Does Border Fencing Reduce Terrorism? A Case Study of The Pak-Afghan Border - One of the Most Dangerous Borders in the World

Abstract

Background This study examines the effect of border fencing of the world’s most dangerous border on Durand line and conducts a pre and post analysis of reduction in terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The research is based on analysing the decrease in trends of terrorist attacks post border fencing and on the comparison study of identity of terrorists in both the states. Objectives The primary objective of this research is to understand does fencing borders reduce terrorism and is fencing an effective measure to combat terrorism by analysing the case study of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Methods To establish the relationship and assess the impact of border fencing on the Pak- Afghan border on decrease in terrorist incidents in Pakistan, this study adopted the Simple Linear Regression Model and Poisson Regression Model. The null hypothesis stated that border fencing did not reduce terrorism whereas the alternative hypothesis claimed that border fencing did reduce terrorism in the post border fencing time period from 2015-2018. Results The study reveals significant relationship between border fencing and reduction in terrorism incidents. The regression analysis demonstrated the positive impact of length of border fenced on decrease in number of terrorist incidents in Pakistan. The decline was by 8.6 Incidents (P=0.002) and overall terrorism declined by 7.2% (P=0.02) in Pakistan. Conclusions The regression results suggest that reduction in the terrorism is statistically significant and border fencing of the long porous western border of Pakistan, did cause a substantial reduction in terrorist attacks. It also supports the assumption that border fencing is an effective mean of combatting terrorism as in the case of Pak-Afghan border. By the time only 47% fencing was completed a decline in terrorism was observed with 3306 incidents after the fencing as compared to 8979 incidents before the fencing.