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International borders have always been centers of conflict, and the U.S.-Mexican border is no exception. With the European colonizing the New World, it was a matter of time before the powers collided. The Spanish settled what is today Mexico, while the English settled what is to day the United States. When the two colonial powers did meet what is today the United States' Southwest, it was not England and Spain. Rather the two powers were the United States and Mexico. Both Counties had broken off from their mother countries. The conflict that erupted between the two countries where a direct result of different nation policies. The United States had a policy of westward expansion, while Mexico had a policy of self protection. The Americans never had a written policy of expansion. What they had was the idea of "Manifest Destiny." Manifest Destiny was the belief that the United States had the right to expand westward to the Pacific ocean. On the other hand, Mexico was a new country wanting to protect itself from outside powers. Evidence of U.S. expansion is seen with the independence of Texas from Mexico. The strongest evidence of U.S. expansion goals is with the Mexican-American War. From the beginning, the war was conceived as an op