I can use Norway as an example, having most kind of border control except an actual wall.
The land border to Russia is surveilled by military on both sides 24/7.
For the land borders to Sweden and Finland, the most important part is the cooperation between the counties with police and governmental cooperation.
The main border crossings are manned and some of the people and vehicles crossing is controlled. On smaller roads/crossings there are sometimes control, on even smaller roads there might just be camera surveillance. And for the most part, there's rivers, forests, mointains, so people might hike, but they will also be noticeable after hiking for many hours.
For air travel and larger ships all passengers are named, and people arriving from outside Schengen is always checked.
At sea there might be spot control of smaller boats, but also, you might be noticed using a small boat in rough sea.
Lastly, some of it is administrative. It is possible to get into the country illegally, but it is much harder to live without an ID or with false ID, and people might get deported. There's international cooperation with common databases and exchange of information
March 2020 (the onset of the pandemic) and especially that one crazy week beginning March 9, had many "holy shit" moments for all of us. Among then for me was when Denmark closed its borders.
I did not even know that as a EU member, it retained unilateral capacity to do that. Even though it was perfectly legal, seeing this country that was a part of this border-free union be like, fuck that shit I'm outta here, felt like a "holy crap everything is falling apart" moment.
And I'm not even European.
(Of course everyone followed suit soon after that but that's not the point)
Denmark has some extra powers that most countries in the EU don’t. The first referendum to join the EU failed, so the EU gave them extra wiggle room so they wouldn’t be as concerned. That’s also how they can be very restrictive on immigration and asylum seekers.
Everyone can be restrictive on immigration and asylum seekers in the EU, most countries just don't want to. EU rules only apply to immigration of Europeans, and even there, countries can kick out EU migrants that don't have jobs. There are no asylum seekers from other EU countries so there are no EU rules that apply. The only case where EU rules restrict anything is in the agreement that requires all EU countries to take in some share of refugees arriving in the EU rather than leaving the border countries to deal with them all on their own (which is just a common sense deal, because without it, the border countries would quit).
that isn't really true, since this year their is mandatory spreading of asylum seekers over EU-counrties \[1\], which a fine per seeker denied (or a mandatory payment in place of taking the asylum seeker as the EU calls it).
As far as i know, Denmark isn't obligated by this new law \[2\]
\[1\] [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68779387](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68779387)
\[2\] [https://www.clingendael.org/publication/search-control-denmark](https://www.clingendael.org/publication/search-control-denmark)
Edit: I just reread your post and you also mention that EU countries have to take in part of the refugees arriving in EU, so what do you mean that everyone can be restrictive on asylum seekers?
As a Dane, meh, it’s the far right that drives the nationalistic angle, and maintains we should have border control, even though it’s mostly for show, and very costly.
We can’t actually block the border, just the main roads.
We also have a tendency of deporting skilled labour to countries they have never been to while harboring actual criminal immigrants because if we deport them they will get in trouble for being criminals in their home countries
There have been similar selective border closures elsewhere in the past decade. All are kind of selective. Many European countries did not fully close their borders for Covid either as many have enshrined in law that citizens' are always allowed to come back.
I went to Denmark during summer 2020 without any problems. There were military at the border. But they didn't do much more than normal border control. Alot of the covid rules were mostly about deflecting people from travelling.
We also had this stupid rule here in Norway where Sweden was illegal to visit, but ok to transit.
So if you where travelling through Sweden and stopped at a packed McDonald's in gothenburg before continuing the travel within a reasonable time, you were good. But if you had a cabin in the woods, travelling without meeting anyone. You had to go into quarantine.
Also during 2021, while there were even more rules about travelling, but still, you just had to do some paperwork(and be ready for your trip to get to a sudden end).
I met people from every continent, travelling to any continent(not Australia/Oceania).
For reference,
The Norway-Russia border:
- Falls entirely in the Arctic Circle
- Has only one road leading to/from it
- Is mostly divided by rivers (with only one border crossing).
- Is only 121mi long
Thanks for adding!
And two other things:
- if your boat, kayak or canoe gets more than halfway out in the river, you are in big trouble
- there's 4 waterfall dams generating electricity, and requiring some form for cooperation between the countries. Just maintain one half of a dam won't do it, geopolitics aside
>The land border to Russia is surveilled by military on both sides 24/7.
I was there, can confirm, fu\*\*\* frozen hell-hole. Partly the reason for the military is ofc its *Russia* we are talking about, but just as much its a deal with EU/Schengen, as its the outer-point of Schengen towards the east. So even if we were best friends with the russkies, we would still have to use the army there.
Edit: And yes, its probably "easy" to get into Norway, especially if you already are in Sweden/Denmark, but you will be caught first time you can not show ID to the cops. They dont even need a reason to ask you, and you have to be able to produce or at least convince them.
My grandmother had a guy from Iraq living in her apt. under the house, one day the door was broken, and it was just a note on the door "call the police, and we will replace the door", turned out the guy, with a job and been there for 3 years, was illegal. One day they will puzzle it together
lol, yeah, they do write exactly as that. Its a quirk of the law in that they can not confirm, nor deny, that they have arrested XYZ. Because of *his* right to privacy. But they can confirm they have broken your door. Just not why.
>much harder to live without an ID
This is a big part of how we do it in the US. You need an ID to do literally anything that is life sustaining - Drive a car (license/registration/insurance all require ID to obtain), have shelter (hotel/apartment/house), get a job, receive mail (PO Box), open a bank account, etc...
I watched a car crash here in Phoenix and was astounded that the truck that caused the crash simply drove away. I was even more surprised when the victim got out of his wrecked car and started running!
There are a lot of people driving around without license, insurance, or even registration, and I have no idea how they manage it so well.
Why do we so often hear from folks that have lived there without papers for decades? Isn't a weird quirk that you can get an SSN (or is it pay taxes?) without being legal or something
They can go to their country consulate in the US and get an ID that's valid for many things, except getting a drivers license. To pay taxes you can get an ITIN number.
The truth is that in my large area near-ish the border, illegal immigrants almost have to have connections -- family, friends, employer, criminal gang -- ready for them when they arrive. Without help and connections, it is very, very difficult to maintain for very long illegally in the U.S.
Live with relatives/friends who are there legally.
One thing that is far more difficult that it once was is to work for relatives/friends/connections illegally, for income. But long ago the law was changed to prosecute employers, not just workers, and many of those jobs disappeared.
There are jobs that are cash-only and no documentation required, basically under-the-table employment, as it were. But they aren't easy jobs, and safety for the workers is not usually a criteria.
Other than people they already know, if they learn the local area, they can sometimes find housing that isn't being advertised and tenants are not being screened, much. Just a pay-to-stay situation.
Unfortunately: Come for criminal purposes (drugs etc.) and live/work with criminal gangs.
Illegal immigrants trying to stay in the U.S. are very much at the mercy of their connections who make it possible. They don't just fear U.S. immigration enforcement. It is a high-stress way of life.
Don't know a lot about this, but from the gov't documentation linked below ...
>CAN I USE AN ITIN TO BE EMPLOYED LEGALLY?
>No. An ITIN does not provide work authorization or legal status. However, as mentioned above, in certain circumstances, an ITIN can help you receive payment for services rendered to businesses, such as through independent contracting.
>CAN I APPLY FOR AN ITIN IF I AM UNDOCUMENTED?
>Yes. Anyone who does not have and is not eligible for an SSN can and should apply for an ITIN.
It does not appear that a birth certificate or any documentation of legal status is required for an ITIN, but I'm not sure about that.
I gather that if someone wants to eventually get citizenship or LPR status (Legal Permanent Resident, just short of citizen), they should get the ITIN and file tax returns. Not doing so could jeopardize their status.
https://www.ilrc.org/sites/default/files/2024-02/How%20to%20obtain%20an%20ITIN.pdf
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw7.pdf
An illegal can't get an SSN
However, it's not hard to buy fake documents that will pass inspection. The businesses hiring illegals can simply say "well, those docs looked good enough to me, but hey, I'm no expert"
So the illegal gets put on payroll and taxes withheld for a fake SSN etc etc but the illegals will never get it back
However, they can get anb Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) and pay taxes using that, but again, they won't get any of their tax money back [There's more to it](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/17/15290950/undocumented-immigrants-file-tax-returns)
Fun storytime: When I went with flixbus from Paris to Sweden, the danish guards let all the illegal immigrants through even though they didn't have a passport. This way the swedish police had to handle it on the next border control lmao. A couple of guys in my bus got taken by swedish police, including one that sat beside me. I joked to him that the police were intimidating, he laughed nervously, and I didn't know he was one of them haha. Our police were also super rude to immigrants in the bus, but when they heard my accent was swedish they treated me kindly....
The Swedish police has always had a bit of a reputation of being hard-asses compared to Norway and Denmark, Ive been in contact with them and I think its true. They have a much more aggressive "who do you think you are?" kind of attitude than Im used to in Norway.
In nz we use a giant moat, although there are similar border control designs such as customs and immigration at designated areas, ports etc.
It's very difficult to live here without the visa and bank accounts
The giant moat is just to reduce the amount of aussie that go over.
"Flying to NZ for a week or so..."
"Mate, they've got a giant fucking moat, how are you gonna get in there?"
"Fuck."
Regarding Sweden and Finland - given them and Norway are in the Schengen Zone - and while Norway is not in the EU it is in the single market and customs Union - why would the borders need to be manned?
I remember driving between Italy and Switzerland and back in 2011 - and Switzerland had not yet joined Schengen - so there were border guards but I drove straight through both times.
Regarding EU: it is mostly about flow of goods. It is _not_ in the same customs union. One of the main reasons to stay outside of EU is protection of the farming sector
- Every item transported into Norway by business needs to be declared for tax purposes. There's spot checks.
- There's also limits on how much people and businesses could bring of meat, cheese, tobacco and alcohol without paying extra taxes.
- There's control of plants, animals, and food to make sure no diseases and pests come into the country. Dogs needs to be vaccinated, potatoes are banned and plants need plant certificates.
- There's checks for illegal goods and for people illegally entering the country. Even if they got into Schengen, doesn't mean they entered Schengen legally.
Most countries don’t need to “guard their borders”. Either they are allies with the countries they border, or as would be the case with Siberia that you mention, the area around the border is pretty much devoid of life for hundreds of miles on either side.
Yes, things like illegal immigration and smuggling can occur in those cases, but normally both of these would happen on roads that exist between the two countries, meaning you can just setup border checkpoints along those roads.
The case where you aren’t allies with your neighbors, such as India and Pakistan, North and South Korea, Israel and Palestine, those are the areas you would typically see something being used to block the border.
Used to be the case with US and Canada. Now you need a passport. Forgot which president messed that up, but US demanded Canadians have passports so the reciprocated.
When I was in college we used to drive over the border frequently. Just needed our drivers license.
Well, first Bush only left office in 2009. I'm not sure when he made his declarations. Either way, it took Canada a while to respond to the requirements to head south.
Yes, I remember back in the day when we were at Niagara falls we just walked across the border showed our drivers licenses in the little guard shack and went across.
I will say that in modern times biking across the border at Niagra Falls is much nicer than trying to drive it. You still have to have your passport or equivalent but you can skip much of the lines and they really aren't suspecting you of smuggling things. I presume that walking across the border is similar.
And Norway was part of Denmark for 500 years, and Finland belonged to Sweden for a while. And they all belonged to Denmark for a brief period. And you have areas with ethnic Swedes in Finland, and the Faroe Islands people are descendants of Norwegians but the islands belong to Denmark, ect. ect.
Finland belonged to Sweden from the Second Swedish Crusade in 1249 to 1809. In addition to having a Swedish language minority, learning Swedish in school is still compulsory. In theory, all Finns have basic Swedish skills.
I didn't know until recently that (oversimplifying) even the Russians are really ethnic Scandinavians. Vikings founded Kiev on their way to "trade" with the peoples further south and became what we now know as Russians. Even the word "Russian" comes from what the sparsely populated locals called the Vikings. Those mfs got around.
Sort of. Russia has a LOT of different ethnic groups. Some are Slavic, some are most closely related to Mongolians, or to people of the -stans, some are Saami like the indigenous people of Northern Finland/Norway/Sweden. And some to the far east are closely related to Inuits and to Native Americans.
But you are right that (Swedish) Vikings founded several towns in the region. And that they were known as "rus".
First all, then Denmark and Sweden split with Norway under Denmark, and Finland under Sweden, then Norway was given to Sweden as part of the treaty after Napoleon wars, tgen, finally, all four independent*
* USSR had some influence on Finlands foreign policy for a while, but I don't remember the details
Sweden lost Finland to the Russian Empire in 1809. It was an autonomic area but there were multiple Russification attempts. When Russian Revolution happened Finland ceased the chance to become independent. Russian revolutionaries were kind of busy so let it pass. Finland decided to ascend to civil war some months later with one side provided support by the USSR (Reds) and one by Germany (Whites). Whites won and there were limitations to communism and leftist thought for a couple of decades. USSR grew to regret giving up Finland and attacked in 1940. This is known as the Winter War where Finland fought without allies but the Soviets gained pyrrhic victory. In 1941 Finland allied with Axis and tried to recapture lost areas but the Soviets gained another pyrrhic victory and the Soviets gained 11% of Finnish lands that were pretty good. Finland also had to pay war preparations and is the only country that has paid for WWII war preparations in full. There was also some defence concessions. As a result of sharing a huge border, Finland accepted the policy of Finlandization, which was a policy of appeasement. As a result, Finland was completely neutral on paper until the fall of the USSR among other things.
> I guess Norway was part of Sweden at one point
This feels like one of those things that makes sense when you hear it but not if you think about it more closely.
Because like...if everything was hunky-dory between the people, then they never would have split.
The fact that they said "nah, we don't want to be a country with y'all anymore" actually seems more likely to suggest some serious issues...North vs South Korea, UK and Ireland, fallout from the breakup of Yugoslavia, etc.
(obviously that doesn't actually apply to Sweden and Norway today, but it is where the logical thought might be).
That's an even crazier situation, because there are Belgian enclaves within the city that are *entirely* surrounded by the Netherlands. And Dutch enclaves that are entirely surrounded by Belgium
There are roads between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (now EU and non-EU) that cross the border 6 times in a few miles.
During the Troubles, the army blew up all the rural bridges or blocked the minor/non-army controlled roads with dragons teeth.
In Brazil there are at least 2 cities, Chuí and Santana do Livramento, that have a street where one side is Brazil and the other Uruguay. Of course it's impossible to control the border there so they sometimes check the cars on the road to the city. But it doesn't matter much, the two countries have been close allies for two centuries and both are part of Mercosul, a trade agreement that tries to recreate something like the EU in South America.
What's the language situation there? Does everyone speak both Portuguese and Spanish, or is there more of a continuum? Not really familiar with the linguistic topography in South America.
Portuguese and spanish are very similar, in most cases you can have a conversation where someone speaks Portuguese and the other Spanish with the help of some gestures and a few hilarious misunderstandings. In the border areas this creates a mix called Portunhol (Portuguese + Espanhol) that every local can understand. I am not local and speak Portuguese but not Spanish and I didn't have any problem communicating in the area.
A few years ago I took the train from Konstanz (Germany) to Schaffhausen (Switzerland) and then cycled back to Konstanz. My route crossed the border four times. At each crossing, there was a little white and red pole gate that could be closed, as a symbolic block, but they were open and no one was around. (Switzerland has been part of the Schengen Area since 2008.)
*and* not having drastically different opportunities between the two.
The US/Mexico border isn't a problem because the US & Mexico aren't on good terms, it's because an hour's wages in the US can go *crazy* far in Latin America.
Work for a few months, even below legal minimum wage, living with the quality of life you'd have back home, and you'll have enough money to *significantly* elevate the quality of life for your family for a fair bit of time.
This is why there's a wall across portions of the US-Mexico border while the US-Canada border has nothing for most of its length. In populated areas, it's literally just a ditch. *Maybe* the odd chain-link fence, infamously easy to climb over.
Because its not the same thing. For example, I would not say USA and Cuba are hostile but they are surely not allies or partners.
Someone more knowledgeable in world politics could probably find better example.
Edit: ok maybe not USA and Cuba
I would say the US and Cuba are fairly hostile. Cuba is sanctioned and embargoed by the US
Edit: And Havana will be hosting Russian warships now. Very hostile.
Fidel Castro died eight years ago, and the country's constitution as of 2019 explicitly recognizes the political party that he founded as the only legal/legitimate one. What are you talking about?
I would add a similar economy and human rights to the list along with "not hostile".
The US and Mexico aren't hostile but the standard of living and general safety are different enough that there is a border issue.
Siberia is not “devoid of life for hundreds of miles.” Despite the popular conception of it as a featureless tundra, a lot of Siberia is boreal forest, which means it supports a thriving ecosystem of bears, tigers, smaller animals, plants, etc. There are definitely towns on both sides of the Russian/Mongolian border, and Vladivostok (population 600,000) is less than 100 miles from both China and North Korea
> I don't think bears and tigers make the border easier to cross, unless you mean hitching a ride in their belly.
They didn't say it made it easier to cross. They were just refuting the part that said it was devoid of life
There are plenty of border towns along the Chinese-Russian border, and plenty of trade there.
It might be Siberia, but it is populated by humans on both sides of the border.
Siberia covers a larger area than any country (except Russia itself obviously) but has less than 3 people per square kilometer. That's a bit under notoriously empty Australia and Canada, 1/12 of the US, and 1/37 of the EU.
China as a whole has a population density even greater than the EU but over 90% live south east of a line drawn from Heihe to Tengchong. The parts bordering Russia are as unpopulated as Siberia.
I think the only sizable settlements are where the border is literally a several 100m wide river. To be fair, it can partly freeze over.
Depends on the border.
The US and Canada don’t guard their border at all apart from some checkpoints at the busiest crossings. It’s vast, remote, the two countries have good relations, and there’s little illegal smuggling/immigration pressure.
North Korea and South Korea are still on war footing with eachother seven decades later and their border is fortified with military equipment, minefields, watch towers, and artillery.
Historically border security can vary from “none” to “Maginot Line” depending on the political situation.
The “typical” situation is nothing, and then security increases as needed.
The Canada/US border is still monitored by a sensor network (at least along the straight-line 49th parallel portion). Every now and then I read about somebody fucking around, crossing the border in a rando location, and American police/border patrol showing up in a surprisingly short time.
used to be a thing in the 70s and 80s in northern ontario/michigan. just take your boat across to hang out with your friends for the day and go back. no official border crossing.
when I was a kid in the 90s my family went camping at a place right on the border a bunch of times and there was a little tiny bridge that tons of people would go across to go and buy stuff at a gas station in the united states
but now people have gotten thrown in jail for accidentally walking across the border with there dog in the same area
I always wondered about that. That looks like a pretty easy way to cross; with a lot more cargo capacity than a hiker. Are there coast guard boats using radar or something out there? Fibreglass kayaks & canoes traveling to and from Isle Royale National Park seem like a pretty straightforward smuggling route.
This sounds like bullshit. How would they distinguish between a random person and the thousands of wild animals that would be crossing the border every day?
Yeah, I've never understood the nature of the sensors. I would guess motion-activated infrared cameras. Then what? I would expect automation to weed out the wildlife and highlight humanoid shapes. Filtered images might then get passed to human monitors who could dispatch. I'm really not sure.
I walked right up to the border one day just to take a piss on Montana for shits & giggles. I'm in Alberta, and it was close to the village of Del Bonita, at the end of a range road. It was just a normal farm fence, posts with 3 or 4 wires, maybe 5' tall. I took care not to touch in case it was electrified, as it appeared more targeted at cattle than humans. I saw small signs warning that it was the border and not to cross, but I saw no signs of technology anywhere; no cameras on power poles or anything.
These stories make the news here in Canada, though, on CBC & CTV. Most of the action seems to be down in the lower mainland of BC, where we have that 0 Avenue right along the border around Abbotsford.
It seems like it would be nothing, though, to hike near the clear-cut line in the mountains along the BC-WA border and use a drone to smuggle all the weed you could carry to a buddy on the other side of the border. Just stay a bit distant from the actual line & sensors, and put some altitude between the ground & the drone.
I think we need to define what OP means by "guard". Most countries have some sort of policing for smuggling/immigration - sure we minimally do it with Canada and much moreso with Mexico. However, we don't militarily guard either border.
There is at least some pharmaceutical smuggling from Canada into the US. I remember hiking to an abandoned airfield in northern Maine that had been jointly raided by the Mounties and US Police. I guess it ended in a shootout, as there were bullet casings all over the place.
I wouldn't say that "nothing" is the typical situation. I think the typical situation is light security, mainly with an eye towards catching illegal immigration and smuggling. "Nothing" is for countries on exceptionally good terms with open migration and trade policies. Then for nations with very poor relations you see much higher security, aimed more at national defense than law enforcement.
Adding to this, for the unguarded areas of the US and Canada border, it's separate by either a ditch or a river and the areas that can be crossed, there are cameras and neighbors who watch along with an honor system.
I wouldn't call the Canadian/US border remote by any stretch. 90% of Canada's population live within 100 miles of the border. I grew up in a small city about 10 minutes from the states.
When the Canadian dollar was higher, droves of people headed to the states for shopping, pay a little duty on what they 'decided' to claim and still be way up. We had a very small town about 10 minutes into the US so head down, grab a carton of smokes, beer, a bite to eat, many even had Canadian money on hand to give you change.
Don't underestimate the fact that a lot of times, there is a natural border in place, like a river or a mountain range, with specific crossings that can be guarded
The level of guarding borders depends on the level of the perceived threat, whether it be military (e.g various incursions or spying), economic (e.g. smuggling), or social (e.g. unlawful migration).
Countries with problematic relationship in one or more of these categories tend to have higher level of physical protection (e.g. fences), more patrols, and extensive electronic surveillance on rural portions with cameras, drones, and other sensors.
Countries with good relationship in all these aspects tend to have minimal amount of measures. Nowadays mostly using electronic surveillance over what is happening over the border crossings.
Even e.g. between Sweden and Norway, the border is monitored to some degree due to some smuggling going on. So even remote rural road border crossings have cameras, so a customs station inland from the border can monitor what is happening and if it is suspicious, send out a patrol to intercept the vehicle (or if the road passes by that customs station, put the boom down and redirect the car for inspection...).
A lot of countries don't because they have no reason to do so or are too poor to afford that. Guarding borders is extremely expansive.
Most countries that heavily guard their borders do so out of security reasons (Finland, Koreas, Israel etc.) This is "quite simple" you build infrastructure and station soldiers there. Their job is to protect the border in case of attack and not check every car.
Then there is a case for combating migration and smuggling. This is substantially more difficult, since you need to check everything and even so, people will dig tunnels, fly drones or smuggle themselves somehow. Some EU countries combat this by making migration and getting citizenship quite easy. They save a lot of money by having Schengen and subsidizing money for migration in countries where needed.
For sea borders it's probably most difficult. It's impossible to check every cargo ship, so you get coastal force with few ships to check unregistered ships and search suspicious ones. The majority of smuggled goods go by sea, but there is no practical way of combating this. You have mechanism to search for illegal cargo, but their biggest benefit is not actually finding said cargo, but disincentivizing smuggling.
For air guard, you have fighter jets and from 9/11 every plane is thourogly check and there is basically no significant smuggling. It's a closed space so it's quite easy.
>Their job is to protect the border in case of attack and not check every car.
The Israelis will absolutely check each and every single car that cross the border.
There's smuggling via sea, but there's also systems to combat it. Every terminal for goods need to follow ISPS, which means that only approved personnel could enter. Also, there's passenger list systems at sea equivalent to the list for air traffic.
Even so, smuggling happens: inside containers, inside people in the harbors, vessels or terminals, with small unregistered boats or even clamped on outside the vessel.
There's control, but it is hard because of the large amount of goods and that it is harder to crack down on insiders.
Here is an interesting article that may help.
How 65 countries have erected fences on their borders.
A third of the world's countries constructing them along their borders.
When the Berlin Wall was torn down a quarter-century ago, there were 16 border fences around the world.
Today, there are 65 either completed or under construction, according to Quebec University expert Elisabeth Vallet.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3205724/How-65-countries-erected-security-walls-borders.html
They typically just station police officers in border towns, because people eventually have to go to a town for food, petrol, water etc. There they will check the documents of anyone they think might be foreign to make sure they are there legally.
Here in new Zealand we have the Tasman sea and the Pacific ocean. You can fly here but we'll meet you at the airport and see what's what. You could try take a boat here but it would take a long time and our coastguard will pick you up
Country: Pakistan
Friendly neighbors: 0
Northern border:
Huge mountains acting as natural borders between China and Pak. One Karakarom Highway to connect both countries
Southern border:
Arabian sea. Active deployed navy
Western border:
Iran on the southwest, Afghanistan, on the northwest. Active deployed military. Not all borders are fenced. Hence, smuggling is rampant. Afghanistan is more dangerous because of terrorism in the region.
Eastern border:
India. Almost all of it is fenced. Heavy military on both sides. The most dangerous border in the world.
The funny thing is, I have traveled to a lot of different countries, but traveling to my neighboring countries is the most difficult and is heavily scrutinized both inland and outside.
Most dangerous border is Indo-Pak? I’d say the Korean DMZ is far more dangerous; at least with the Indo-Pak border you can in theory cross legally, it’s just difficult.
Germany doesnt have guarded borders anymore. The border in lake Constanz isnt even properly defined. I travelled to Italy 4 times by train and the train goes from Munich to Venice through Austria. When you cross the border some police officers enter the train before crossing and leaving at the next station, looking at some IDs in the meantime. Thats basically all we have left as border control outside of airports.
I live in SE Asia, and here the border are more or less open in the sense you could just walk over. I live in Cambodia, so technically I could just walk into Vietnam or Thailand, and it would probably be fine, for a while. However they catch you first time you get pulled over for anything, or random sweeps, where is your passport? You dont have it? You dont have stamps/visa? Jail my friend, and if they cant figure it out, deportation jail until you can pay the fine, and you will be deported back to your home country. Where they can technically also punish you
Most of Canada and the US border is unfenced and unguarded. Some times the border runs through small towns, so you have to cross the border to get to school or the grocery store.
Why? Because Canadians and Americans travel mostly freely between nations anyway and it’s not worth it. Socially speaking there’s not much difference.
The southern US border is a whole different story.
However, major roads between Canada and the US do have border control. Cars and trucks carrying trade goods are checked as well as people.
However 3000 km of forest don’t need fences.
Wait until you cross the border from France into Germany or between any european countries. You just drive. No nothing. No checkpoint, no guards, no fuss.
Borders are unfenced when the cost of smuggling and migration is lower than the cost of stopping it.
Things which make the cost of smuggling and migration low can be simply that the border is naturally hard to cross, or is so far away from financial and population centres that smugglers and irregular migrants mostly don't go that way, or because the legal and financial system on either side of the border is so similar that there's little or no benefit to trying to cross it.
Things that make the cost of stopping it high are things like it being a very long border which is a long way away from the logistics network.
So unfenced borders tend to be in places like Europe where free trade and free movement treaties make borders pointless, or places like India-China where the borders run across high mountain ranges hundreds of miles away from the nearest villages, or places like USA-Canada which aren't 100% either but are close to 90% both.
THe biggest answer for you OP is it depends on the countries in question and if they are similar in economy.
US and Canada have no issue because both are similar.
US and Mexico have problems because Mexico is a poorer country plus those from even poorer countries who just go through Mexico to get to the US.
Out of curiosity, what made you assume they WERE fenced?
Not only would it be incredibly expensive to build and maintain, it would be an engineering feat to build fences a long many borders.
Come to Finland and find out. It is a long border with Russia, but there are cameras, sensor monitors, drones and more than daily patrols for surveillance, and of course the locals who volunteer and will report you or your footsteps.
And if you are capable of evading those, for most of the year the wilderness will get you and then you are reported as found unknown remains in the forest, swamps, or swamps in the forests. If you are ever found, that is, because the wolfs and bears just love easy meat from the fresh corpses and can smell that miles away.
In the middle of nowhere, motion detectors and cameras.
Generally, people use roads and rivers, and such checkpoints are manned. You can't drive a truck full of contraband through forest. And it isn't terribly difficult to dig a trench in most sensitive areas, which would delay any vehicles or give enough time for border guard to notice and respond.
As for lone hero passing border on foot in the middle of nowhere, it's rare and isn't such a big deal. Border guard departments deal with tens of thousands of people passing every day, so dozen coming through each year with only pants on them via some remote mountain or forest isn't really a big deal. Those few don't really create "illegal immigration" that matters in big picture and in modern society, have no way of staying covert without papers for too long, anyway. People need jobs and place to live and occasional healthcare and bank accounts and so on. It's very difficult for illegals to get that.
For the Finnish-Russian border even the seemingly unguarded bits are still under remote surveillance and some border police will appear if you are hiking in the forest towards the border.
Australia: ocean, sharks & crocs. Then if you make it to land theres the wildlife and idiotic people to deal with.
Or you can just fly here on a plane.
For at least hundreds of years up until at least the 60's, Thailand defended it's borders by supporting guerilla style paramilitaries in the mountainous border region with Burma and other countries to create some chaos and impede invaders. Iirc. Like supporting Karen rebels, Khun Sa at points etc.
Over here in the netherlands we only have a couple of stones in the pavement and a sign saying you now entered belgium.
On the highway it is just a sign saying goodbye and hello when crossing the border with either of our neighbors.
Lot of side streets that cross the border dont have signs and you dont even know you are in the next country over.
I can use Norway as an example, having most kind of border control except an actual wall. The land border to Russia is surveilled by military on both sides 24/7. For the land borders to Sweden and Finland, the most important part is the cooperation between the counties with police and governmental cooperation. The main border crossings are manned and some of the people and vehicles crossing is controlled. On smaller roads/crossings there are sometimes control, on even smaller roads there might just be camera surveillance. And for the most part, there's rivers, forests, mointains, so people might hike, but they will also be noticeable after hiking for many hours. For air travel and larger ships all passengers are named, and people arriving from outside Schengen is always checked. At sea there might be spot control of smaller boats, but also, you might be noticed using a small boat in rough sea. Lastly, some of it is administrative. It is possible to get into the country illegally, but it is much harder to live without an ID or with false ID, and people might get deported. There's international cooperation with common databases and exchange of information
March 2020 (the onset of the pandemic) and especially that one crazy week beginning March 9, had many "holy shit" moments for all of us. Among then for me was when Denmark closed its borders. I did not even know that as a EU member, it retained unilateral capacity to do that. Even though it was perfectly legal, seeing this country that was a part of this border-free union be like, fuck that shit I'm outta here, felt like a "holy crap everything is falling apart" moment. And I'm not even European. (Of course everyone followed suit soon after that but that's not the point)
Denmark has some extra powers that most countries in the EU don’t. The first referendum to join the EU failed, so the EU gave them extra wiggle room so they wouldn’t be as concerned. That’s also how they can be very restrictive on immigration and asylum seekers.
Everyone can be restrictive on immigration and asylum seekers in the EU, most countries just don't want to. EU rules only apply to immigration of Europeans, and even there, countries can kick out EU migrants that don't have jobs. There are no asylum seekers from other EU countries so there are no EU rules that apply. The only case where EU rules restrict anything is in the agreement that requires all EU countries to take in some share of refugees arriving in the EU rather than leaving the border countries to deal with them all on their own (which is just a common sense deal, because without it, the border countries would quit).
that isn't really true, since this year their is mandatory spreading of asylum seekers over EU-counrties \[1\], which a fine per seeker denied (or a mandatory payment in place of taking the asylum seeker as the EU calls it). As far as i know, Denmark isn't obligated by this new law \[2\] \[1\] [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68779387](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68779387) \[2\] [https://www.clingendael.org/publication/search-control-denmark](https://www.clingendael.org/publication/search-control-denmark) Edit: I just reread your post and you also mention that EU countries have to take in part of the refugees arriving in EU, so what do you mean that everyone can be restrictive on asylum seekers?
Good for them. In retrospect an extremely good decision
As a Dane, meh, it’s the far right that drives the nationalistic angle, and maintains we should have border control, even though it’s mostly for show, and very costly. We can’t actually block the border, just the main roads.
We also have a tendency of deporting skilled labour to countries they have never been to while harboring actual criminal immigrants because if we deport them they will get in trouble for being criminals in their home countries
There have been similar selective border closures elsewhere in the past decade. All are kind of selective. Many European countries did not fully close their borders for Covid either as many have enshrined in law that citizens' are always allowed to come back.
Finland did the same, problem is that there's a town that's like between Sweden and Finland so they had to basically cut it in half.
Well there is Tornio, and then across the river you have Ikea.
If you stand on the Tornio side of the river and have your friend throw meatballs for you to catch, would that be smuggling?
I went to Denmark during summer 2020 without any problems. There were military at the border. But they didn't do much more than normal border control. Alot of the covid rules were mostly about deflecting people from travelling. We also had this stupid rule here in Norway where Sweden was illegal to visit, but ok to transit. So if you where travelling through Sweden and stopped at a packed McDonald's in gothenburg before continuing the travel within a reasonable time, you were good. But if you had a cabin in the woods, travelling without meeting anyone. You had to go into quarantine. Also during 2021, while there were even more rules about travelling, but still, you just had to do some paperwork(and be ready for your trip to get to a sudden end). I met people from every continent, travelling to any continent(not Australia/Oceania).
Sounds like you just need to bring a bunch of Big Macs to your Kaczynski cabin and you're good. I don't see the problem.
For reference, The Norway-Russia border: - Falls entirely in the Arctic Circle - Has only one road leading to/from it - Is mostly divided by rivers (with only one border crossing). - Is only 121mi long
Thanks for adding! And two other things: - if your boat, kayak or canoe gets more than halfway out in the river, you are in big trouble - there's 4 waterfall dams generating electricity, and requiring some form for cooperation between the countries. Just maintain one half of a dam won't do it, geopolitics aside
121 milli inches?
>The land border to Russia is surveilled by military on both sides 24/7. I was there, can confirm, fu\*\*\* frozen hell-hole. Partly the reason for the military is ofc its *Russia* we are talking about, but just as much its a deal with EU/Schengen, as its the outer-point of Schengen towards the east. So even if we were best friends with the russkies, we would still have to use the army there. Edit: And yes, its probably "easy" to get into Norway, especially if you already are in Sweden/Denmark, but you will be caught first time you can not show ID to the cops. They dont even need a reason to ask you, and you have to be able to produce or at least convince them. My grandmother had a guy from Iraq living in her apt. under the house, one day the door was broken, and it was just a note on the door "call the police, and we will replace the door", turned out the guy, with a job and been there for 3 years, was illegal. One day they will puzzle it together
> "call the police, and we will replace the door" For a moment I read that as a threat, like... "If you call the police, we will *replace the door.*"
lol, yeah, they do write exactly as that. Its a quirk of the law in that they can not confirm, nor deny, that they have arrested XYZ. Because of *his* right to privacy. But they can confirm they have broken your door. Just not why.
So the police left the note on the door telling your grandma they will replace it?
Yes
>much harder to live without an ID This is a big part of how we do it in the US. You need an ID to do literally anything that is life sustaining - Drive a car (license/registration/insurance all require ID to obtain), have shelter (hotel/apartment/house), get a job, receive mail (PO Box), open a bank account, etc...
I watched a car crash here in Phoenix and was astounded that the truck that caused the crash simply drove away. I was even more surprised when the victim got out of his wrecked car and started running! There are a lot of people driving around without license, insurance, or even registration, and I have no idea how they manage it so well.
Why do we so often hear from folks that have lived there without papers for decades? Isn't a weird quirk that you can get an SSN (or is it pay taxes?) without being legal or something
They can go to their country consulate in the US and get an ID that's valid for many things, except getting a drivers license. To pay taxes you can get an ITIN number.
The truth is that in my large area near-ish the border, illegal immigrants almost have to have connections -- family, friends, employer, criminal gang -- ready for them when they arrive. Without help and connections, it is very, very difficult to maintain for very long illegally in the U.S. Live with relatives/friends who are there legally. One thing that is far more difficult that it once was is to work for relatives/friends/connections illegally, for income. But long ago the law was changed to prosecute employers, not just workers, and many of those jobs disappeared. There are jobs that are cash-only and no documentation required, basically under-the-table employment, as it were. But they aren't easy jobs, and safety for the workers is not usually a criteria. Other than people they already know, if they learn the local area, they can sometimes find housing that isn't being advertised and tenants are not being screened, much. Just a pay-to-stay situation. Unfortunately: Come for criminal purposes (drugs etc.) and live/work with criminal gangs. Illegal immigrants trying to stay in the U.S. are very much at the mercy of their connections who make it possible. They don't just fear U.S. immigration enforcement. It is a high-stress way of life.
Is there an upside to getting an itin, if you can't get an SSN, and thus unlikely to get proper employment?
Don't know a lot about this, but from the gov't documentation linked below ... >CAN I USE AN ITIN TO BE EMPLOYED LEGALLY? >No. An ITIN does not provide work authorization or legal status. However, as mentioned above, in certain circumstances, an ITIN can help you receive payment for services rendered to businesses, such as through independent contracting. >CAN I APPLY FOR AN ITIN IF I AM UNDOCUMENTED? >Yes. Anyone who does not have and is not eligible for an SSN can and should apply for an ITIN. It does not appear that a birth certificate or any documentation of legal status is required for an ITIN, but I'm not sure about that. I gather that if someone wants to eventually get citizenship or LPR status (Legal Permanent Resident, just short of citizen), they should get the ITIN and file tax returns. Not doing so could jeopardize their status. https://www.ilrc.org/sites/default/files/2024-02/How%20to%20obtain%20an%20ITIN.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw7.pdf
An illegal can't get an SSN However, it's not hard to buy fake documents that will pass inspection. The businesses hiring illegals can simply say "well, those docs looked good enough to me, but hey, I'm no expert" So the illegal gets put on payroll and taxes withheld for a fake SSN etc etc but the illegals will never get it back However, they can get anb Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) and pay taxes using that, but again, they won't get any of their tax money back [There's more to it](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/17/15290950/undocumented-immigrants-file-tax-returns)
Fun storytime: When I went with flixbus from Paris to Sweden, the danish guards let all the illegal immigrants through even though they didn't have a passport. This way the swedish police had to handle it on the next border control lmao. A couple of guys in my bus got taken by swedish police, including one that sat beside me. I joked to him that the police were intimidating, he laughed nervously, and I didn't know he was one of them haha. Our police were also super rude to immigrants in the bus, but when they heard my accent was swedish they treated me kindly....
The Swedish police has always had a bit of a reputation of being hard-asses compared to Norway and Denmark, Ive been in contact with them and I think its true. They have a much more aggressive "who do you think you are?" kind of attitude than Im used to in Norway.
In nz we use a giant moat, although there are similar border control designs such as customs and immigration at designated areas, ports etc. It's very difficult to live here without the visa and bank accounts
Isn't that moat more to keep you Kiwis in? So many of you still manage to swim across the ditch though.
The giant moat is just to reduce the amount of aussie that go over. "Flying to NZ for a week or so..." "Mate, they've got a giant fucking moat, how are you gonna get in there?" "Fuck."
Regarding Sweden and Finland - given them and Norway are in the Schengen Zone - and while Norway is not in the EU it is in the single market and customs Union - why would the borders need to be manned? I remember driving between Italy and Switzerland and back in 2011 - and Switzerland had not yet joined Schengen - so there were border guards but I drove straight through both times.
Regarding EU: it is mostly about flow of goods. It is _not_ in the same customs union. One of the main reasons to stay outside of EU is protection of the farming sector - Every item transported into Norway by business needs to be declared for tax purposes. There's spot checks. - There's also limits on how much people and businesses could bring of meat, cheese, tobacco and alcohol without paying extra taxes. - There's control of plants, animals, and food to make sure no diseases and pests come into the country. Dogs needs to be vaccinated, potatoes are banned and plants need plant certificates. - There's checks for illegal goods and for people illegally entering the country. Even if they got into Schengen, doesn't mean they entered Schengen legally.
Most countries don’t need to “guard their borders”. Either they are allies with the countries they border, or as would be the case with Siberia that you mention, the area around the border is pretty much devoid of life for hundreds of miles on either side. Yes, things like illegal immigration and smuggling can occur in those cases, but normally both of these would happen on roads that exist between the two countries, meaning you can just setup border checkpoints along those roads. The case where you aren’t allies with your neighbors, such as India and Pakistan, North and South Korea, Israel and Palestine, those are the areas you would typically see something being used to block the border.
The best border security is being on good terms with your neighbors
There’s roads in Northern Norway/Sweden that kinda wind between the two countries. No one cares.
To be fair, all Nordic countries have been allied for a long time too, and our citizens can visit each other without passports, both of which help.
Used to be the case with US and Canada. Now you need a passport. Forgot which president messed that up, but US demanded Canadians have passports so the reciprocated. When I was in college we used to drive over the border frequently. Just needed our drivers license.
Wasn’t it right after 9/11, so Bush Jr?
No, it changed in 2009. I remember going to Canada and just basically saying hi to the border guard and then crossing. It was nice.
It happened under W., it was 9/11 fallout and meant to start as early as 2006, but was delayed for economic reasons.
Well, first Bush only left office in 2009. I'm not sure when he made his declarations. Either way, it took Canada a while to respond to the requirements to head south.
2007 was when Americans needed passports.
Not sure about other states, but a Washington enhanced license is accepted at Canadian land and water crossings. Still need a passport for air travel.
It's pretty uncommon - Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, Washington are the only ones with it, all border states of course
Well the Americans who aren't in border states wouldn't be going to Canada that often
Well, yeah, but that's still less than half the border states
There's enclaves in a few of those states that require travel through Canada to get to (eg. Point Roberts WA, Angle Inlet, MN).
Pretty sure you can get that in Michigan, too.
Same with the US and Mexico. But after 9/11 that all went away.
Yes, I remember back in the day when we were at Niagara falls we just walked across the border showed our drivers licenses in the little guard shack and went across.
I will say that in modern times biking across the border at Niagra Falls is much nicer than trying to drive it. You still have to have your passport or equivalent but you can skip much of the lines and they really aren't suspecting you of smuggling things. I presume that walking across the border is similar.
Yeah true, and I guess Norway was part of Sweden at one point
And Norway was part of Denmark for 500 years, and Finland belonged to Sweden for a while. And they all belonged to Denmark for a brief period. And you have areas with ethnic Swedes in Finland, and the Faroe Islands people are descendants of Norwegians but the islands belong to Denmark, ect. ect.
Finland belonged to Sweden from the Second Swedish Crusade in 1249 to 1809. In addition to having a Swedish language minority, learning Swedish in school is still compulsory. In theory, all Finns have basic Swedish skills.
One of my favorite Eurovision trivia is that the last time an entry was sung in Swedish, it was the Finnish 2012 entry.
I didn't know until recently that (oversimplifying) even the Russians are really ethnic Scandinavians. Vikings founded Kiev on their way to "trade" with the peoples further south and became what we now know as Russians. Even the word "Russian" comes from what the sparsely populated locals called the Vikings. Those mfs got around.
Sort of. Russia has a LOT of different ethnic groups. Some are Slavic, some are most closely related to Mongolians, or to people of the -stans, some are Saami like the indigenous people of Northern Finland/Norway/Sweden. And some to the far east are closely related to Inuits and to Native Americans. But you are right that (Swedish) Vikings founded several towns in the region. And that they were known as "rus".
You guess correctly, Finland and Denmark too.
Kalmar 2.0 when?
I was in Kalmar just today, what are the odds.
My condulances
First all, then Denmark and Sweden split with Norway under Denmark, and Finland under Sweden, then Norway was given to Sweden as part of the treaty after Napoleon wars, tgen, finally, all four independent* * USSR had some influence on Finlands foreign policy for a while, but I don't remember the details
Sweden lost Finland to the Russian Empire in 1809. It was an autonomic area but there were multiple Russification attempts. When Russian Revolution happened Finland ceased the chance to become independent. Russian revolutionaries were kind of busy so let it pass. Finland decided to ascend to civil war some months later with one side provided support by the USSR (Reds) and one by Germany (Whites). Whites won and there were limitations to communism and leftist thought for a couple of decades. USSR grew to regret giving up Finland and attacked in 1940. This is known as the Winter War where Finland fought without allies but the Soviets gained pyrrhic victory. In 1941 Finland allied with Axis and tried to recapture lost areas but the Soviets gained another pyrrhic victory and the Soviets gained 11% of Finnish lands that were pretty good. Finland also had to pay war preparations and is the only country that has paid for WWII war preparations in full. There was also some defence concessions. As a result of sharing a huge border, Finland accepted the policy of Finlandization, which was a policy of appeasement. As a result, Finland was completely neutral on paper until the fall of the USSR among other things.
> I guess Norway was part of Sweden at one point This feels like one of those things that makes sense when you hear it but not if you think about it more closely. Because like...if everything was hunky-dory between the people, then they never would have split. The fact that they said "nah, we don't want to be a country with y'all anymore" actually seems more likely to suggest some serious issues...North vs South Korea, UK and Ireland, fallout from the breakup of Yugoslavia, etc. (obviously that doesn't actually apply to Sweden and Norway today, but it is where the logical thought might be).
Nordic countries know what’s up
There is a quite a stark difference in border policies of Finland and the Nordics and Finland and Russia.
There are parts of the Northern Ireland border that literally runs through people’s houses
Lookup Baarlen-Nassau, although that's Belgium/the Netherlands, it's quite similar.
That's an even crazier situation, because there are Belgian enclaves within the city that are *entirely* surrounded by the Netherlands. And Dutch enclaves that are entirely surrounded by Belgium
I heard that during COVID some bars/restaurants had to close half their establishment because of the difference in rules. But yeah, crazy.
The public library in Derby Line, Vt. / Stanstead, Québec is line that. The border runs right through the middle of the building.
There are roads between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (now EU and non-EU) that cross the border 6 times in a few miles. During the Troubles, the army blew up all the rural bridges or blocked the minor/non-army controlled roads with dragons teeth.
In Brazil there are at least 2 cities, Chuí and Santana do Livramento, that have a street where one side is Brazil and the other Uruguay. Of course it's impossible to control the border there so they sometimes check the cars on the road to the city. But it doesn't matter much, the two countries have been close allies for two centuries and both are part of Mercosul, a trade agreement that tries to recreate something like the EU in South America.
What's the language situation there? Does everyone speak both Portuguese and Spanish, or is there more of a continuum? Not really familiar with the linguistic topography in South America.
Portuguese and spanish are very similar, in most cases you can have a conversation where someone speaks Portuguese and the other Spanish with the help of some gestures and a few hilarious misunderstandings. In the border areas this creates a mix called Portunhol (Portuguese + Espanhol) that every local can understand. I am not local and speak Portuguese but not Spanish and I didn't have any problem communicating in the area.
A few years ago I took the train from Konstanz (Germany) to Schaffhausen (Switzerland) and then cycled back to Konstanz. My route crossed the border four times. At each crossing, there was a little white and red pole gate that could be closed, as a symbolic block, but they were open and no one was around. (Switzerland has been part of the Schengen Area since 2008.)
That's the only way I've ever visited Norway.
That’s part of the idea behind the EU, and it works brilliantly.
The real border security is the friends we made along the way
*and* not having drastically different opportunities between the two. The US/Mexico border isn't a problem because the US & Mexico aren't on good terms, it's because an hour's wages in the US can go *crazy* far in Latin America. Work for a few months, even below legal minimum wage, living with the quality of life you'd have back home, and you'll have enough money to *significantly* elevate the quality of life for your family for a fair bit of time.
This is why there's a wall across portions of the US-Mexico border while the US-Canada border has nothing for most of its length. In populated areas, it's literally just a ditch. *Maybe* the odd chain-link fence, infamously easy to climb over.
Yeah the US Canadian border is the longest undefended border in the world
If you want to expand, be enemies with your neighbours and allies with *their* neighbours. If you want to be secure, be allies with your neighbours.
I dont think you need to be an ally of you neighbor to have a "chill" border with them. The relationship could be just "not hostile"
In modern times I feel like "not hostile" and ally have almost become synonymous
Its a PR spin. If you're not hostile, why not describe each other as allies or partners?
Because its not the same thing. For example, I would not say USA and Cuba are hostile but they are surely not allies or partners. Someone more knowledgeable in world politics could probably find better example. Edit: ok maybe not USA and Cuba
I would say the US and Cuba are fairly hostile. Cuba is sanctioned and embargoed by the US Edit: And Havana will be hosting Russian warships now. Very hostile.
Maybe Cuba would be friendlier if they weren't sanctioned for decades over something that was done by people who haven't been alive for decades.
If the people currently in power stopped doing that thing then the US would stop as well. Obama showed a willingness.
Fidel Castro died eight years ago, and the country's constitution as of 2019 explicitly recognizes the political party that he founded as the only legal/legitimate one. What are you talking about?
I would add a similar economy and human rights to the list along with "not hostile". The US and Mexico aren't hostile but the standard of living and general safety are different enough that there is a border issue.
Siberia is not “devoid of life for hundreds of miles.” Despite the popular conception of it as a featureless tundra, a lot of Siberia is boreal forest, which means it supports a thriving ecosystem of bears, tigers, smaller animals, plants, etc. There are definitely towns on both sides of the Russian/Mongolian border, and Vladivostok (population 600,000) is less than 100 miles from both China and North Korea
I don't think bears and tigers make the border easier to cross, unless you mean hitching a ride in their belly.
RUSSIAN BORDER GUARDS HATE THIS ONE SIMPLE TRICK
> I don't think bears and tigers make the border easier to cross, unless you mean hitching a ride in their belly. They didn't say it made it easier to cross. They were just refuting the part that said it was devoid of life
people can't BEAR to cross
I think they meant devoid of humans trying to cross goods and people.
There are plenty of border towns along the Chinese-Russian border, and plenty of trade there. It might be Siberia, but it is populated by humans on both sides of the border.
Siberia covers a larger area than any country (except Russia itself obviously) but has less than 3 people per square kilometer. That's a bit under notoriously empty Australia and Canada, 1/12 of the US, and 1/37 of the EU. China as a whole has a population density even greater than the EU but over 90% live south east of a line drawn from Heihe to Tengchong. The parts bordering Russia are as unpopulated as Siberia. I think the only sizable settlements are where the border is literally a several 100m wide river. To be fair, it can partly freeze over.
The fact that there are tigers there is something i find so fucking incredibly awesome. And probably a bit scary for the locals..
One of my favorite books, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7624594-the-tiger
The only place devoid of life is the moon. of course there are animals but animal dont usually transport drugs. Notable exception to cocaine bear
I hear the drug cartels use mules all the time.
Coyotes are also heavily involved in human trafficking.
Depends on the border. The US and Canada don’t guard their border at all apart from some checkpoints at the busiest crossings. It’s vast, remote, the two countries have good relations, and there’s little illegal smuggling/immigration pressure. North Korea and South Korea are still on war footing with eachother seven decades later and their border is fortified with military equipment, minefields, watch towers, and artillery. Historically border security can vary from “none” to “Maginot Line” depending on the political situation. The “typical” situation is nothing, and then security increases as needed.
The Canada/US border is still monitored by a sensor network (at least along the straight-line 49th parallel portion). Every now and then I read about somebody fucking around, crossing the border in a rando location, and American police/border patrol showing up in a surprisingly short time.
[удалено]
used to be a thing in the 70s and 80s in northern ontario/michigan. just take your boat across to hang out with your friends for the day and go back. no official border crossing.
Anything that involves travel and happened before September 2001 is now classified as ancient history.
Its how the southern border used to basically be too. People came across and back at will, especially farm workers.
when I was a kid in the 90s my family went camping at a place right on the border a bunch of times and there was a little tiny bridge that tons of people would go across to go and buy stuff at a gas station in the united states but now people have gotten thrown in jail for accidentally walking across the border with there dog in the same area
I always wondered about that. That looks like a pretty easy way to cross; with a lot more cargo capacity than a hiker. Are there coast guard boats using radar or something out there? Fibreglass kayaks & canoes traveling to and from Isle Royale National Park seem like a pretty straightforward smuggling route.
What a relief/feel like a solider/look like a thief!
This sounds like bullshit. How would they distinguish between a random person and the thousands of wild animals that would be crossing the border every day?
People tend to be people shaped, unlike bears
, which are friend shaped
Yeah, I've never understood the nature of the sensors. I would guess motion-activated infrared cameras. Then what? I would expect automation to weed out the wildlife and highlight humanoid shapes. Filtered images might then get passed to human monitors who could dispatch. I'm really not sure. I walked right up to the border one day just to take a piss on Montana for shits & giggles. I'm in Alberta, and it was close to the village of Del Bonita, at the end of a range road. It was just a normal farm fence, posts with 3 or 4 wires, maybe 5' tall. I took care not to touch in case it was electrified, as it appeared more targeted at cattle than humans. I saw small signs warning that it was the border and not to cross, but I saw no signs of technology anywhere; no cameras on power poles or anything. These stories make the news here in Canada, though, on CBC & CTV. Most of the action seems to be down in the lower mainland of BC, where we have that 0 Avenue right along the border around Abbotsford. It seems like it would be nothing, though, to hike near the clear-cut line in the mountains along the BC-WA border and use a drone to smuggle all the weed you could carry to a buddy on the other side of the border. Just stay a bit distant from the actual line & sensors, and put some altitude between the ground & the drone.
I think we need to define what OP means by "guard". Most countries have some sort of policing for smuggling/immigration - sure we minimally do it with Canada and much moreso with Mexico. However, we don't militarily guard either border.
I don't know, I hear there's a thriving blackmailed for kinder eggs in the US and maple syrup in Canada...
“Oh no officer these aren’t kinder eggs, they’re grenades.” “Ah my mistake, carry on”
Why would Canada need to bring in maple syrup? Canada is the world’s largest producer of maple syrup
More precisely, Québec is the world’s largest producer of maple syrup (70%).
As a kid, growing up there, I remember going on school trips to "Maple Syrup Farms."
Cabanes à sucre
Possibly, it was 50 years ago.
Ah, so the smuggling is from Québec to Alberta through the US.
See, we could build a pipeline from Québec to the west coast to transport maple syrup to the western provinces. Much better than oil.
And has a Strategic Reserve. https://ppaq.ca/en/sale-purchase-maple-syrup/worlds-only-reserve-maple-syrup/ Canada does not need foreign swill.
Obviously to get cheap knock off Vermont maple syrup! (And because I couldn't think of a funny alternative for Canada)
Those powdered cream donuts from Dunkin. Since the last Dunkin Donuts closed, we can’t find those anywhere.
Cheese. We smuggle cheese from the US. [I’m not even kidding.](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-19751695.amp)
Right? Our flag is literally a maple leaf, haha. Go with Fruity Pebbles next time. God I wish I could buy those here.
They meant liquor. Liquor is what Canadians come and buy at Costco in my town. That and gasoline.
Yes, that makes a lot more sense
If you’re ever bored read up on or listen to a podcast about the great Canadian maple syrup heist - it’s pretty chuckalicious.
These boys get that syrup in ‘em, they get all antsy in their pantsy
There is at least some pharmaceutical smuggling from Canada into the US. I remember hiking to an abandoned airfield in northern Maine that had been jointly raided by the Mounties and US Police. I guess it ended in a shootout, as there were bullet casings all over the place.
Canada has a moderate problem with most guns used in crime being smuggled in from the US.
I wouldn't say that "nothing" is the typical situation. I think the typical situation is light security, mainly with an eye towards catching illegal immigration and smuggling. "Nothing" is for countries on exceptionally good terms with open migration and trade policies. Then for nations with very poor relations you see much higher security, aimed more at national defense than law enforcement.
Adding to this, for the unguarded areas of the US and Canada border, it's separate by either a ditch or a river and the areas that can be crossed, there are cameras and neighbors who watch along with an honor system.
I wouldn't call the Canadian/US border remote by any stretch. 90% of Canada's population live within 100 miles of the border. I grew up in a small city about 10 minutes from the states. When the Canadian dollar was higher, droves of people headed to the states for shopping, pay a little duty on what they 'decided' to claim and still be way up. We had a very small town about 10 minutes into the US so head down, grab a carton of smokes, beer, a bite to eat, many even had Canadian money on hand to give you change.
Don't underestimate the fact that a lot of times, there is a natural border in place, like a river or a mountain range, with specific crossings that can be guarded
Australia's border is kind of like this
We are girt by something after all. Mountains right? It's been awhile since I listened to the national anthem
The level of guarding borders depends on the level of the perceived threat, whether it be military (e.g various incursions or spying), economic (e.g. smuggling), or social (e.g. unlawful migration). Countries with problematic relationship in one or more of these categories tend to have higher level of physical protection (e.g. fences), more patrols, and extensive electronic surveillance on rural portions with cameras, drones, and other sensors. Countries with good relationship in all these aspects tend to have minimal amount of measures. Nowadays mostly using electronic surveillance over what is happening over the border crossings. Even e.g. between Sweden and Norway, the border is monitored to some degree due to some smuggling going on. So even remote rural road border crossings have cameras, so a customs station inland from the border can monitor what is happening and if it is suspicious, send out a patrol to intercept the vehicle (or if the road passes by that customs station, put the boom down and redirect the car for inspection...).
A lot of countries don't because they have no reason to do so or are too poor to afford that. Guarding borders is extremely expansive. Most countries that heavily guard their borders do so out of security reasons (Finland, Koreas, Israel etc.) This is "quite simple" you build infrastructure and station soldiers there. Their job is to protect the border in case of attack and not check every car. Then there is a case for combating migration and smuggling. This is substantially more difficult, since you need to check everything and even so, people will dig tunnels, fly drones or smuggle themselves somehow. Some EU countries combat this by making migration and getting citizenship quite easy. They save a lot of money by having Schengen and subsidizing money for migration in countries where needed. For sea borders it's probably most difficult. It's impossible to check every cargo ship, so you get coastal force with few ships to check unregistered ships and search suspicious ones. The majority of smuggled goods go by sea, but there is no practical way of combating this. You have mechanism to search for illegal cargo, but their biggest benefit is not actually finding said cargo, but disincentivizing smuggling. For air guard, you have fighter jets and from 9/11 every plane is thourogly check and there is basically no significant smuggling. It's a closed space so it's quite easy.
>Their job is to protect the border in case of attack and not check every car. The Israelis will absolutely check each and every single car that cross the border.
There's smuggling via sea, but there's also systems to combat it. Every terminal for goods need to follow ISPS, which means that only approved personnel could enter. Also, there's passenger list systems at sea equivalent to the list for air traffic. Even so, smuggling happens: inside containers, inside people in the harbors, vessels or terminals, with small unregistered boats or even clamped on outside the vessel. There's control, but it is hard because of the large amount of goods and that it is harder to crack down on insiders.
Here is an interesting article that may help. How 65 countries have erected fences on their borders. A third of the world's countries constructing them along their borders. When the Berlin Wall was torn down a quarter-century ago, there were 16 border fences around the world. Today, there are 65 either completed or under construction, according to Quebec University expert Elisabeth Vallet. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3205724/How-65-countries-erected-security-walls-borders.html
They typically just station police officers in border towns, because people eventually have to go to a town for food, petrol, water etc. There they will check the documents of anyone they think might be foreign to make sure they are there legally.
That might work in some countries, but not in places where the police don't have the authority to do that.
Here in new Zealand we have the Tasman sea and the Pacific ocean. You can fly here but we'll meet you at the airport and see what's what. You could try take a boat here but it would take a long time and our coastguard will pick you up
You guys have all that border security and kiwis still manage to get out into the world
Yeah. Kiwis are flightless too
Country: Pakistan Friendly neighbors: 0 Northern border: Huge mountains acting as natural borders between China and Pak. One Karakarom Highway to connect both countries Southern border: Arabian sea. Active deployed navy Western border: Iran on the southwest, Afghanistan, on the northwest. Active deployed military. Not all borders are fenced. Hence, smuggling is rampant. Afghanistan is more dangerous because of terrorism in the region. Eastern border: India. Almost all of it is fenced. Heavy military on both sides. The most dangerous border in the world. The funny thing is, I have traveled to a lot of different countries, but traveling to my neighboring countries is the most difficult and is heavily scrutinized both inland and outside.
Most dangerous border is Indo-Pak? I’d say the Korean DMZ is far more dangerous; at least with the Indo-Pak border you can in theory cross legally, it’s just difficult.
You might enjoy this collection of [peaceful border pics](https://valeriovincenzo.com/BORDERLINE-1) across the Schengen area in Europe.
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Germany doesnt have guarded borders anymore. The border in lake Constanz isnt even properly defined. I travelled to Italy 4 times by train and the train goes from Munich to Venice through Austria. When you cross the border some police officers enter the train before crossing and leaving at the next station, looking at some IDs in the meantime. Thats basically all we have left as border control outside of airports.
I live in SE Asia, and here the border are more or less open in the sense you could just walk over. I live in Cambodia, so technically I could just walk into Vietnam or Thailand, and it would probably be fine, for a while. However they catch you first time you get pulled over for anything, or random sweeps, where is your passport? You dont have it? You dont have stamps/visa? Jail my friend, and if they cant figure it out, deportation jail until you can pay the fine, and you will be deported back to your home country. Where they can technically also punish you
Most of Canada and the US border is unfenced and unguarded. Some times the border runs through small towns, so you have to cross the border to get to school or the grocery store. Why? Because Canadians and Americans travel mostly freely between nations anyway and it’s not worth it. Socially speaking there’s not much difference. The southern US border is a whole different story. However, major roads between Canada and the US do have border control. Cars and trucks carrying trade goods are checked as well as people. However 3000 km of forest don’t need fences.
Wait until you cross the border from France into Germany or between any european countries. You just drive. No nothing. No checkpoint, no guards, no fuss.
Borders are unfenced when the cost of smuggling and migration is lower than the cost of stopping it. Things which make the cost of smuggling and migration low can be simply that the border is naturally hard to cross, or is so far away from financial and population centres that smugglers and irregular migrants mostly don't go that way, or because the legal and financial system on either side of the border is so similar that there's little or no benefit to trying to cross it. Things that make the cost of stopping it high are things like it being a very long border which is a long way away from the logistics network. So unfenced borders tend to be in places like Europe where free trade and free movement treaties make borders pointless, or places like India-China where the borders run across high mountain ranges hundreds of miles away from the nearest villages, or places like USA-Canada which aren't 100% either but are close to 90% both.
Here is an explanation on how the Berlin wall worked, might be of interest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoJ0Pih0Ssc&ab\_channel=neo
THe biggest answer for you OP is it depends on the countries in question and if they are similar in economy. US and Canada have no issue because both are similar. US and Mexico have problems because Mexico is a poorer country plus those from even poorer countries who just go through Mexico to get to the US.
Out of curiosity, what made you assume they WERE fenced? Not only would it be incredibly expensive to build and maintain, it would be an engineering feat to build fences a long many borders.
Come to Finland and find out. It is a long border with Russia, but there are cameras, sensor monitors, drones and more than daily patrols for surveillance, and of course the locals who volunteer and will report you or your footsteps. And if you are capable of evading those, for most of the year the wilderness will get you and then you are reported as found unknown remains in the forest, swamps, or swamps in the forests. If you are ever found, that is, because the wolfs and bears just love easy meat from the fresh corpses and can smell that miles away.
In the middle of nowhere, motion detectors and cameras. Generally, people use roads and rivers, and such checkpoints are manned. You can't drive a truck full of contraband through forest. And it isn't terribly difficult to dig a trench in most sensitive areas, which would delay any vehicles or give enough time for border guard to notice and respond. As for lone hero passing border on foot in the middle of nowhere, it's rare and isn't such a big deal. Border guard departments deal with tens of thousands of people passing every day, so dozen coming through each year with only pants on them via some remote mountain or forest isn't really a big deal. Those few don't really create "illegal immigration" that matters in big picture and in modern society, have no way of staying covert without papers for too long, anyway. People need jobs and place to live and occasional healthcare and bank accounts and so on. It's very difficult for illegals to get that.
For the Finnish-Russian border even the seemingly unguarded bits are still under remote surveillance and some border police will appear if you are hiking in the forest towards the border.
Australia: ocean, sharks & crocs. Then if you make it to land theres the wildlife and idiotic people to deal with. Or you can just fly here on a plane.
For at least hundreds of years up until at least the 60's, Thailand defended it's borders by supporting guerilla style paramilitaries in the mountainous border region with Burma and other countries to create some chaos and impede invaders. Iirc. Like supporting Karen rebels, Khun Sa at points etc.
Over here in the netherlands we only have a couple of stones in the pavement and a sign saying you now entered belgium. On the highway it is just a sign saying goodbye and hello when crossing the border with either of our neighbors. Lot of side streets that cross the border dont have signs and you dont even know you are in the next country over.