British Columbia unfettered. In the USA, a move from California to Oregon raises very few concerns.Without borders, people are free to make choices based on education, opportunities, lifestyle, recreation, economics, and even weather without government interference. Companies grow and shrink, people learn regional cultures and dialects, food preferences blend together. It's all good.The only real question comes when we endorse free flows across national boundaries. For centuries there was no real border enforcement between the countries of North and South America. A person could simply walk from one to another, and we had the same free flow of people and ideas and currency.We have chosen, mostly out of fear, to give way more control to the federal government. Awareness of our location, language, and education. Control of our movements and what we carry with us. Some of it makes sense, but much is simply driven by fear.There are people who benefit from fear.So when someone tells you "a strong border is important," they are speaking fear. They are benefitted specific people. Do they even know who those people are? Do they know what they are afraid of?Typically not.Now, if a country is in a long war, like Israel, borders are personal safety issues. But for most of the rest of the world, they are a distortion of the natural flow of ideas and people, based on fear and benefitting specific people.

How important are the borders between countries? Why do they even exist?

That is a very interesting question. The world is currently divided into nation states, and our system of nation states comes from the 17th century. Although we take nation states for granted, the geographical division of humanity was different in previous times. For examples, there used to be kingdoms and empires, like the Roman Empire. Those were different units of organization because many different "peoples" who spoke different languages lived in their borders, and therefore nationalism was not an issue. Over the past few decades, it seems we are slowly moving to a post-national order because national borders are becoming less important. The European Union is a good example. It includes 28 countries and you can move freely between them without stopping at a border. Much has been written about "borders" as a symbolic place that sets limits and creates an artificial divide between "us" and "them". I encouge you to read about the development of nation states because they form the foundation of our current political world order, which is also in the midst of change.