This Week at War: Border Wars

Topics include:

1) The crack along the U.S.-Mexican border widens,

2) Gates and China practice finger-pointing.

The crack along the U.S.-Mexican border widens

On June 7, during a scuffle with some rock-throwing Mexican teenagers in a concrete drainage canal near El Paso, Texas, a U.S. Border Patrol officer shot Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca, 15, in the head, killing him. Mexican security forces brandishing their weapons, assisted by Mexican bystanders throwing rocks and firecrackers, later chased off FBI agents investigating the shooting. Mexican authorities say Hernandez was shot on the Mexican side of the border and claim to have recovered a .40-caliber shell casing as proof. A U.S. official asserted the action occurred on the U.S. side -- and displayed a Border Patrol videotape that allegedly showed four Mexican officers crossing to the U.S. side and possibly repositioning the shell casing to the Mexican side.

We can hope that time and a proper investigation will resolve the dispute over this tragedy. Meanwhile, border tensions seem unlikely to abate. According to the New York Times, rock-throwing incidents against Border Patrol officers along the Mexican border average about two per day. For its part, the Mexican government claims that U.S. immigration officers have killed 17 Mexican migrants so far this year.

Although government authorities on both sides have incentives to cooperate on border problems, popular passions on both sides might increasingly make such cooperation more difficult to sustain. The daily rock-throwing incidents are most likely the acts of bored teenagers, but also probably reflect underlying Mexican hostility. On the U.S. side, the recent Arizona immigration statute is the result of grassroots anxiety. Whatever the merits of this law, Mexican President Felipe Calderón's repeated condemnations of it have not aided the cause of cross-border cooperation. The law remains popular with a large slice of the U.S. population and Calderon's criticism only intensifies this group's suspicions and anxiety.

The White House staff apparently understands the acrimonious public mood regarding the border. According to the New York Times, Obama administration officials have suppressed the release of a report on methamphetamine production in Mexico, earlier versions of which were routinely released to the public. In addition, the article alleges that the White House staff wishes to classify as secret future editions of the U.S. government's national drug threat assessment. This year's version contained alarming conclusions about Mexico's drug cartels and resulted in complaints from the Mexican government. Suppressing the future public release of these reports would seem to be an effort by the administration to remove catalysts for public anger against Mexico.

Fixing the border doesn't seem likely without cross-border police cooperation. But rising public suspicion and hostility on both sides could overwhelm any plans for greater law enforcement collaboration. Diplomats on both sides should return to first principles and figure out the common public interests on both sides of the line. Without an agreement on common objectives, sustained cooperation seems unlikely. In the meantime, the fissure seems to be widening.

Gates and China practice finger-pointing

For the fourth year in a row, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke at the International Institute for Strategic Studies annual Asia Security Summit in Singapore on June 5, an event that consistently gathers the region's top defense and political officials. The big story from Gates's speech to the forum was his criticism of the Chinese government for its shutdown of contacts between U.S. and Chinese military officials over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. Gates expressed concern that the lack of military-to-military contact could lead to "miscommunication, misunderstanding, and miscalculation," but vowed that "interruptions in our military relationship with China will not change United States policy toward Taiwan."

Gates reasoned that because U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are "nothing new," China's leadership should simply drop its obsession with this issue. That may be true, but the perception that Asia's balance of power is shifting is new. Gates's reasoning on Taiwan clashes with the widely held view that China's influence is ascending while the financial panic and subsequent economic slump has permanently scarred the Western politico-economic model and called into question the Pentagon's ability to sustain its security commitments in East Asia.

Gates labored to dispel any such impression. Hitting the notes U.S. allies in the audience wanted to hear, Gates emphasized his department's plans for missile defense, nuclear-weapons modernization, the continued forward basing of U.S. forces in the region, and the deepening of U.S. defense relationships with regional allies. In a shot across China's bow, Gates specifically noted the U.S. military's commitment to defending freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

In a recent Washington Post article, one angry Chinese admiral revealed the mainstream view inside the Chinese Communist Party when he accused the United States of being a "hegemon," encircling China with hostile alliances and keeping China divided with its continued military support of Taiwan. The conclusion Chinese officials seem to have drawn is that the United States views China as an enemy that must be confronted and contained. Viewed from Beijing, China's rapid military expansion is merely self-defense. In both his speech and the following question-and-answer session, Gates strenuously denied that the U.S. government views China as an enemy.

Neither the arrival of the Obama administration, nor increased diplomatic contact, nor the passage of time seems to be easing the sense of suspicion between the two governments. If anything, distrust seems to be increasing. In a June 9 speech to the Asia Society in Washington, Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, said, "a gap as wide as what seems to be forming between China's stated intent and its military programs leaves me more than curious about the end result ... Indeed, I have moved from being curious to being genuinely concerned."

One likely result of this mutual mistrust will be a continued buildup of military power in the region. In his recent speech to the Navy League, Gates warned the Navy not to expect any budget increases for the foreseeable future. But if the U.S. government doesn't achieve some diplomatic breakthrough with China over the suspicions both sides embrace, the Pentagon will be forced to provide more naval and air forces to the region to back up its commitments. How will Gates (or his successor) do that with the defense budget under pressure, with Gates's vow to maintain ground-force head counts, and with his promise to "reset" ground-force readiness? The fiscal math for that formula doesn't add up. We will soon see how highly the Obama administration values the U.S. strategic position in Asia.