Emerging Transatlantic Security Dilemmas in Border Management

The exponential growth of international tourism and travel since the 1960s has left border management systems worldwide struggling to keep up with this surge of international activity and exposed weaknesses in states’ abilities to effectively manage their borders, especially in the scope of rising terrorist attacks, human trafficking, and illegal migration. While maintaining support for legitimate trade and travel, both the United States and the European Union have invested heavily in new border management frameworks that integrate advanced technology, collection and sharing of information, and collaborations across borders.

These new systems and policies have given rise to questions of effective investment and accountability. Although expected to help governments reach their goals of secure borders, mass data collection raises questions of who has access to these data, for how long, and for what purpose, as well as issues of redress for individuals misidentified as threats. At the same time, successful partnerships between countries at similar levels of development have been particularly widespread, and there also exist numerous collaboration efforts between disparately developed nations.

It is necessary to strategically approach border management to curb already high estimates of future costs of border security and to ensure effective use of existing infrastructure. Policymakers should also carefully consider the most judicious way to analyze collected data, and make certain that the chosen methodology allows for rectification when necessary. Finally, strengthened or new partnerships between countries in different levels of development will prove indispensible to maintain security and mobility between borders.