In the 1990s, political theorists, historians and more than a few political leaders debated this question: Had “transnational forces” associated with globalization made the sovereign nation-state a dysfunctional and potentially dangerous political structure?

The 21st-century’s revival of Great Power competition — competition between powerful states that value their sovereignty — indicates borders still matter.

The U.S. and communist China are quite powerful. China’s disrespect for borders is fundamental to its clash in the South China Sea.

As the century’s third decade approaches, evidence abounds that transnational forces have not rendered nation-states impotent. The 1990s debates, however, weren’t intellectual fearmongering. Pervasive global media, cyber connectivity, commercial jets providing cheap international transportation, a global financial system with rapid money flows and an interconnected global trading network were challenging national borders and international legal norms.

Criminal and terrorist networks were exploiting the system’s porosity. Defense analysts worried non-state transnational terrorist groups would acquire long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction. High-tech terrorists would demonstrate nation-states could no longer protect their citizens.

Arguments that national sovereignty was passe, particularly in a Europe dominated by the EU, influenced the Clinton administration’s 1999 decision to intervene in Kosovo. Human rights activists argued that legitimate governments did not commit genocide. Genocidaires should be toppled.

Czech Republic president and playwright Vaclav Havel applauded NATO’s Kosovo War because it placed “human rights above the rights of state.” Russia, however, deplored NATO’s invasion. The cynical Kremlin later used “the Kosovo precedent” to justify invading Georgia, seizing Crimea and attacking Ukraine. Moscow claimed these interventions protected threatened ethnic groups.

Others argued that Kosovo demonstrated moral values may have a national interest, and that states can act on this interest. However, it takes powerful nation-states to place human rights above the rights of human rights abusers, and employing that power entails systemic risks.

https://townhall.com/columnists/austinbay/2019/06/06/westphalia-and-the-south-china-sea-n2547652