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.