Situating global counterinsurgency
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Situating global counterinsurgency Paul Edgar1
© Springer Nature Limited 2020
Abstract After World War II, in order to reduce the probability of nuclear and massive conventional war, the U.S. provided police training to alliesin order to reify their aspirations for liberal self-determination while addressing political stability. As a tool of global counterinsurgency, police traininghelped accomplish those goals in part but also caused unanticipated problems. Too often, police oppressed those whom they were supposed to protect.Shortly after, some of the philosophy and tactics of counterinsurgency-through-policing migrated into U.S. law enforcement institutions. But despite thismigration, U.S. law enforcement efforts cannot be reduced to counterinsurgency surreptitiously foisted upon vulnerable U.S. citizens. Citizens and electedpoliticians exert substantial influence over law enforcement institutions Keywords Insurgency · Counterinsurgency · Riots · Race · Police · Liberal
Introduction In Badges without Borders: How global counterinsurgency transformed American policing, Stuart Schrader recounts the ebb-and-flow of ideology and tactics between U.S. national and domestic security institutions following World War II, focusing on counterinsurgency and policing as its primary means. Schrader explains that the U.S. pursued these policies as an inconspicuous tool of an inconspicuous, racist, capitalist empire, oriented on exploitative resource extraction.1 As the U.S. began to experience the political unrest in the 50s and 60s, counterinsurgency policies and practices migrated from national security to domestic security, finding new outlets in domestic police institutions. Subsequently, the police in the U.S. began practicing counterinsurgency on its own citizens. 1 Stewart Schrader, Badges without Borders: How global counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019) 41.
* Paul Edgar [email protected] 1
Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, Clements Center for National Security, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA Vol.:(0123456789)
International Politics Reviews
Schrader’s account and interpretation, while helpful, can benefit from broader contextualization. First, the motivation and means of U.S. led efforts to reorder the world speak volumes about its concerns and political principles. The U.S. was attempting to prevent another catastrophe on the scale of the two World Wars. Further, it was attempting to promote self-governance and greater self-sufficiency. These two factors were an extraordinary combination and made for extraordinary policy, though not infallible policy. Examining this combination more closely will help us appreciate its uniqueness and its success; it will also better explain where and why it failed. Second, we should contextualize Schrader’s conclusions about U.S. policing within the police custom of subjection to the public and to political authorities. Like other public workers, the police have advocates; they lobby and in
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