Seal of the International Law Enforcement Academy: Budapest
This week JSBP had the wonderful opportunity to go on a visit to the ILEA, or the International Law Enforcement Academy, in Budapest. ILEA is an American run international academy that provides further training for law enforcement officials throughout the world. The academy offers one, two, and eight week programs in which participants can gain further law enforcement training in the United States’ method. There are four ILEA programs set up all around the world located in: Hungary, El Salvador, Thailand, and Botswana. It was very interesting to find out that the United States has these types of training outposts set up around the world not only for the benefit of universal law enforcement, but also for diplomatic purposes. The United States can build relationships with the participating countries and by using American methods to train the participants they can nurture a universal code of morals throughout different cultures.
ILEA students practicing a raid drilling
Our day was spent under the warm and friendly guidance of Tom Stocking, the Deputy Director of the Academy and an agent in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. He gave our group a tour of the grounds and after seeing all of the inviting facilities I began to think about how even the facilities themselves are tools in the process of building relationships. If the environment is welcoming, enjoyable, and comfortable then the participants I the program will be more receptive to the American ideas. For example, Tom explained to us that the Turkish national soccer team has a very important game coming up in order to qualify for the Euro Cup and this issue was of colossal importance for the group of Turkish. So, Tom and his colleagues offered to designate the student center to show the game on a big screen. Now this may seem very trivial, but it is actions like these that aid diplomacy. To use very broad brushstrokes, the US is taking measures to make sure that a potential ally, i.e. Turkey, is well cared for.
The US is using a classic method known as Futbol Diplomacy
The second half of our day was spent hearing about experiences had by other faculty at the Academy and a question and answer session with the current Director, John Terpinas. Mr. Terpinas, an agent in the FBI and new to the ILEA, was very relaxing to talk with and seemed to have just as many questions for us as we did for him. This was a very interesting part of the day because the group was able to ask some rather specific questions about US relations with Hungary and what it’s like for an American to be put in charge of an institution like the ILEA. It was a very enjoyable experience, because it felt like a long time since we have heard another American’s perspective of being overseas.
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