The Impact of Narratives on the Militarisation of U.S. Police

By grounding this phenomenon in the historical context, this study will focus on two key moments of narrative crisis formation—the 1960s’ anti-Communism and the ‘War on Terror’—that facilitated a mass expansion of the U.S. security state, including the militarisation of the police. Throughout the analysis, I will argue that the salient formations of crises have transformed the militarised structures of policing as elite figures; and counterinsurgency narratives have rhetorically domesticated the notion of war to shift, and critically intersect, the ontological understandings of policing and warfare. As rhetorical wars are transported into the field of domestic policymaking to protect a population from a narrated crisis, government powers proliferate, including in the expansive relationship between the military and the police.

Although this study is framed through historical analysis, it is important to acknowledge that this is not only a historical issue. The militarisation of the police, as justified by narrative frames, is ever-evolving in the modern context as it is fundamentally, wholly, and systemically a product of the American society. A cultural story is embedded in U.S. society that has transported warfare from the sphere of the foreign to the sphere of the domestic, a perpetual transcendence of borders villainising the most marginalised in our societies. The narratives studied have shaped the currents of crisis formation to justify an unending war that continues to take place on the streets of U.S. cities under the guise of the protective force of policing. Thus, this dissertation will argue that this phenomenon is ongoing, as the cultural and policy-centred shifts in the understanding of war and police are consistently shaped and reshaped by narrative crises.

Militarisation and Militarism in U.S. Police Forces

The militarisation of the police as a process that occurs through technological transfers from the military unit to the police body is widely cited (Adachi, 2016; Delehanty et al., 2017; Jaccard, 2014; Jones, 1978; Kishi and Jones, 2020; Steidley and Ramey, 2019). However, Kraska explores police militarisation as a process of cultural transfers (Kraska, 1996; 1997; 2007). In his 1996 reflexive, ethnographic study, Kraska analyses the culture of militarisation, arguing that it exists in both “macropolitical” and “micropersonal” forms (1996:423). For the latter he coins a “habitus of militarism” (1996:423), as small personal changes, such as in uniforms, occur alongside technological transfers. In a later study, he explores this notion further theorising that a “paramilitary subculture” exists in police paramilitary units by using data derived from police agency surveys at the national level (Kraska, 2007:512). What is pivotal here is Kraska develops an understanding of police militarisation that is not confined to technological transfers but also exists as a cultural facet. However, these studies predominantly focus on the militarisation of the police as a micro-reality, looking at the macropolitical effects within police units without critically examining the socio-cultural transformations that have facilitated them. Looking at narrative structures during periods of crisis can expand on notions of technological and cultural militarisation, providing the argument that these processes are shaped, warped, and restructured by social reality.

Anti-Communism and Police Militarisation in the 1960s

The intense fearmongering and mass hysteria that took place during the second ‘Red Scare’ is widely studied as an anti-Communist narrative force that dictated American social reality throughout the twentieth century (Carleton, 1987; Foster, 2000; Schreker, 2004; Selverstone, 2010). Although the literature is not as vast, a sub-section explores this narrative force as a tool used to subjugate Black communities in the 1960s through the villainization of sectors of the civil rights movement (Berg, 2007; Horne, 1986; McDuffie, 2011). Building on this, other literature shows an interconnection between Black subjugation, anti-Communism, and police militarisation in the U.S. during the 1960s (Belew, 2018; Gamal, 2016, Hinton, 2021; Lanham, 2021). Gamal uses Critical Race Theory to conduct a historical analysis of the militarised response to 1960s “racial uprisings” (Gamal, 2016:982). Focusing on J. Edgar Hoover and threat construction, she states, “advancing militarisation … meant constructing an identity for the protesters that placed them outside of state protection and in the realm of state threat” (Gamal, 2016:993), giving way to large-scale militarisation processes. Elizabeth Hinton also explores this relationship through historical analysis, particularly focusing on the uprisings in Black communities in the 1960s that met a militarised response under Johnson’s ‘War on Crime’ (2021). She found police forces were shown anti-Communist propaganda, claiming that uprisings in U.S. cities were not due to economic or social inequality but are part of the “aims of international Communism” (Hinton, 2016; The National Education Program, 1968), a view also championed by Hoover (O’Reilly, 1988). These studies pivotally reveal the interrelationship between police militarisation, anti-Communism, and racial subjugation in the U.S. domestically. However, an exploration of the interconnectedness of U.S. foreign and domestic policy that shaped the militarised structures of U.S. domestic policing will aid in developing a deeper understanding of this phenomenon.

Considerably, scholars have noted that during Johnson’s ‘War on Crime’, a shift to a law-and-order mindset facilitated a mass expansion in police powers through militarisation processes (Adachi, 2016; Gamal, 2021). However, Schrader’s historical analysis explores the importance of the Office for Public Safety’s (OPS) overseas police assistance efforts in Vietnam, which reimported counterinsurgency tactics through domestic police training programmes and arguably facilitated the shift towards this mindset (Schrader, 2019). Lanham attempts to build on Schrader’s study, linking his findings to more recent history, arguing that “racist foreign and domestic policy are two sides of the same coin” (Lanham, 2021:1414) as exposed through the ‘War on Terror’ and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests. However, Schrader’s study does not provide the empirical research that is needed to transport this argument into one that transcends a singular historical timeframe. Therefore, this study attempts to link Schrader’s research to more modern history, arguing that the processes he exposed are ever-evolving and dictated by narrative structures.

The ‘War on Terror’ and Police Militarisation in the 2000s

The notion that the ‘War on Terror’ was a product of political “myth” making is cited in the scholarship (Esch, 2010). Here, Bush heavily relied on the Manichean rhetoric of American Exceptionalism—the idea that America or American values are exemplary to other nations—to state that it was America’s “calling” or “mission” to fight in the battle of good against evil (Esch, 2010:366). Moreover, Ackerman theorises the use of “intellectual borders” in the expansion of the U.S. security state that segregated “those who were authentically American from those who were not” (Ackerman, 2021:37), exploring the creation of the ‘War on Terror’ in public consciousness as a racialised phenomenon. Military strategists and scholars alike have also discussed the use of counterinsurgency (COIN) tactics in the COIN 2006 programme as an identity-focused, population-centric form of warfare that evolved from counterinsurgency strategies used in the Vietnam War (Darda, 2020; McAlexander, 2007; Owens, 2015; Sitaraman, 2009). However, as Singh theorises, the racialised logics of counterinsurgency were not confined to aspects of foreign policy; the ‘War on Terror’ is a product of American imperialism that penetrated both the international and domestic spheres (2017).

Additionally, there is an existent section of legal scholarship that explores the introduction of the PATRIOT Act during the Bush administration, noting that a broadening of the scope of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act gave law enforcement agencies increasing access to national security intelligence (Miller, 2020). Some scholars argued that this negatively affected minority populations as it drastically increased search and seizure powers (Siegler, 2006), surveillance technology transfers, and racial profiling, particularly among Muslim men (Pitt, 2011). However, these scholars focus heavily on the PATRIOT Act as a purely legal, bureaucratic phenomenon that existed within U.S. domestic policy. Building on Singh and Schrader, this study will argue that the Act can be considered part of a larger rhetorical domestication of warfare, and its transferal into expanding policing powers was inherently racialised in its narrative formation as much as in its effect.

Theoretical Framework

This research will expand upon the theoretical framework of the political economy of crises, which infers the argument that during times of real or perceived crisis, a government increases in size, scope, and force (Hall and Coyne, 2013). Hall and Coyne’s study builds on the framework of Higgs (1987; 2004; 2006; 2007; 2012), recounting the ‘War on Drugs’ and the ‘War on Terror’ as times of perceived crisis that facilitated mass governmental expansion (2013). As Higgs states, the government maintains its power by exuding an ideology—based on specific principles, ideals, or values that are legitimated by fear (2005:448)—dictating structures of social reality to monopolise power. Moreover, during times of war or crisis, a government can increase this power in the form of “sudden bureaucratic dilation” as “the public relaxes its usual resistance to the government’s exactions” (2005:461). Due to the “paradox of government”, during a time of crisis, as a form of “protection” the government gains a monopoly on the means of force and the means of violence (Hall and Coyne, 2013:485-486). As Hall and Coyne argue, this facilitates the mutually reinforcing bureaucratic and economic interrelationship between the military and the police in the U.S. seen through budget, personnel, and technological transfers (Hall and Coyne, 2013:488).

However, the economic relationship between the military and the police is well-founded. Thus, this study attempts to provide an alternative account of this phenomenon, focusing on the narrative formation of crises that continually justifies the expansive bureaucratic relationship established by the theory. This will highlight the ‘storytelling’ processes of crises, relying on the assumption brought by Higgs (2006) and Krebs (2015) that the government provides a sense of freedom from fear (Higgs, 2006:449), or ontological security, to the civil population, which itself relies on a set and structured narrative order (Krebs, 2015:39). In times of crisis, whether real or perceived, storytelling is further exacerbated, as traditional or “underlying narratives no longer seem like common sense” (Krebs, 2015:39). This leaves space for shifts in the prevailing narrative which can, relying on traditional values or identities, impart a sense of stability and order. Shifts in narrative can then justify policy decisions that may be deemed controversial or illegitimate outside of the new narrative structure as governmental expansion is justified by the idea of civilian protection in the face of crisis (Krebs, 2015:62). As Hall and Coyne argue, this expansion exists in the facilitation of state power in general but, due to the agenda to maintain a monopoly of military force, is only exacerbated by the transferral of military powers into policing (2013). Moreover, as Butler states, “a similar ‘frame’ grounds our orientation in both (domestic and foreign) domains” (Butler, 2009:27). Here, the narratives of crises are framed as both domestic and international under the process of “effective framing” (Krebs, 2015:38), which can allow governments to fit preferred policy-incentives into the prevailing narrative structure. Thus, the real or perceived crisis is created or exacerbated by a narrative that, when framed as an ongoing war, facilitates the expansion of the security state, including in the continual militarisation of police forces.

Furthermore, as Hall and Coyne have explored, when crises are framed to both exist domestically and internationally and to have no clear end, police militarisation can continue indefinitely due to a “ratcheting up” of government spending (Hall and Coyne, 2013:490). Applying this to the narrative formation of crises, as war is ontologically structured as temporary this can provide “an argument for exceptional policies” (McIntosh, 2022:572), due to the government agenda to monopolise power in a time of crisis. However, if a war is framed temporally against a crisis that has no clear end, it is considered indefinite (McIntosh, 2022:573), allowing increasing facilitation of these “exceptional policies”. Therefore, a “perpetual crisis” (Hall and Coyne, 2013:500) means the U.S. government can create a perpetual war, increasing the expansion of police militarisation in the process. Applying this to the work of scholars such as Singh (2017) and Darda (2020) who pivotally recentre this argument to imply that the facilitation of a “permanent war story” (Darda, 2020:35) or “long war” (Singh, 2017:159) can create an increasing legitimation of wars fought “along the color line” (Darda, 2020:32). Essentially, the reframing of war as perpetual can allow a continuous criminalisation of black and brown communities and societies, as the governmental narrative equates notions of criminality and insurgency with certain racial identities to legitimise the crisis. Therefore, narratives are quintessential in understanding how the militarisation of the police can continue indefinitely; however, a body of literature focusing on the economic effects of crises has yet to uncover how these processes rely on rhetorical transferrals of power through narrative shifts.

Justification of Methodological Decisions

To effectively analyse how narratives have continually facilitated the expansion of police militarisation in the U.S., this study will employ a close reading of key documents and discourses in developing a historical account of this phenomenon. This study will journey through American political history, focusing on the time periods of 1960s anti-Communism and the ‘War on Terror’ in the early 2000s, using two key periods of crisis formation to evaluate the evolution of police militarisation and the perpetuality of the issue. As both periods were perceived as a crisis by the public and were salient in consciousness (Howie and Campbell, 2017; Schreker, 2004), existing in both the domestic and international spheres, they provide many avenues for comparison. Thus, this study contributes to the literature by providing a pivotal framework for re-interpreting historical understandings of police militarisation.

Structurally, the study is divided into two sections, firstly focusing on rhetorical narrative structure by analysing elite discourse, and secondly focusing on narrative creation through counterinsurgency processes and the rhetorical and policy-centred domestication of such processes. The analysis will initially focus on two figures, George W. Bush and J. Edgar Hoover who are appropriately labelled “narrator-in-chief” (Krebs, 2015:49) for each respective period. Bush is regarded as the founder of the prevailing ‘War on Terror’ narrative (Hetherington and Nelson, 2003; Esch, 2010), and thus evaluation of his rhetorical formulations is essential in understanding the narrative concept. Although, as Krebs states, the assumption is in the “American symbolic universe” the “narrator-in-chief” is the President (Krebs, 2015:49)—former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover is studied as arguably the most ardent anti-Communist during the 1960s (Schreker, 2004:1043)—as seen through his campaigning in transforming law enforcement (O’Reilly, 1988), alongside his public persona as exemplified by his best-selling anti-Communist manifesto (Gotham, 1992:58) Masters of Deceit (1958).

The documents COINTELPRO-Black Extremist and COIN 2006 are analysed as two initiatives that arguably transformed the narrative structure of warfare and policing in the U.S. COINTELPRO-Black Extremist consists of a compilation of memos from the FBI Director to local offices and between the upper echelons of the Bureau, discussing acquired information and counterintelligence initiatives regarding civil rights movements. Although a compilation of domestic counterintelligence documents, they are used here to examine a shift in the processes of domestic policing in the 1960s alongside a reimportation of counterinsurgency initiatives (Schrader, 2019). Comparably, the COIN 2006 document is a counterinsurgency field manual and is studied to show the transformation in the narrative structure of global policing and warfighting that obscured the roles of each. To build on the idea of reimportation and critically examine the rhetorical and policy-centred shifts in domestic policing, the PATRIOT Act is analysed alongside the manual, focusing on the increasing interconnection between the security state and law enforcement agencies.

Due to the subjective, post-positivist nature of this study, the author’s position in social reality is critically accounted for due to the likelihood of possessing predispositions or biases that may have impacted their analytical choices, including the lenses examined. As someone who is from the UK, the author has an outside perspective on U.S. culture. Moreover, as racial identity is consistently discussed throughout the study, it ought to be considered that the author is mixed-race; however, not Black nor Muslim—the identities most salient in this dissertation. Due to the embedded power structures that exist within racial dimensions that continually penetrate the academic discipline (Louis et al., 2016), particularly in an elitist Eurocentric institution, it is important to acknowledge this as a constituent part of social reality that may have infringed upon the subjective research.

PART ONE: ELITE RHETORIC AND THE CREATION OF ‘PERPETUAL WAR’

How Hoover Transformed the Communist Threat: A Study in the Rhetorical Domestication of Communism

Building on the theoretical framework, the rhetoric of Hoover is analysed through the lens of the creation of a ‘perpetual war’ against Communism, utilised to increase the power and influence of the FBI. As scholars explore, the U.S. government has at times created a narrative around a perceived crisis or government-termed war that has no clear end, timeline, or enemy (Darda, 2020; Kraska, 1996; Hall and Coyne, 2013) allowing militarisation to continue limitlessly. In 1956, J. Edgar Hoover stated that American Communists were “making war on a new plane” (1956:4). Throughout the 1960s, he would create this war through his rhetorical domestication and formation of a perpetual Communist menace.

Hoover had multiple linguistic techniques he gravitated towards to exacerbate the threat of Communism as perpetual, invasive and existential. By using metaphors relating to contagion, such as referring to Communism as a “virus” that had spread in “epidemic proportions” (Hoover, 1962a), Hoover reframed Communism as a disease, implying that the crisis existed as an invasive ideology that infiltrated the minds of Americans. By framing Communism in this way, Hoover created an invisible enemy that transcended geographical borders. Herewith, he established the most fear-inducing element of Communism that, like a disease, it had the power to ‘infect’ vast amounts of the U.S. public through a psychological invasion. Reducing the enemy to an intangible threat removed the limitations of the Communist enemy in its scope, size, power, or time range (Hall & Coyne, 2013), creating a socially imagined perpetual crisis fought with limitless means.

As Gotham notes, Hoover often attacked Communism, not based on any empirical measurement but based on constructed evils and threats to traditional American values or morals (Gotham, 1992). In a 1962 speech, Hoover stated, “The danger and wiles of Communism cannot be measured solely by shrunken rolls of actual party membership in this country” (1962a). In this speech, as in his other anti-Communist tirades (Hoover, 1958), Hoover did not provide empirical evidence of an internal Communist threat in the U.S. but actively denounced some of the only existing empirical evidence that proved the Communist ideology was declining in the 1960s. Therefore, by pinning the Communist threat to no real measurement, Hoover continued to create a perpetual war. Additionally, if Communism could not be measured, neither could there be a clear defeat, meaning measures considered capable of defeating the enemy were enhanced exponentially.

In addition, by using non-descript terminology that relied on ideological values, Hoover continued to emphasise that the rhetorically created crisis was perpetual and existential. By framing Communism as an ideology implanted into “the heart and mind of Americans” (1962a) and using Manichean rhetoric surrounding the “evils” (1962b) of Communism and the “moral armour” (1962a) of American values, Hoover amplified traditional narratives regarding American Exceptionalism. Here, he conveyed the idea that the threat of Communism existed in dualistic opposition to Americanism itself—as an ideology to be countered, rather than a physical threat. Therefore, Communism was an enemy like no other as it could not be defined temporally, meaning a legitimate defeat did not exist in the boundaries of time. Thus, the government could exponentially increase spending and power under the symbolic aim of defeat (Hall and Coyne, 2013; McIntosh, 2022).