Border vacuums fuel cross‑border violence

A targeted foreign operation that decapitates a regime can create a localized power vacuum along international frontiers where guerrillas, militias and criminal gangs already operate. Those vacuumed zones see a rapid uptick in checkpoints, extortion, information repression and migratory flows that spill costs into neighboring states and complicate any short‑term political gains. — If true, limited military interventions produce predictable, near‑term security and humanitarian externalities at border zones that should be explicitly budgeted and planned for in advance.