The New Border Wars: The Conflicts That Will Define Our Future

by Klaus Dodds

Overview

An enlightening look at contemporary border tensions—from the Gaza Strip to the space race—by one of the world’s leading experts in geopolitics.

Border expert Klaus Dodds journeys into the geopolitical clashes of tomorrow in an eye-opening tour of border walls both literal and figurative. In the Himalayas, the Mediterranean, and elsewhere, the tension inherent to trying to divide the world into separate parcels has not gone away. And with climate change shifting our natural borders, from mountains to glaciers to rivers, the question of how we live in a world that’s becoming warmer and wetter and growing in population looms large.

With wide-ranging insight and provocative analysis, Dodds shows why we are more likely to see more walls, barriers, and securitization in our daily lives. The New Border Wars examines just what borders truly mean in the modern world: How are they built; what do they signify for citizens and governments; and how do they help us understand our political past and, most importantly, our diplomatic future?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781635769067
Publisher:	Diversion Books
Publication date:	04/06/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	214
Sales rank:	974,297
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Klaus Dodds is Professor of Geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He is a leading authority on geopolitics and is often invited to join panels at events and in the media (including on BBC TV and radio) on the subject of border issues. He has written a number of books for a variety of popular and academic audiences, including for Oxford University Press’ A Very Short Introduction series, and since 2006, he has written a monthly geopolitics column for Geographical Magazine. Dodds is a recipient of the Philip Leverhulme Prize, awarded to “outstanding researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future career is exceptionally promising.”

Table of Contents

Introduction v

1 Border Matters 1

2 Moving Borders 37

3 Watery Borders 57

4 Vanishing Borders 89

5 No Man's Land 111

6 Unrecognized Borders 139

7 Smart Borders 163

8 Out of This World 185

9 Viral Borders 211

Afterword 233

Further Reading 243

Acknowledgments 251

Index 253

Editorial Reviews

06/28/2021

Dodds (Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction), a professor of geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London, surveys a wide range of contemporary border battles in this informative account. He documents the shift from post–Cold War optimism about a new, more fluid international landscape to rising security concerns about “open borders” after 9/11, and draws incisive parallels between the China-Taiwan and Israel-Palestine conflicts, noting how much of an uphill battle it remains for both Taiwan and Palestine to earn “widespread international recognition” in the face of resistance from China, Israel, and the U.S. Dodds also details how efforts by the U.S. government to secure its southern border have created a surveillance state in the region, with citizens and noncitizens subjected to increasing electronic and physical monitoring. In the book’s most eye-opening chapter, Dodds describes how governments and corporations are jockeying for position and power in outer space. Though he draws more observations than firm conclusions, Dodds’s depth of knowledge impresses, and he makes a persuasive case that identity politics and climate change disruptions will intensify border conflicts in the coming decades. This broad-minded study offers a fresh perspective on world affairs. (Sept.) Correction: An earlier version of this review misspelled the author's name in several instances.

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Border Wars

"Dodds’s depth of knowledge impresses, and he makes a persuasive case that identity politics and climate change disruptions will intensify border conflicts in the coming decades....A fresh perspective on world affairs."
—Publishers Weekly

"[The] idea that borders are not quite what we perceive them to be is the thematic ballast for Klaus Dodds’s impressive and timely Border Wars. And it is a point worth making today . . . Dodds is persuasive that borders reveal ‘fundamental truths about humanity’. He shows us that ‘bordering [is] an activity rather than simply... inert lines on the map.'"
—The Spectator

"This book could hardly be more timely. . . . Casting his geopolitical eye upon fragmented hotspots such as Cyprus, Jerusalem, Georgia and Kashmir, [Dodds] underlines the realpolitik of the world's borders as entities that are both contested and (at least in normal times) surprisingly fluid."
—Geographical Magazine

"Dodds looks at numerous future conflicts in this engaging and informative study: borders shifting because of landscape and environmental change; regions at an impasse; unrecognised borders; borders evolving due to technological innovation, such as those in space and under water being covertly marked by some countries. . . . Somewhat ominously, and presciently, he notes there is no international legal recognition of the category 'climate-change refugee'."
—NJ McGarrigle for The Irish Times

"Satisfying . . . is Klaus Dodds’ impressive Border Wars, which focuses less on geography writ large and more on the thin lines that delineate one nation from another and could present a threat of future conflict. . . . The future will be one of 'walls, fences and barriers alongside digital surveillance', while climate shifts move not just populations but also borders themselves."
—James Crabtree for the Financial Times

From the Publisher