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come of roughly $12,000 a year as measured by the International Monetary
Fund, ranking with Turkey and way ahead of China, undoubtedly a major
power.
Per capita income is important. But the total size of the economy is even
more important for international power. Poverty is a problem, but the size of
the economy determines what percentage of your resources you can devote
to military and related matters. The Soviet Union
and China both had low
per capita incomes. Yet the sheer sizes of their economies made them great
powers. In fact, a substantial economy plus a large population have histori
cally made a nation something to be reckoned with, regardless of poverty.
Mexico’s population was about 27 million in 1950. It surged to about
100 million over the next fifty years and to 107 million by 2005. The UN
forecast for 2050 is between 114 million and 139 million people, with 114
million being more probable. Having increased about fourfold in the last
fifty years, Mexico’s population will be basically stable in the next fifty. But
Mexico will not lose population (like the advanced industrial countries will
in the future), and Mexico has the workforce it needs to expand. This gives
it an advantage. So, in terms of population or size,
Mexico is not a small
country. Certainly it is an unstable country, torn by drugs and cartels, but
China was in chaos in 1970. Chaos can be overcome.
There are plenty of other countries like Mexico that we would not label
as significant geopolitical fault lines. But Mexico is fundamentally different
from any of these, like Brazil or India. Mexico is in North America, which,
as we have discovered, is now the center of gravity of the international sys
tem. It also fronts both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and shares a long and
tense border with the United States. Mexico has
already fought a major war
with the United States for domination of North America, and lost. Mexico’s
society and economy are intricately bound together with those of the
United States. Mexico’s strategic location and its increasing importance as a
nation make it a potential fault line.
To understand the nature of the fault line, let me briefly touch on the
concept of borderland. Between two neighboring countries, there is fre
quently an area that has, over time, passed back and forth between them. It
is an area of mixed nationalities and cultures. For example,
Alsace-Lorraine
lies between France and Germany. It has a unique mixed culture and indi
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viduals with different national loyalties. French, German, and a mixed re
gional argot are spoken there. Right now, France controls the region. But re
gardless of who controls it at any given time, it is a borderland, with two
cultures and an underlying tension. The world is filled with borderlands.
Think of Northern Ireland as the borderland between the United Kingdom
and Ireland. Kashmir is a borderland between India and Pakistan. Think of
the Russian–Polish border, or of Kosovo, the borderland between Serbia and
Albania. Think of the French- Canadian–U.S. border. These are all border
lands of varying degrees of tension.
There is a borderland between
the United States and Mexico, with Mex
icans and Americans sharing a mixed culture. The borderland is on both
sides of the official border. The U.S. side is unlike the rest of the United
States, and the Mexican side is unlike the rest of Mexico. Like other border
lands, this one is its own unique place, with one exception: Mexicans on
both sides of the border have deep ties to Mexico, and Americans have deep
ties to the United States. Underneath the economic and cultural mixture,
there is always political tension. This is particularly true here because of the
constant movement of
Mexicans into the borderland, across the border, and
throughout the United States. The same cannot be said of Americans mi
grating south into Mexico.
Most borderlands change hands many times. The U.S.–Mexican border
land has changed hands only once so far.
Northern Mexico was slowly absorbed by the United States beginning
with the 1835–1836 revolution in Texas and culminating in the Mexican-
American War of 1846–1848. It constituted the southwestern part of today’s
United States. The border was set at the Rio Grande, and later adjusted in
the west to include the south of Arizona. The indigenous Mexican popula
tion was not forcibly displaced. Mexicans continued to live in the area,
which was later occupied by a much larger number of American settlers
from the east. During the second half of the twentieth century, another
population movement from Mexico into the borderland and beyond took
place, further complicating the demographic picture.
We can draw a distinction between conventional immigration and pop
ulation movements in a borderland. When other
immigrant groups arrive
in a country, they are physically separated from their homeland and sur
rounded by powerful forces that draw their children into the host culture
and economy. A movement into a borderland is different. It is an extension
of one’s homeland, not a separation from it. The border represents a politi-
cal boundary, not a cultural or economic boundary, and immigrants are not
at a great distance from home. They remain physically connected, and their
loyalties are complex and variable.
Mexicans who move into the borderland behave
differently from Mexi-
cans living in Chicago. Those in Chicago behave more like conventional
immigrants. Mexicans in the borderland potentially can regard themselves
as living in occupied territory rather than a foreign country. This is no dif-
ferent from the way American settlers in Texas viewed their position prior to
the revolution. They were Mexican citizens, but they saw themselves prima-
rily as Americans and created a secessionist movement that tore Texas away
from Mexico.
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