7 - Boundaries

Summary

Borders are drawn in blood.

Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic

“I am a citizen of a nonexistent state, and I don't know where I live. Is it the Commonwealth of Independent States, or is it the Russian federated Republic? Is it Siberia, and is it the Sovereign Republic of Altai?”

Letter in a Russian newspaper following the collapse of the Soviet Union

What, after all, makes powerplant pollution in one part of North America a “transboundary” problem even as, in another part of the same continent, it is a domestic one? By the same token, if toxic wastes are generated by an electronic firm whose products are sold around the world, is their disposal strictly a local matter?

Ronnie D. Lipschutz

Indian programmers in Bangalore work on systems in New York and London through “real time” satellite linkages. There is no question that value is being added, but it is impossible to specify where the transaction takes place: in India, in the United States, or in both at the same time. Is the very concept of geographic space and geographic markets relevant to transactions which take place in cyber space?

Stephen J. Kobrin