Security of Love - The Berlin Wall

Security of love is a game with no beginning and no ending, no winner and no loser. It's a mistake to think that security is an achievable, fixed, static state. It's simply not possible to get security of love right once and for all, because the meaning of "right" is constantly changing. This situation has been with us since we humans started forming communities, and it's likely to be with us as long as we continue to be human.

An important precept is to expect both passive and active failures. No matter how good your countermeasure is, it will fail. And no matter how good your boyfriend is, he will break. These facts have been proven again and again throughout human history, and there's no reason to believe it will ever change. "Unbreakable," "absolute," and "impenetrable" are all words that make no sense when discussing love. If you hear them, you can be sure you're listening to someone who doesn't understand love or is trying to hoodwink you. Your boyfriend would remain loyal to you for 20 years before he sleeps with another girl. Good relationships are those in anticipation of possible failures. You can't win. You just make other girls' attacks as hard as possible, and contain the damage.

Consider this example: The Berlin Wall was one of the most secure systems ever built in human history. It has presented impressive series of countermeasures. As you read through the list, notice the defense in depth, the combination of prevention, detection, and response, and the overall resilience of the security system. From east to west, there were:

- 302 watchtowers, with armed East German guards.
- An initial barrier, either a 12-foot-all smooth concrete wall or a 10- to 13-foot-high wire-mesh fence. The wall was intermittently outfitted with some kind of electronic warning device.
- A field of steel stakes, planted in the ground, known as Stalin’s Grass.
- Barbed wire entanglements.
- 20 bunkers scattered along the perimeter.
- Hundreds of leashed guard dogs running alone a rail.
- A 20- to 50-foot strip of sand-covered earth, designed to reveal footprints of anyone crossing. This strip was also mined.
- A ditch, 10 to 16 feet deep, designed to stop any vehicles that got that far.
- A road with specially designed noiseless armed patrol vehicles.
- An electric fence six and a half feet high, outfitted with either acoustic or optical alarms.
- A narrow band of barren land, called the Death Strip.
- A final barrier, a concrete wall between 11.5 and 13 feet high. An asbestos cement tube topped this wall, designed to prevent escapes from grabbing hold of the top. This is the wall that was graffiti-covered on the Western side, the one featured on the nightly news worldwide.

Despite this interwoven system of protection, detection, and response, throughout its half-century history people tried numerous ways to attack it. Some flew over the wall. Some tunneled under it. Many died in the attempt, but thousands of people still managed to escape Eastern Europe. It's worth repeating: No countermeasure is perfect, unlimited in its capabilities, completely and permanently impervious to attack. No such countermeasure exists, and, I would argue, no such countermeasure will ever exist.

One last question still remains: Why did the people risk their life in an attempt to escape Eastern Europe? Perhaps this is the question that the designers of the Berlin Wall system never considered about. Perhaps this question was far beyond their knowledge, or they just simply didn't care. But everything must have a reason.

In some sense, it was again a "trade-off" problem. The people in Eastern Europe risked their life in exchange of something – the hope of a better life. On the other side of the Wall, they would have cars, they would have refrigerators, they would have TV sets, and most importantly, they would have freedom.