Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

The New York Times' Tom Friedman can be a squish, a bland liberal, especially on domestic politics. At least some of the time, he has interesting things to say about foreign relations. Here he reacts to the migrant/refugee tsunami the developed world is experiencing, caused by the disintegration of the third world.

With so many countries melting down, just absorbing more and more refugees is not sustainable. If we’re honest, we have only two ways to halt this refugee flood, and we don’t want to choose either: build a wall and isolate these regions of disorder, or occupy them with boots on the ground, crush the bad guys and build a new order based on real citizenship, a vast project that would take two generations. We fool ourselves that there is a sustainable, easy third way: just keep taking more refugees or create “no-fly zones” here or there.

Nation-building is a thankless, nearly impossible task. I vote for Trump's Wall. If Hadrian could make it work nineteen hundred years ago - to protect civilized Roman Britain from marauding Scots - we can certainly do so today.

Europe should do the same on their southern borders. It has worked for Israel, to separate antagonistic peoples. Economic migrants need to stay home and fix their own broken countries, not sponge off us.