The strategic mistake is treating militarized policing as a “gear” issue. It is a governance problem: coercive capacity plus weak constraints yield predictable degradation of civil liberties. The evidence base provides little confidence that militarization systematically reduces crime or improves officer safety, while it does indicate reputational harm and potential escalation risks. A democratic state can maintain a high-end response capability, but it must make militarized deployment rare, auditable, and politically costly when misused.

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