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Thou shalt call thy walls Salvation and thy gates Praise. —Isaiah 60:18 WHILE THE ABOVE BIBLICAL QUOTE reflects a prodefense sentiment often evident since man established boundaries, by the second half of the twentieth century a general disdain emerged for the continuing utility of walls, fortresses, and other barriers. The improved precision and destructiveness of weapons as well as the enhanced mobility of militaries appeared to render physical works obsolete. In the late 1950s, Yigal Allon, one of Israel’s early military heroes and strategic thinkers, captured the prevailing view by observing that “no modern country can surround itself with a wall.”1 Fifty years later, however, a range of nations including Afghanistan, Botswana, India, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and the United States have increasingly been attracted to such barriers, none more than Allon’s Israel.2 Walls stand guard along its frontiers with Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, increasingly the West Bank, and possibly soon Egypt. The relative effectiveness of these ground-based works at controlling cross-border traffic has encouraged adversary attack from the sky. Whether it be the frequent homemade Qassam rockets shot from the Gaza Strip (about three thousand through January 2008), the mixture of rockets and missiles launched by Hezbollah during the 2006 Lebanon War (more than four thousand total), or the longer-range, potentially nuclear-armed ballistic missiles potentially possessed by hostile Middle East states, a high threat perception has arisen.3 In response, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has pursued multiple missile defense systems, some with colorful names such as Iron Dome and David’s Sling, to be part of a multilayer network. Although the West Bank “separation barrier” has controversially deviated from the Green Line (the 1967 Israel–West Bank border) in some areas, defense efforts overall have been met with approval across the political spectrum. A growing sense of vulnerability has also prompted considerable interest in strategic defenses in the United States, albeit with far less agreement than 1 Introduction 2 Chapter 1 in Israel. Buffered by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans as well as protected by its overwhelming size and strength, Americans historically displayed a negligible desire to erect artificial barriers along its borders. The military constructed fortifications at times, but these were concentrated on protecting key harbors rather than securing lengthy frontiers. Even this limited effort declined in the twentieth century with the perceived obsolescence of coastal defenses as military and naval technology evolved. In recent decades a diverse set of political, military, economic, and social challenges (e.g., ballistic missiles, illegal immigration, narcotics, and terrorism) has elevated perceptions of vulnerability. This concern has led to a wide range of efforts from basic fencing to ballistic missile defense. Whether through solid physical structures or virtual walls employing detection sensors, proponents have touted barriers’ potential to control population and material flows along the approximately two-thousand-mile border with Mexico. Yet much of the public remains ambivalent, dubious, or even hostile to such an effort. Criticism focuses on the idea of a barrier more than questions of feasibility, although even measures such as the Secure Fence Act of 2006 will continue to leave most of the border without walls. By contrast, feasibility (cost and technical difficulty) concerns undergird opposition to developing ballistic missile defense. Advocates stress that these hurdles can be overcome with sufficient resources, and they note significant progress to date in obtaining the capability to defeat missiles fired by a rogue state. Even if effective, opponents counter that excessive concentration on this avenue of attack will leave insufficient resources for alternative means by which an enemy could readily turn. With the threats and vulnerabilities to U.S. soil real and likely long-standing, the debate on the value of strategic defenses appears set to continue indefinitely. While technical examinations and contemporary political analyses represent important tools for assessing barriers’ potential, advocates and critics often attempt to bolster their arguments by selectively wielding or distorting history of past strategic defenses. Most problematic is the tendency of journalists, analysts, and politicians to attribute to past strategic defenses blame for broader policy failures and thus reason to oppose contemporary efforts or proposals. An extreme example observes that despite building Hadrian’s Wall, the Romans still abandoned Britain.4 Attributing causality to an event almost three hundred years after the barrier’s construction is an absurd standard by which to judge barrier effectiveness. Similarly, proponents of barriers tend to assert extreme claims for their potential contribution to security. The resulting dynamic is for...

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