Sealed Borders lets build a wall here, one there, one all around the place...

[brainless 0]

It seems to me that walled borders are becoming more and more popular - even though the most infamous example of a Wall ("The Wall") kind of failed:

a) India and Pakistan have a long history of conflict about who's going to get how much of a region called Cashmere [China's involved there, too, but they're kind of not on the stage]. In order to protect each country from militant extremists leaking into India/Pakistan from Pakistan/India, especially in/near Cashmere, large parts of the front line have been "secured" with lots of steel, concrete and barbed wire. This is mostly a Wall in the conventional sense, guarded by patrols (which are said to become less frequent but to be honest, I haven't followed developments in this conflict for quite some time :/)

...and follows: High-Tech Walls:

Israel built a "security fence" around parts of the West Bank and will probably continue it until all of the West Bank is imprisoned. [i.e. http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/]. I don't want to discuss the impact of this Wall, at least not yet...

c) Between the Gaza Strip and the (egyptian) Sinai, Israel is trying to create a ditch 4km long, 15 to 25m deep and 100 to 120m wide. The goal: Prevent Palestinians from smuggling weapons from Egypt into the Gaza Strip through tunnels...

d) the USoNA/Mexican border is already pretty good equipped but it's supposed to be upgraded soon.

e) the borders of the EU are, in some places (e.g. the spanish 'outposts' Ceuta and Melilla) secured with six meters high fences w/ barbed wire, surveillance cameras and armed guards; since some hundred african people tried to get access to Europe by climbing over these fences [dozens got severely injured by the barbed wire; some were shot by the guards; two or three dozens got into european territory and are probably on the european continent by now], these fences have been subject to 'improvements'. Along the spanish and french coastline with the mediterranean sea, high-tech infrared cameras are being tested which are said to be able to distinguish two sources of heat (e.g. two people trying to cross at the passage of Gibraltar) in a distance of about 12km (that's about the shortest distance between Spain and Morocco); similar systems have been discussed in Italy [does anyone know what happened to them?]

f) Saudi-Arabia is about to build a wall between...
f1) the "Saudi Great Wall" between Saudi-Arabia and Iraq: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ - approximate cost: 450 million Euros on roughly 900km of wall (that's 5 000 Euros per meter, if I'm not mistaken ... just imagine how much and highly developed stuff to stop people from passing by you can put into one meter for 5 000 Euros...). Deadline for this project: "within a year"...
f2) in the long run (beginning late 2004), all the Saudi-Arabian borderline is supposed to be equipped with such a wall: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&sectio;m=2&y=2004 - approximate worth back then: "up to $8.75 billion"; now: "up to $12 billion").

g) In addition to the walls around some nations, so-called "Fenced Communities" are spreading all over the place where rather wealthy people gather in suburbs. All around the suburb there are walls/fences; to enter the "Community" you have to prove that you're living in there (or have been invited by someone living there), often there's some private security hired to drive around the neighborhood and watch out for "suspicious" activities...

[Panzer 0]

I think the countries that do build the walls have good reasons to. If a dog kept coming onto your property and you didnt want it to you would probably put a fence up..I guess its just what these countries are doing. Remember the big great wall of china? The chinese built it to keep the mongolian invaders outta china, they had good reason to.

[Plenoptic 0]

Well right now I really don't see what good the wall is going to do. It is really going to be a waste of money for us especially if the government doesn't pay for it and even if they do it'll add on to the debt and the future generations will have to pay it off. The problem is that it isn't the only way to get to the United States. People take boats and people are hired to transport people across the border and make tons of money doing it. They make fake passports and what not, they have all these ways of getting people over. A wall will just be one more obstacle to get around and although maybe a big one people will find other ways to get to the U.S. It may stop some people making mad dashes or who don't really take the time to plan things out but people pay really good money and make it across safely. I just have a feeling it won't do all that well and they'll find other routes.

[kkrizka 0]

I do agree with Plenoptic, they are just a waste of money as there are many possible ways to get across. If they used the money that was set aside to build this wall to help the countries with people that they want to keep out. Then maybe those people would stop trying to immigrate illigaly because the life in their own country would be better. I'm sure at least a billion dollars could be rised this way, and that's quite a lot of money for those countries.

[arnz 0]

The samples sort of remind me of the old eastern communist block days and the iron curtain. Especially when nations that claim to be with communism, were really under the control of the old USSR block.Another example within this example is the famous Berlin wall, and the exodus of the eastern Berlin bloc to the West Germany, which was pretty hard to cross into West Germany, and many other ways (ie flying, or even digging or climbing over or under the wall, untill the fall of the Soviet block in the early 1990s.