Yes, NYT, borders are porous. What's your point?

The New York Times devotes 800 words this morning to the startling conclusion that international borders are porous.

The Chaman crossing -- marked on the Pakistani side by the three-story Friendship Gate -- should presumably be among the most secure in the country: it is the sole crossing between Kandahar, the birthplace of the Afghan Taliban, and Baluchistan, which is, according to American officials, home to Taliban commanders who control many Afghan fighters. But Taliban fighters -- anyone, really -- can cross and smuggle weapons and drugs...

You could write this about literally any two countries. The Egypt-Israel border should be "among the most secure" in the world, but hundreds of impoverished African migrants find a way to sneak across every year. The border between North and South Korea should be locked tight, but defectors find a way out.

And a few people occasionally find a way to sneak across the U.S.-Mexico border, too, despite the presence of 20,000 Border Patrol agents and a high-tech, multi-billion-dollar "virtual fence."

Drug smugglers, arms dealers and human traffickers do business in every border town on earth. We shouldn't be surprised that they exist along the Durand Line, too. And since they're impossible to stop -- consider our limited resources, and the experiences of the aforementioned countries -- they're probably not worth spending too much time on as a policy question.

Oppel does make one worthy point towards the end of his article:

[...] American commanders want to increase the traffic of supplies through Chaman by 30 percent. On a typical day, 60 to 100 NATO and American supply trucks pass through the crossing.

But that effort has been seriously hampered by a detour that has shifted vehicle traffic to a one-lane dirt road across the border that can handle only one truck at a time, in either direction. The main gate has been closed to vehicles -- but not pedestrians -- because of problems with the infrastructure.

NATO is looking for ways to reduce its reliance on supply lines through Pakistan, which are coming under more frequent attacks. NATO inked a deal with Kazakhstan last month to transport supplies into northern Afghanistan, and is looking into an overland supply route through China -- though that latter one seems destined to be hugely expensive and not particularly useful.

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