Trump Wants Border Wall, but Britain Is Building One in France  …  The U.K. government has announced plans to begin constructing a 13-foot concrete roadside barrier at the French port of Calais, where truck drivers have been targeted by migrants trying to sneak through the Channel Tunnel. -NBC

Walls are being built in the West not to keep others out but to keep citizens in. They are being erected between nation states in Europe and perhaps in the US too.

One only needs to look at the evolution of the passport system to see the larger, underlying intention. Passports became more common after World War I, and there is some historical speculation that Communist Russia led the way in trying to keep track of visitors.

In any event, the passport system came more formally into being after World War II – along with increased formalization of Interpol.

One can therefore argue that the passport/visa combination has only been part of everyday travel for less than 75 years worldwide.

Even in the 1800s, people traveled from country to country without much interference. Being asked for papers was seen as something of an insult.

The European Union was supposed to reduce or eliminate travel documents but that’s not happening. Instead, as a result of terrorist attacks and now Brexit, the Schengen agreement is degenerating. European states are returning to more intensive document checking between countries that supposedly had done away with such policies.

The NBC article (above) adds that several European countries have already put barbed wire walls in place. In Hungary, prime minister, Viktor Orban has started a wall to keep out Syrian refugees. This takes the place of a “tall fence” that has already been erected.

And then there is this, recently, from Carnegie:

How to Build a More Flexible EU After Brexit …

EU leaders cannot agree on major structural reforms in the next months before the Treaty of Rome celebration. In this period, it makes sense to focus on immediate deliverables to address burning issues, such as terrorism and border management, and show the public that political leaders can deliver common responses.

Current initiatives, like strengthening the counterterrorism capacity of the EU’s law enforcement agency Europol and implementing a new border and coastguard agency, are worthwhile to bring the member states back together and demonstrate the added value of the union in ensuring security.

Europe’s investigative agency Europol is apparently implementing strengthened border and coastguard operations. European states are fortifying borders with barbed wire, fences or smooth, concrete walls as well.

One can argue that these moves are legitimate actions to counter out-of-control immigration but much of the immigration is from the Middle East as a result of US initiated wars.

In other words, the immigration that has commenced is the product of Western actions. Additionally, European politicians have not previously taken strong actions in many cases to damp the overwhelming immigration. Obviously it is policy not to oppose it.

One can easily argue – as we have – that the immigration is intended to remove cultural cohesion in Europe’s many tribal-bounded countries. This is to make nation-states less resistant to a larger union, a United States of Europe in other words.

The idea now seems to be to pursue a more powerful political union while creating and re-expanding divisions between nation states.

It is easier, perhaps, to control individual countries (even within a larger union) if travel is less available and more onerous.

If we accept this approach, then it becomes easier to conclude that the EU was actually created in order to fragment. This in turn gives authorities the justification to create a closer union while reducing the ease of travel within countries.

The larger intention of Western elites, one can speculate, is to further centralize large regions from a political and economic standpoint while fragmenting ease-of-travel within them

Conclusion: From this perspective, walls and strengthened borders are not being erected to keep people out but to hamper inter-regional travel and to keep people hemmed in. Historically speaking, borders and walls are just as much about control of indigenous populations as their protection.