Europe, the United States, and Israel face unprecedented challenges in the area of border security, at both the political and operational level. There is a growing consensus among allies to address both the internal and external border challenges and opportunities facing them. In the near future, the issues facing border policies will become more complex as risks of increased terrorism, transnational organized crime, illegal immigration, and threats to commerce present new challenges.

Against this backdrop, on April 22-23, GMF’s Warsaw Office in cooperation with GMF’s Berlin Office held a third workshop in the series on “The International Forum on Border Security”, in Berlin, Germany. This event was modeled on previous events such as the inaugural dinner with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski in December 2011, and the workshop organized in cooperation with the President of Romania Traian Băsescu, in July 2012.

On the evening preceding the workshop, participants took part in a dinner to discuss “Regional Updates from Europe, Middle East, Northern and Western Africa”. A lot was said about the imperfections of the current European visa checking system, as it does not store data for non-EU nationals wanting to cross EU borders. According to several participants, the existing EU system is nothing more than an expensive add-on designed to collect cross-border statistics, which deprived of significant technological improvements will fail to reduce numbers of illegal immigrations. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) update, was a reminder that in a multidimensional reality, non-state actors operate across borders, often as part of transnational organized crime, which includes trafficking of humans, drugs or weapons - including weapons of mass destruction. Smuggling methods with more advanced use of technology is becoming the ‘new normal’, and within conflict zones like Israel and Palestine, Iraq or more recently Syria, known terrorist organizations have easier access to arms and recruitment channels. For these reasons border security within MENA states must be even more meticulous.

On the following day, during the first session on ‘Cross-border Terrorism: CBRN Defence and Border Security’, participants discussed the role of NATO and ways in which the Alliance can help tackle illicit trafficking. NATO plays an active role in securing borders and its added value includes training and organization of military as well as non-military personnel. NATO is open to engage with other international and regional organizations active in border security in order to avoid duplications and fill critical gaps. For these reasons, the key concept of the improved NATO strategy is to perform cooperative security, which ties in well with the U.S. Congress’ approach to security, which was established following the September 11 attacks. One of the presenters said the lessons learned following the 9/11 was to improve information sharing, both within the U.S. government and with its foreign partners. It is about linking together national security, criminal, and immigration databases so that individuals who are known to be dangerous are prevented from entry. Congress has introduced several security laws and acts ensuring that travelers bound for the U.S. are screened well before they board an airplane.

All these measures are essential and part of the U.S. and NATO strategy to push the borders outwards, which also involves improving border security at developing countries. In recent times, Afghanistan has moved into adopting an identity management system that enables Afghan forces to have a better understanding on who is crossing its borders. Most participants agreed that helping developing countries like Afghanistan establish a sound border identity management system, and is an important step to safer borders at home. However, concerns remain whether some of these countries might use border control systems for political means, of for example; to control government opposition.

Throughout the second session, much of the debate was focused on the Arab Spring and its effects on border security in Europe and the United States, and about the inability of the government bureaucracies to efficiently deal with so called ‘second generation of terrorists’. Obstacles to cooperation amongst allies prevail as states cannot agree on the definition of terrorism or classification of militant groups, like e.g. Hezbollah or Hamas. For some organizations even corruption is not a recognized transnational threat since these organizations operate on the premises of general consensus of its member states. This is why few participants have been concerned with the absence of an on-going, well-funded and neutrally administered transnational interdisciplinary network of border and migration services dedicated to maintaining travel data bases on suspect terrorists. As opposed to many small organizations with overlapping and misleading hierarchical structures, an overarching border/migration body would establish a top-down approach easing management and control. Yet the establishment of such a system has also been a moot point of the debate as one border control system would interfere with state sovereignty and pose questions regarding reaching a general consensus.

In the final session about the ‘Airport Risk Management Strategies’ presenters have discussed ways to improve the passenger experience at airport security checkpoints by applying new intelligence-driven screening procedures and enhancing its use of technology. Of course, the more information available on each passenger, the easier it is to perform risk assessment, but with more than 300 million external EU border crossings each year, this process becomes very difficult to manage. Participants agreed that more improved behavior detection and interviewing techniques should be strengthened in the screening process. Biometric methods are also part of the solution to minimize the ‘haystack’ of traveling passengers and effectively challenge the unknowns. Yet, one of the main problems at airport security checks is that ground-level airport security personnel have only seconds to perform a successful threat assessment on individual travelers. It is therefore essential to provide security staff with information sufficient to pass or deny entry to passengers under strict time pressure, which again brings the question back to technology and the establishment of an efficient and mutually accepted database system with access to personalized travelers profile.

In the concluding remarks, participants agreed that terrorists are constantly changing their tactics by looking for ways to defeat security measures, so must the border security technology and mutual cooperation improve especially with regards to information sharing and legal frameworks. The allies must become more vigilant and develop more meticulous methods to screen individuals in order to prevent dangerous people from crossing borders. Finally, border security must become more outward-driven so that Western deterrence methods work outside own borders becoming more pro-active, ultimately helping to prevent tragic occurrences. The discussion moderator, Dr. Andrew Michta, GMF’s Warsaw Office director, has encouraged participants to stay engaged in the Forum on Border Security series as future events are already planned for later part of 2013.  

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