Study Abroad (bring your own baton)

Borders may be closed, nativism may be thriving, but one area has become more international: police training. According to OECD data, developing countries are spending more money than ever prepping police around the world. China has increasingly has gotten into overseas police instruction. But the United States is still setting the agenda when it comes to writing the coursebook for cops. 

Funding for police training from the United States has increased to about $146 million in 2019 from $4.3 million in 2001, according to Benjamin Kenzer, a graduate student at Ohio State University who studies transnational police courses. “This is still a relatively small program,” he says, but “it's high impact because it involves flying police officers out of their home country and putting them on a US military base for three months.” From data from the Foreign Military Training Report, he has noticed an increase in training for officers from Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Colombia and dozens of other countries, all paid for by the State Department and the Department of Defense (Further courses, he believes, are not reported publicly.)

Kenzer cites trainings on the use of tear gas and the number of trainings for police in countries with known extrajudicial killings as sources of particular concern. 73 percent of states that benefit significantly from US funding ($10,000) experience some degree of extrajudicial killing, by his count.

Here are some selections from the international police course catalog:

Hong Kong

Police from Hong Kong attended two training programs in 2018 at the Inouye institute – a month-long course on security cooperation, and a five-day workshop titled “AP 18-2 Asia-Pacific Orientation.” Meanwhile, in 2017, police from Hong Kong, attended courses on “advanced security cooperation,” “counterterrorism,” and “transnational security cooperation.” We do not know much about what is taught in those courses. We do know that some of the police’s riot gear comes from American companies.

Mexico:

The United States spends millions of dollars on training for Mexican police, much of which, apparently, is technical training.  In 2018, this included courses titled “Senior IP/Instrumental Flight Examiner,” “Advanced Helicopter Crew Chief,” “Aircraft Technician Course,” “Corrosion Control Technician,” and “Spanish UH-60 Helicopter Repairer Spanish.”

Myanmar

U.S. spending on policing in Myanmar has increased considerably from 2014 on. Training courses include “Comprehensive Security Responses to Terrorism and Countering Violent Extremism in South East Asia”– both taught at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, Hawaii. The latter course included programs on interfaith dialogue and tolerance, as well as information sharing, intelligence, and regional capacity. One wonders if any of the lessons learned in this program affected the police’s ability to track Rohingya activists.

The Philippines

Filipino police officers received over $330,000 in police training in 2018, including counterterrorism, anti-policing, cyber-security, crisis management, and countering transnational crime. These courses were sometimes taught in-country. Others were taught at the NESTAFA International Training Center in Pensacola, Florida and the Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School in Mississippi.

The Sahel

The last few years has seen an explosion of training in the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa, including Mali, Niger, Chad, and Ghana. In 2018, the Gendarmerie in Mali received training on countering violent extremism, managing emerging threats in the contemporary security environment, and border security. The expansion of police training in the Sahel matches a long-term growth of American police training focusing on counterterrorism. Based on estimates of recurring courses on policing taught in 2018 and 2019, 15 percent focused on counter-terrorism.

Turkmenistan

The Turkmenistan Ministry of Internal Affairs & Security received about $11,000 in training in 2019: a course on counter-terrorism, on central Asian security (this course seems to be mostly on water security), and a course called “Consecutive Interpretation” (a course on language interpretation). According to Human Rights Watch, “The Turkmen government’s dire human rights record saw no improvements in 2019.”

Vanuatu

Vanuatu, a small country with about 300,000 residents, has benefitted considerably from American foreign police aid. In 2012, for instance, Vanuatu received $168,811 in police training, more than Haiti, Malaysia, or Indonesia. One explanation could be increased Chinese aid in the region. According to data from the William & Mary Aiddata program, there is significant evidence of Chinese aid in Vanuatu, including a 2004 commitment by China to train police in Vanuatu (plus a donation of “transport vehicles” to the Vanuatu police), a 2013 pledge to donate $1.2 million in riot gear, uniforms, and equipment to the Vanuatu police department.