Members of Congress have jumped to action in the wake of the mass protests against police brutality but most often it’s the local police forces that have been militarizing themselves.
Much of the media attention has focused on whether Trump knew and why he hasn’t done anything to stop it. But no one’s asking what’s motivating Putin.
The massive resources allocated to both local police and the U.S. military create supply side pressures to find, if not create, enemies.
The proposals for change offered by the president, and from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, will not be enough.
The work of U.N. specialized agencies must not be subordinated to the aspirations of those who want to hijack the U.N. to serve their counterterrorism politics irrespective of everything else.
Team Trump’s show of force this week against the ICC was a metaphor for its disdain for international law and institutions.
Trump unsurprisingly got some things wrong when he invoked the right to bear arms in his speech threatening to send the military to quell protests around the country.
Americans seem rightly offended by their military being used to police their own neighborhoods, but they have also largely stood by as it has waged counterinsurgency in neighborhoods around the world.
Perhaps the most damaging effect of police militarization is that it pushes police officers engaging with the public to behave as they look, to act like soldiers dealing with enemy combatants.
US policymakers routinely see the African continent as a battlefield in the so-called “war on terror” rather than the opportunity for economic partnership that it is.
The US needs to state its objectives clearly so that we’re not bogged down in counterterrorism operations indefinitely.
Some have argued that the US should commit to an increasing dependence on petroleum, as well as ushering in a new cycle of overseas interventions propping up an existing, overburdened, and outdated system of U.S. military hegemony.
