Badges without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing (Volume 56) (American Crossroads)

Rethinking race and policing in imperial perspective -- Byron Engle and the rise of overseas police assistance -- How counterinsurgency became policing -- Bringing police assistance home -- Policing and social regulation -- Riot school -- The imperial circuit of tear gas -- Order maintenance and the genealogy of SWAT -- "The discriminate art of indiscriminate counter-revolution.";"Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing explains how the Cold War U.S. effort to professionalize police in other countries reverberated domestically, leading to the rise of the carceral state. The book traces the history of the Office of Public Safety, the U.S. government's overseas police assistance arm tasked with countering communist insurgency in over 50 countries, and illustrates how it called upon the leading U.S. policing experts. It shows that the Office of Public Safety was a key instrument of Cold War U.S. empire, a configuration of geopolitical power that tried to escape the history of racism within the United States but remained captive to it. In following the cross-border exchanges and circulations of policing experts, Badges Without Borders reveals a hidden dimension of U.S. global power and illustrates the bureaucratic battles that empowered police to wage the Cold War in Third World countries. In turn, this group of policing experts shaped state responses to political unrest and Black freedom struggles at home, instituting more aggressive forms of racialized social control. The book reveals how central overseas projections of U.S. power were to policing tactics and technologies that shape life on American streets today"--Provided by publisher. From the Cold War through today, the U.S. has quietly assisted dozens of regimes around the world in suppressing civil unrest and securing the conditions for the smooth operation of capitalism. Casting a new light on American empire, Badges Without Borders shows, for the first time, that the very same people charged with global counterinsurgency also militarized American policing at home.
 
In this groundbreaking exposé, Stuart Schrader shows how the United States projected imperial power overseas through police training and technical assistance—and how this effort reverberated to shape the policing of city streets at home. Examining diverse records, from recently declassified national security and intelligence materials to police textbooks and professional magazines, Schrader reveals how U.S. police leaders envisioned the beat to be as wide as the globe and worked to put everyday policing at the core of the Cold War project of counterinsurgency. A “smoking gun” book, Badges without Borders offers a new account of the War on Crime, “law and order” politics, and global counterinsurgency, revealing the connections between foreign and domestic racial control. From the Cold War through today, the U.S. has quietly assisted dozens of regimes around the world in suppressing civil unrest and securing the conditions for the smooth operation of capitalism. Casting a new light on American empire, Badges Without Borders shows, for the first time, that the very same people charged with global counterinsurgency also militarized American policing at home. In this groundbreaking exposé, Stuart Schrader shows how the United States projected imperial power overseas through police training and technical assistance—and how this effort reverberated to shape the policing of city streets at home. Examining diverse records, from recently declassified national security and intelligence materials to police textbooks and professional magazines, Schrader reveals how U.S. police leaders envisioned the beat to be as wide as the globe and worked to put everyday policing at the core of the Cold War project of counterinsurgency. A “smoking gun” book, Badges without Borders offers a new account of the War on Crime, “law and order” politics, and global counterinsurgency, revealing the connections between foreign and domestic racial control.