January 2026

By Etienne Darcas – Rise to Peace

The scenes in Minneapolis this month would have seemed impossible to most Americans a year ago. Federal immigration agents firing into civilian vehicles. A registered nurse shot dead while filming a protest. Thousands flooding the streets in cities from Los Angeles to New York to Boston. A near general strike in Minneapolis; the first of its kind in many decades. The images seen carry an unmistakable resonance, from the armoured vehicles, the militarised postures and the casual violence against civilians, that speaks to something deeper than a dispute over mere immigration policy.

Perhaps this is not an isolated domestic crisis but something more dangerous altogether as a manifestation of a broader pattern now revealing itself across American foreign and domestic policy simultaneously. The Trump administration’s aggressive posture toward European allies over Greenland, its apparent willingness to abandon Ukraine to Russian territorial ambitions, and the deployment of military-style enforcement tactics against American communities all share a common thread. That thread is best understood through what scholars have termed the “imperial boomerang” – the theory that techniques of coercion developed for use abroad eventually return home to be deployed against domestic populations.

The current moment demands we examine these developments not as discrete policy choices but as interconnected elements of a fundamental transformation in American governance which holds profound implications for transatlantic relations, international security architecture, and the character of American democracy itself.

The Greenland Crisis and the End of Allied Assumptions

President Trump’s campaign to acquire Greenland has rattled European capitals in ways that reveal how fundamentally the transatlantic relationship has deteriorated. The threat of 10-25% tariffs against Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland—all NATO allies of course—represented the weaponisation of American economic power against the very nations whose partnership has underpinned Western security for eight decades.

While Trump stepped back from immediate tariff implementation following talks with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at Davos, announcing what he termed a “framework of a future deal,” the damage has been done. European leaders now understand something that many had hoped to avoid confronting: the United States under Trump views its alliances in purely transactional terms. The strategic partnership, shared values, and collective security that characterised the post-war order have been replaced by a calculus of immediate benefit, of a misguided attempt at Realpolitik, but decidedly without the grace and finesse required for it. In its stead, what emerged is a United States that is diplomatically leaner and meaner, hungry for easy wins.

Trump has tied his Greenland ambitions to national security, arguing that Denmark cannot adequately protect the island’s vast mineral-rich territory from China and Russia, and that only the United States can secure the Arctic against rival militaries. Yet as Matthias Matthijs of the Council on Foreign Relations has observed, this reasoning fundamentally contradicts the logic of alliances themselves. The 1951 treaty between the United States and Denmark already grants Washington extensive basing rights in Greenland, including the critical Thule Air Base. Cooperation on mineral rights and rare earths remains entirely achievable within existing frameworks.

What Trump appears to want is not security, which he already has, but ownership. As Matthijs notes, Trump made clear in his Davos remarks that “you can only really defend something if you own it,” a statement that calls into question the entire foundation of American alliance commitments from Japan to NATO. The real estate developer’s instinct has become foreign policy doctrine.

The European response reveals how profoundly this crisis has shaken allied confidence. Most European analysts now accept that the kind of close, value-based transatlantic partnership that characterised the post-World War II era is unlikely to return, regardless of who occupies the White House next. Even a Democratic successor or a traditional Republican in the mould of Reagan or the Bushes would face domestic pressure to maintain a more transactional approach to alliances. The era of American leadership premised on enlightened self-interest appears to be ending.

Ukraine: Europe as the Emerging Loser

If the Greenland crisis has damaged European confidence in American partnership, the trajectory of Ukraine peace negotiations threatens to leave Europe as the clear loser in the reshaping of European security; increasingly a reshaping that sees Europe itself as denied of much agency in determining a potentially favourable outcome.

The January 2026 Paris summit of the “Coalition of the Willing” produced what officials called “significant progress” on security guarantees for Ukraine, with France and the United Kingdom signing a declaration of intent to deploy “military hubs” across Ukrainian territory following any ceasefire. The summit represented European efforts to fill the vacuum left by American ambivalence as an attempt to demonstrate that Europe can provide the security guarantees Ukraine needs.

Yet the fundamental problem remains. Europe lacks the military capacity to deter Russia without American backing. The Coalition’s framework depends on a US-led ceasefire monitoring mechanism and continued American commitment to Ukrainian security. Both remain uncertain at best. Trump has ruled out deploying American forces to Ukraine, and his envoys have made clear they are not taking sides between Kyiv and Moscow but rather are seeking a deal.

For European allies, this shift is stark. The Americans have made it clear they were present to facilitate negotiations in Paris, not to champion Ukrainian sovereignty. Russia, meanwhile, has shown no willingness to compromise on its fundamental demands, continuing to insist on territorial concessions and the exclusion of NATO troops from Ukrainian soil.

The emerging shape of any settlement looks increasingly unfavourable to European interests. Russia appears likely to retain significant Ukrainian territory, while Europe will bear the primary burden of post-war security guarantees. Such guarantees, which, with its lack of common foreign policy and military policy, it may lack the capacity to enforce without American support. Moscow has achieved its long-standing strategic objective of driving a wedge between Washington and its European partners, and is positioned to emerge from negotiations with both territorial gains and a weakened Western alliance.

Putin’s representatives have watched the Greenland drama with what Matthijs describes as “a fair dose of glee.” The spectacle of the United States threatening its own NATO allies while simultaneously distancing itself from Ukrainian defence has vindicated Moscow’s long-standing analysis of Western division. If the outcome of negotiations reflects this moment of allied discord, Europe will have lost not merely in Ukraine but in its broader ability to shape the continental security environment.

The Domestic Front: Minneapolis and the Imperial Boomerang

While transatlantic relations deteriorate and European security calculus shifts, the American homeland has become the site of a parallel crisis that illuminates the deeper transformations underway in American governance.

Since Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, federal immigration agents have been involved in violent incidents across the country, resulting in a number of fatalities of not just those targeted for arrest and deportation, but innocent bystanders too. The Wall Street Journal has documented at least thirteen instances of immigration officers firing at or into civilian vehicles since July 2025 alone. At least five of those shot have been American citizens.

The Minneapolis killings of Renee Good on January 7th and Alex Pretti on January 24th have catalysed nationwide protests on a scale not seen since the George Floyd demonstrations of 2020. Both victims were American citizens. Good, a mother of three, was shot three times—in the chest and head—by an ICE officer while sitting in her vehicle. Video evidence from bystanders and the agents themselves contradicts official claims that she was using her vehicle as a weapon. Pretti, a VA ICU nurse, was shot while filming agents who had pushed protesters to the ground. Bystander video shows him holding a phone, not the gun the administration later claimed to recover.

The Department of Homeland Security has declared all sixteen shootings since July justified before completing investigations, indicating a pattern or propensity for reflexive institutional defence of its agents tactics. The tactics themselves echo counterinsurgency operations: vehicle pursuits, aggressive crowd control, the deployment of armed agents into civilian communities, the treatment of entire populations as potentially hostile.

This is where the concept of the “imperial boomerang” becomes analytically essential. First articulated by Aimé Césaire in his 1950 Discourse on Colonialism, the boomerang effect describes how techniques of repression developed to control colonial populations inevitably return to the imperial centre. Hannah Arendt elaborated on this framework in The Origins of Totalitarianism, arguing that the methods of racial domination and territorial expansion inherent to imperialism laid the foundations for European fascism.

The contemporary application, however, is both sobering and explanatory. Sociologist Julian Go, in his 2023 study Policing Empires, has documented how the militarised tactics now deployed on American streets, including mobile strike squads, surveillance methods, tear gas and crowd control techniques were “developed and perfected” in American and British colonies before being imported back to the metropole. The personnel transfer is equally direct: many domestic law enforcement agencies have been led by veterans of foreign conflicts who acted as what Go terms “imperial importers,” domesticating colonial tactics for use against racialised populations at home.

The Minneapolis operations bear the hallmarks of this lineage. The deployment of thousands of federal agents from multiple agencies, the disregard for local civilian authority, the aggressive vehicle tactics, the immediate official justification regardless of evidence, all mirror patterns documented in colonial counterinsurgency. That these tactics are being deployed in a city with deep memories of George Floyd’s murder adds a bitter historical resonance.

The Connection: Imperial Logic at Home and Abroad

The analytical power of the imperial boomerang framework lies in its ability to reveal connections that otherwise appear coincidental. The Greenland crisis, the Ukraine negotiations, and the Minneapolis killings are not separate phenomena but are rather expressions of a common logic. This logic is one in which relationships of domination replace relationships of cooperation, and force becomes the primary instrument of policy.

Multiple parallels emerge in this analysis. In Greenland, the administration threatens economic warfare against allies who refuse to cede sovereign territory. In Ukraine, it positions itself as a neutral broker between aggressor and victim, willing to sanction Russian territorial gains in pursuit of “a deal.” In Minneapolis, federal agents treat American communities as occupied territory, firing into civilian vehicles with impunity while the administration defends every use of force before investigation.

The common thread is the collapse of constraints, be they legal, normative,  or institutional, that previously bounded the exercise of American power, great as it is. Abroad, this manifests as willingness to coerce allies and abandon partners. At home, it manifests as the deployment of military-style tactics against civilian populations and the pre-emptive justification of lethal force.

Césaire warned that colonisation degrades the coloniser as surely as the colonised. A nation which colonises is a civilisation which justifies colonisation—and therefore force— and is already a sick civilisation; morally diseased. It can only rule then by the principle that might makes right. The imperial boomerang is not merely a transfer of tactics but a transfer of mentalities then, enforcing the habit of seeing other populations as subjects to be controlled rather than citizens to be served, highlighting the assumption that force is the natural language of governance.

What Minneapolis reveals is that this mentality, having been cultivated abroad for generations, has now fully arrived at home. The same administration that threatens NATO allies over Greenland and treats Ukrainian sovereignty as negotiable also treats American citizens as acceptable casualties in enforcement operations. The same officials who justify territorial ambitions on grounds of national security justify shooting American nurses on grounds of officer safety. The logic is consistent; it is the logic of imperial governance applied without geographical distinction.

Implications for European Security

European policymakers would be wise to study the Minneapolis crisis with care, because it reveals something essential about the partner that they now face. An administration willing to deploy such tactics against its own citizens is unlikely to be constrained by traditional norms of allied behaviour. The Greenland threats were not an aberration but an expression of the same governance philosophy now manifesting domestically.

This has concrete implications for European security planning. The Coalition of the Willing’s security guarantees for Ukraine depend ultimately on American commitment. An administration that treats its own population as potential enemies and its oldest allies as targets for economic coercion cannot be relied upon to honour commitments to a country most Americans cannot locate on a map.

European leaders must now plan for scenarios they had hoped to avoid: a post-NATO security architecture, reduced American engagement in continental defence, and the need to deter Russian aggression largely through limited European resources, amidst a domestic European political climate of festering discontent and economic malaise. The UK and France have begun this work with their commitment to Ukrainian military hubs, but the gap between European capacity and European need remains vast.

The transition will be difficult and dangerous. Russia will probe every weakness in European resolve. China will watch for opportunities to advance its own interests. The international rules-based order that has provided relative stability since 1945 will continue to erode. Europeans hoping for a return to normalcy after Trump should note Matthijs’s assessment: “I don’t think there is a going back.”

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Rise to Peace.

By Kie Jacobson – Rise to Peace Fellow

Since the outset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian operations have consistently blurred the distinction between military and civilian targets, where the civilian population is frequently under threat. The lack of differentiation between military and civilians has been a recurring feature throughout hostilities. However, closer examination indicates a broader strategy aimed at weakening the resilience of the nation.

The treatment of Ukrainian cultural and historical institutions reveal the additional levels at which the war is being waged, detailing the long-term nature of Russian strategy. Not only have cultural sites with no inherent military function been damaged or destroyed, institutions have been extensively looted by Russian forces. From museums to archaeological sites, Ukrainian cultural property has come under threat, with concerning implications.  

A Pattern, Not an Accident: Russia’s Record in Ukraine

Indicative of a pattern rather than isolated incidents, damage to Ukrainian cultural heritage has occurred across multiple regions and phases of the war. Even away from the front line, sites such as Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, a UNESCO World Heritage site, have been damaged by Russian strikes. As territorial control has shifted, a more direct approach toward cultural heritage has been displayed during occupation. In major cities, cultural institutions and sites have been systematically looted, with Mariupol, Melitopol, and Kherson as prominent examples. 

In occupied urban areas, the extensive removal of artworks and artifacts by Russian forces displays an intentionality, with concerning implications for Ukrainian cultural sovereignty. The Melitopol Museum of Local History was stripped of historical weapons it held along with gold and silver artifacts, such as Scythian gold items dating from the 4th century BCE. In Mariupol, reports indicate that during the removal of the Kuindzhi Museum’s collection, soldiers specifically sought out works by the artist Arkhip Kuindzhi, whose identity as Ukrainian or Russian has been heavily contested. Instead of being an opportunistic endeavor, the gutting of museum collections seems to have been organized. During Melitopol operations, troops were reportedly accompanied by a man guiding the selection of items to take. At the Kherson Local History Museum, employees from museums in occupied Crimea were alleged to have assisted in the selection, documentation, and packing of items for transport. Compounding the theft of the items themselves, Russian forces have taken museum collection records with them, making it difficult to even identify the full extent of what has been taken.

Beyond their material worth, the artifacts reflect a historical continuity into modern-day Ukraine and affirm a Ukrainian cultural identity as autonomous from Russia. It is the symbolism that makes these items so significant and acts of destruction or looting so harmful. With the exhumation and transport of figures like Prince Potemkin’s remains to Russia, there is a clear message that historical markers and symbols that could be used to legitimize a state are Russian. Yet theft is only one component to the assault on Ukrainian heritage, occupied territory has been subjected to further reforms aimed at the erosion of Ukrainian identity and culture.

Destruction Under Occupation

The measures employed by Russian authorities in occupied Ukrainian territory are not new. These policies draw upon the precedent set by imperial Russian and Soviet authorities, with the suppression of Ukrainian language and Ukrainian cultural organizations. Under first the imperial regime then the Stalinist government, expressions of Ukrainian identity were treated as subversive or criminal. The guiding belief being that Ukrainians were a branch of Russian people and the language merely a Russian dialect. It is this logic that shapes contemporary efforts to erase Ukrainian cultural presence in occupied areas, where such measures are framed as a restoration of historical and cultural unity. 

Children have emerged as one of the primary targets of these efforts, with the implementation of a Russified education curricula as well as deportation to Russia in extreme cases. This has involved the destruction of Ukrainian-language educational materials, where use of the language is not explicitly forbidden but is essentially taboo. In addition, teachers and school administrators in occupied territory have been either coerced into implementing the new curricula or replaced. Alongside this, the deportation of Ukrainian children represents the most severe extension of the strategy of re-education, where children are forcibly transported into Russia and have been adopted out into new families. Framed by Russian authorities as rehabilitation and integration, this is intended to ensure linguistic and historical assimilation via isolation and indoctrination. The reality is that these practices target Ukrainian cultural identity at the root. If children are displaced and assimilated, it undermines the formation of Ukrainian identity both in the current generation and the subsequent generation. 

In its entirety, the approach to education and children in occupied territory displays additional dimensions of Russian efforts to erase Ukrainian identity. It is vital to recognize that cultural destruction extends far beyond physical damage to property or artifacts, and involves efforts to destroy formative aspects like language and community. In the context of Ukraine, this is intended to pave the way for a broader reconfiguration of historical narratives and public space under occupation, aligned with Russia.

Cultural Genocide

Recognizing the deep connection between culture and society has led to greater awareness of how attacks on culture can be linked to more insidious objectives, such as genocide. The idea of cultural genocide originated with Raphael Lemkin, the legal scholar who articulated the concept of genocide following the Second World War. For Lemkin, genocide was not necessarily just physical harm to a community, but included efforts aimed at destroying its distinctiveness, language, and oftentimes religion. 

Taken altogether, Russia’s actions in Ukraine point to a broader strategy that goes beyond battlefield objectives. The destruction of cultural heritage, suppression of Ukrainian language, rewriting of historical narratives, and targeting of children through education policy and deportation do not serve a military purpose. Instead, these practices work as a way to forcibly align the Ukrainian people with Russian wartime narratives. It is difficult to ignore the parallels between characteristics Lemkin identified as associated with cultural genocide and the reality unfolding in Ukraine. The suppression of language, re-education campaigns, destruction of cultural heritage, and looting of artifacts mirror methods Lemkin describes as central in destroying social and cultural foundations. While the term cultural genocide remains debated legally and academically, the concept of the term resonates in the case of Ukraine because it captures  the cumulative and deliberate nature of Russian actions, and provides insight into the intent behind them.

Understanding what has been lost

Even though the most obvious markers in the destruction of cultural heritage are damaged buildings or looted collections, the true consequences of the losses are less visible and harder to solve. The value of cultural heritage lies in its relationship to historic memory, the community, and sense of place. To use a specific example,  the destruction of monuments commemorating victims of the Holodomor undermines the public remembrance of a man-made famine central to Ukrainian collective memory and national identity. In addition, the Holodomor itself has been contested between Ukrainian and Russian historical narratives. While Ukraine recognizes the famine as a deliberate, man-made atrocity and a foundational trauma in its history, Russian narratives have tended to minimize or deny its intentionality. As is the case with example of Holodomor memorials, the damage is not just the physical loss that occurs, but the ability of a community to authentically remember and communicate its history not just in the present day but to future generations.

Beyond the impact on Ukrainian society, the destruction of cultural sites and items have also been a loss to broader humanity. The archaeological and scientific significance of the Mariupol Museum of Local Lore’s collection demonstrates this very clearly. Russian attacks destroyed natural history collections that not only were a unique repository of knowledge, but are impossible to restore because of the impact climate change has had on animals and plants in the last century. In terms of other items lost, artifacts from Neolithic and Bronze Age burials including those from the Mariupol Neolithic Burial Site, internationally valued for their insight into early human societies in the region, are among those missing. The loss of these materials is a blow to the greater archaeological and scientific community. 

These forms of loss also pose serious challenges for postwar justice and restitution. The destruction or removal of artifacts complicates efforts to document crimes and pursue accountability. Even where reconstruction is possible, it cannot necessarily restore what has been lost in substance or meaning. Rebuilt churches, museums, or libraries can replicate the physical, but they cannot replace or restore the original materials, historical continuity, or the trust embedded in intact cultural institutions. In terms of looted objects, there is concern that the items will wind up at auction, leading them to be absorbed into private collections and further complicating restitution efforts. However, other stolen pieces are being placed on display in Russian state institutions or being incorporated into its respective collections, while the destruction or removal of inventory catalogs during looting make it difficult to even fully identify what has been lost. 

Looking Forward

The destruction of Ukrainian cultural heritage is not a casualty of war. It reflects a broader effort intended to forcibly reshape history, identity, and belonging. From the targeting of museums and monuments to the deportation and re-education of children, culture represents a strategic domain in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Looking ahead, the question is not just how Ukraine can recover, but also how to prevent further loss. Museums and other cultural institutions have concentrated on developing emergency responses to protect their collections. In the early stages of the full-scale invasion, this was often done under conditions where there were shortages of supplies, staff, and protective equipment, not to mention the threat of Russian forces. Documentation, emergency preservation, and international support for cultural workers are essential. The challenges facing personnel in the cultural heritage sector are immense, especially given the fragility or size of certain items. However, it is important to consider prevention as much as restitution and accountability, since items become increasingly difficult to track let alone recover once stolen. Beyond immediate protection, it is critical to consider the greater logic at play in Russia’s focus on cultural heritage. The intent is to weaken, if not erase, Ukrainian identity.  However, the damage is not just to Ukraine. The collections destroyed and looted include centuries of artistic and historical contributions that are a part of wider human heritage. The protection of what remains and restitution of stolen objects is not necessary to support the legitimate Ukrainian identity but for the global community as well.

By Etienne Darcas – Rise to Peace

The massacre at Bondi Beach on 14 December 2025 marked a grim turning point in Australian security history. As families gathered to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah at the iconic beachfront, two gunmen, later to be identified as father and son Sajid and Naveed Akram, opened fire on the crowd, killing fifteen people and wounding over forty others. The attack, which Australian authorities swiftly declared an ISIS-inspired terrorist act targeting the Jewish community, represents the deadliest terrorist incident on Australian soil and the first fatal attack specifically directed at Jewish Australians.

This horrific attack arrived at the culmination of a deeply troubling trend in Australia’s domestic security landscape; one characterized by an escalating pattern of ideologically motivated violence against state institutions and public officials that has accelerated markedly since the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding the Bondi attack requires situating it within this broader landscape of extremist violence, one that has seen sovereign citizens and anti-government ideologues wage deadly assaults on police officers in rural Australia, fundamentalist Christian terrorists execute law enforcement personnel, and now Islamic State-inspired actors perpetrate mass casualty attacks on religious minorities.

The Attack and Its Immediate Aftermath

The Bondi massacre unfolded with terrifying efficiency that highlighted its premeditated nature. According to court documents released by New South Wales authorities, the Akrams had conducted reconnaissance of the attack site two days prior, walking the footbridge from which they would later fire upon the Hanukkah celebration. On the day of the attack, they drove to the beach, affixed homemade ISIS flags to their vehicle, and at approximately 6:47 pm, began their assault.

The perpetrators also deployed four improvised explosive devices – three aluminium pipe bombs and a tennis ball bomb containing explosive material, gunpowder, and steel ball bearings. Mercifully, none detonated, though police described them as viable weapons. Video evidence recovered from Naveed Akram’s phone showed the pair conducting firearms training in the weeks preceding the attack, and a manifesto-style recording captured them “condemning the acts of Zionists” while displaying allegiance to Islamic State ideology.

Among the fifteen dead were a Holocaust survivor, a ten-year-old girl, and Rabbi Eli Schlanger, a correctional services chaplain. Two police officers were wounded in the response. Sajid Akram, 50, was killed by police at the scene. His son Naveed, 24, an Australian-born citizen, survived with critical injuries and has since been charged with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder and one count of committing a terrorist act.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared the attack had deliberately targeted at the Jewish community on the first day of Chanukah. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett confirmed that “early indications point to a terrorist attack inspired by Islamic State,” with motivations rooted in antisemitism and jihadist ideology.

Institutional Failures and the Question of Prevention

The political and security fallout from Bondi has been severe. Investigative reporting by The Nightly revealed that the Australian Federal Police’s specialist counter-terrorism surveillance team—established under the Commonwealth High Risk Terrorist Offender regime—had been quietly disbanded just weeks before the massacre due to budgetary constraints. Internal correspondence indicated that funding shortfalls had “limited our ability to fill vacancies,” and the decision was made to dissolve the Canberra-based unit and return its funding to the AFP’s Counter Terrorism and Special Investigations Command.

This revelation proved particularly damaging given that ASIO had previously investigated Naveed Akram in 2019 for six months over alleged extremist associations, determining at the time that he posed no threat. The disbanding of specialist surveillance capabilities mere weeks before the worst terrorist attack in Australian history has raised profound questions about resource allocation and threat prioritization within the national security apparatus.

The AFP Association had, in fact, warned the Albanese Government in November 2025 that the force was suffering “chronic and worsening shortages” of counter-terrorism officers. Their warning proved prescient in the most tragic possible terms.

In response to mounting pressure, particularly from Opposition Leader Sussan Ley and a coalition of teal independent MPs including Monique Ryan, Kate Chaney, Sophie Scamps, and Zali Steggall, Albanese eventually announced a royal commission into the attack and the broader rise of antisemitism in Australia. Former High Court justice Virginia Bell, who previously led the Robodebt royal commission, will oversee the inquiry, which is mandated to deliver its final report by 14 December 2026, exactly one year after the massacre.

The commission’s terms of reference are expansive, encompassing the nature and prevalence of antisemitism in Australia, its key drivers including religiously motivated extremism, the effectiveness of current responses by law enforcement and security agencies, and recommendations to improve social cohesion. It represents a significant governmental concession following weeks of resistance to calls for such an inquiry.

A Pattern of Escalating Violence: From Wieambilla to Porepunkah

While the Bondi attack was distinguished by its Islamic State inspiration and its specific targeting of the Jewish community, it must be understood as part of a broader pattern of ideologically motivated violence that has plagued Australia in recent years;  especially violence that has disproportionately targeted government workers and law enforcement in remote areas.

That the nature of this violence has usually been in remote areas and regional Australia is in of itself not exceptional, for Australia is a country with ample land and wilderness, and with that comes the ability for those who are distrustful of the government and institutions to strike up on the frontier of old and establish semi-autonomous homesteads and communities. Such groupings of properties and collectives usually consist of homesteaders who seek to have a closer relationship with the land and the food that they grow, or who seek to get away from the highly urbanised reality of Australian life, but so too do cults and other, more insidious groups, form.

The Wieambilla shootings of December 2022 perhaps best illustrates this dynamic. On 12 December of that year, four Queensland Police constables arrived at a rural property northwest of Brisbane to conduct a welfare check. Without warning, the property’s three residents—brothers Gareth and Nathaniel Train, and Gareth’s wife Stacey—ambushed the officers with high-powered rifles. Constables Matthew Arnold, 26, and Rachel McCrow, 29, were killed; a third officer, Randall Kirk, was shot in the hip but managed to escape; a fourth, Keely Brough, hid in grass for hours while the perpetrators searched for her and lit fires to flush her out.

A neighbour, Alan Dare, 58, was also killed when he came to investigate the commotion. The six-hour standoff ended when tactical police killed all three perpetrators.

Queensland Police subsequently classified the Wieambilla shootings as Australia’s first fundamentalist Christian terrorist attack. The Trains were religious extremists who subscribed to premillennialism, an apocalyptic Christian belief system, and were deeply embedded in the sovereign citizen movement and online conspiracy communities which have risen to prominence in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Australia. Gareth Train had claimed the Port Arthur massacre was a false flag operation and that Princess Diana was killed in a “blood sacrifice.” His anti-government views had radicalized significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, during which he opposed vaccines, lockdowns, and mask mandates.

The parallels with the Porepunkah police shootings of August 2025 are striking. On 26 August, ten Victoria Police officers arrived at a property near the regional town of Porepunkah to execute a warrant against Dezi Freeman, a self-proclaimed sovereign citizen known to authorities. When officers attempted to enter his converted bus dwelling, Freeman opened fire with a homemade shotgun, killing Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson, 59, who was days away from retirement, and Senior Constable Vadim De Waart-Hottart, 35. A third officer was shot in the leg. Freeman attempted to kill a fourth officer, but his weapon misfired.

What followed was the largest manhunt in Australian history. Freeman fled into the dense bushland of Mount Buffalo National Park, an area he had hiked since age 16 and knew intimately. Nearly 500 officers were deployed initially, with tactical teams from every Australian state and territory, as well as New Zealand, participating in what became the largest tactical police operation in the nation’s history. A $1 million reward, the largest ever offered in Victoria, was announced for information leading to his arrest. Freeman had ‘gone bush’, retreating into the vast hinterlands of the Victorian Alps in a way starkly reminiscent of the Bushrangers of old.

As of this writing, Dezi Freeman remains at large after 147 days, having vanished into the snowy Victorian High Country under winter conditions that many experts initially believed would prove fatal. Whether he perished in the wilderness or remains in hiding—potentially assisted by sympathizers—is unknown. His brother has publicly speculated that Freeman died on a mountain near his residence. Cadaver dogs from Queensland were brought in to search the national park, but no body has been recovered.

Like the Trains, Freeman’s radicalization appears to have accelerated during COVID-19. Sources described his views as having become more extreme during the pandemic; he protested vaccines and lockdowns, refused to wear masks, and rejected the validity of any state authority. He had written online that “the only good cop is a dead cop” and that police “all need to be exterminated.” His firearms licence had been cancelled in 2020. He believed the end times were approaching.

Understanding the Post-COVID Radicalization Pattern

The common thread linking Wieambilla, Porepunkah, and to a lesser extent Bondi is the acceleration of radicalization during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic served as a catalyst for extremist ideologies across the political and religious spectrum, providing grievances around government overreach, public health mandates, and perceived threats to individual liberty that extremist movements were well-positioned to exploit.

For sovereign citizens and Christian fundamentalists like the Trains and Freeman, pandemic restrictions confirmed their existing beliefs about government tyranny. Online conspiracy communities flourished as lockdowns drove people into digital spaces where algorithmic amplification and echo chambers intensified radical worldviews. The physical isolation of rural properties—like those in Wieambilla and Porepunkah—created zones where extremist beliefs could be practiced without challenge or intervention.

The Bondi attackers represent a different ideological strand but one that similarly benefited from the global upheavals of recent years. The Islamic State, though territorially defeated in the Middle East, has continued to inspire attacks worldwide through its sophisticated online propaganda apparatus. The Israel-Gaza conflict that erupted in October 2023 provided further radicalizing content and grievances for actors motivated by antisemitic ideologies. The lack of significant diplomatic or humanitarian action to curb the worst excesses of Israel’s Netanyahu government in Gaza in no small way amplified this burgeoning undercurrent of radicalisation taking place.

Australian authorities investigated the Akrams’ nearly month-long stay in Davao City in the southern Philippines, a region with long historical connections to ISIS-affiliated insurgent groups, but concluded that there was “no evidence to suggest they received training or underwent logistical preparation” during the trip. The pair apparently rarely left their hotel room. This suggests that their radicalization and operational planning occurred domestically, within Australia, making the failure to interdict them all the more concerning.

The Security Response and Its Limitations

The response to these attacks has exposed significant gaps in the Australian security architecture. At Bondi, first responders were armed with Glock pistols that lacked the lethal range of the attackers’ rifles and shotguns; a mismatch that contributed to officer injuries and may have cost lives. New South Wales Premier Chris Minns has acknowledged that the responsive ability of police forces needs to change, while stopping short of endorsing full police militarization.

At Porepunkah, a prior risk assessment had concluded that the Victoria Police Special Operations Group would not be required to arrest Freeman. This was a decision that proved catastrophically wrong. The officers who arrived were ambushed before they could respond effectively.

The Wieambilla inquest, which concluded in August 2024 after a marathon five weeks of hearings, examined how four young constables were sent to conduct a routine welfare check at what turned out to be a fortified extremist compound. The coroner is expected to make recommendations on intelligence sharing, risk assessment protocols, and the protection of officers in rural areas.

What emerges from these incidents is a pattern of underestimation, and in particular, of the threat posed by individuals who appear on the radar but are assessed as non-threatening, of the tactical capabilities of extremists who operate from rural properties, and of the organizational challenges in maintaining specialist counter-terrorism capabilities during periods of budgetary pressure.

Legislative and Policy Responses

The Albanese Government has moved on multiple fronts in response to Bondi. Federal Parliament was recalled in January 2026 to pass legislation targeting hate preachers and extremist organizations. New South Wales has passed significantly strengthened gun control measures, and Australia’s states and territories have committed to implementing a National Firearms Register—a reform first promised after Port Arthur in 1996 but never fully realized until now.

Australia and the Philippines have also announced enhanced counter-terrorism cooperation, though Filipino authorities have pushed back strongly against characterizations of their country as an ISIS training ground, noting that insurgent groups in the south are fragmented with poor leadership.

The royal commission announced by Albanese represents the most comprehensive response, with broad powers to compel evidence and testimony. Its examination of antisemitism will necessarily extend beyond the security domain into questions of social cohesion, online radicalization, and the adequacy of hate speech laws.

A Society Under Strain

Australia in early 2026 confronts a security landscape that would have been unrecognizable a decade ago. The nation that pioneered comprehensive gun control after Port Arthur—and which prided itself on having avoided the mass shooting epidemic plaguing the United States—has now experienced its deadliest terrorist attack and its most extensive manhunt for a suspected cop-killer, with police officers gunned down in rural ambushes by citizens who had openly declared their intention to kill.

The ideological diversity of these threats compounds the challenge. Jihadist violence inspired by ISIS, Christian fundamentalist terrorism rooted in apocalyptic belief, and sovereign citizen extremism fuelled by pandemic-era conspiracy theories each require distinct analytical frameworks and intervention strategies. What they share is a willingness to use lethal violence against representatives of the state and against vulnerable communities.

For the Jewish community of Australia, the Bondi massacre has been an unprecedented tragedy. For law enforcement, Wieambilla and Porepunkah have demonstrated that routine duties in rural areas can become death traps. For policymakers, the disbanding of specialist counter-terrorism capabilities weeks before the nation’s worst terrorist attack stands as a cautionary tale about the dangers of short-term budgetary thinking in an era of evolving threats.

The royal commission will provide an opportunity for rigorous examination of what went wrong and what must change. But commissions alone cannot repair the fractures in Australian society that these attacks have exposed; fractures along lines of religion, ideology, and relationship to state authority that have widened dramatically in the post-COVID era.

Australia’s response to Bondi will be judged not only by the prosecutions it secures or the inquiries it conducts, but by its success in addressing the deeper currents of radicalization that have made such violence possible. The challenge is immense. The stakes could not be higher.

---

Rise to Peace is a counterterrorism and peacebuilding organization dedicated to research, education, and policy advocacy on violent extremism. This analysis represents the organization’s independent assessment based on publicly available sources.

By Alex Fitzgerald – Rise to Peace Fellow

The United States is in a confusing period, as is the rest of the world. So much is occurring in the first two weeks of 2026 and so quickly that it proves difficult to stop and analyze an event before the next one grabs our attention. From Venezuela, to Greenland, to the Trump administration’s plans for the military budget and conflicts with the federal reserve, some things slip under the radar of the national news cycle. The shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis was national news for at least two days, but the media has seemingly turned their attention elsewhere and are avoiding reporting on what led up to the shooting in the context of the city of Minneapolis, and what is happening there now.

Over the past month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement have increased the number of raids and personnel in the Twin Cities Area. The news surrounding the new year that was coming out of Minneapolis was concerning the possibility of fraud in the day care centers within the mostly Somali neighborhoods, made popular by right-wing influencer Nick Shirley. However, even after the Department of Health and Human Services cut off much of the childcare funding for the state of Minnesota and the FBI surged investigations into the issue, it seemed that Shirley was working off of potentially flawed information. The investigation into childcare fraud had merits, however the main perpetrators of the fraud case were arrested and convicted in March of 2025. When the FBI had investigated the centers that were shown in Nick Shirley’s video, they were found to be operating as normal.[1]

The surge in ICE personnel, however, began before the video by Nick Shirley was filmed, and had nothing to do with the alleged fraud that was highlighted. The surge is part of the Trump administrations aptly named “Operation Metro Surge,” part of the broader plan to crack down on illegal immigration in 2026 much heavier than it already has in 2025. The plan intends to begin with mass raids in both New Orleans, accompanied by National Guard troops, and in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area of Minnesota.[2] Why these two cities have been targeted first is one that can only be speculated on; however, the answers may be political. New Orleans is an overwhelmingly blue city and the largest city in the state of Louisiana which is overwhelmingly red. Therefore, the city which holds much of the power in the state has conflicted much with the Baton Rouge based state government of Jeff Landry. Landry, Trump’s special envoy to Greenland, has been a staunch ally of the president’s administration since coming into office in 2024. Minnesota seems just as political. Donald Trump and the state of Minnesota have sparred during the past year of his presidency. Representative Ilhan Omar, whose district encompasses most of Minneapolis, has been a staunch opposer of the Trump presidency. Trump has responded in turn with accusations of corruption, insults against her Somali nationality and her Muslim religion. Trump supporters online have also targeted Omar with accusations of fraud on her citizenship forms. Minnesota’s governor Tim Walz, who was the running mate of Kamala Harris in 2024, also has been staunchly opposed to actions of the Trump administration.

Safe to say, there is no love lost between Donald Trump and the state of Minnesota. Therefore, the surge in ICE personnel can be explained as being a political stunt, or a more sinister retribution against a state which continues to be a thorn in the side of the current administration. The surge was met with fierce backlash combined with harsh Minnesota winter conditions, combined with the fact that the IIHF World Juniors hockey tournament was occurring through the new year, bringing in fans, family, and players from all over the world into the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Multiple protests against ICE’s presence were occurring simultaneously throughout the area and ICE’s efforts were being frustrated by a lack of guidance on where raids were to occur.[3] Pressure was being built up in the cold Twin Cities area and with every party involved on edge, it would be easy to have the situation boil over.

On the 7^th of January, Renee Good’s car was blocking multiple ICE vehicles en route to a raid. Agents swarmed her car and as she pulled forward and her car came into contact with agent Jonathan Ross, he drew his weapon and fired three shots into Good’s side window. The shooting was contentious and while the Trump administration and politically aligned users online were quick to defend Ross, claiming Good attempted to run him over, the shooting was ill-received by the people, and government, of Minneapolis.[4] To make matters worse for the image of ICE, the shooting was captured by Good’s wife who was filming from the curb, and circulated online. Adding insult to injury, another ICE agent’s body cam footage of Good, moments before the shooting, displays a calm and collected woman, not a protester, bringing into question if Renee Good acted with hostile intent. Trump and allies online dug deep into Renee Good and her wife’s background, attempting to label her as a violent protester, drawing the ire of members from both sides of the aisle, who view the shooting correctly as a tragedy.[5] Protests began erupting all over Minnesota as well as throughout the United States. A vigil was held later that day which was attended by the Mayor, Jacob Frey, city council members, and thousands of citizens. The next day, schools were closed due to the extent of the protests.[6]

In the days since the shooting, protests have only accelerated. After another ICE involved shooting in Portland, demonstrations have started to take hold all across the country. The entire city of Minneapolis is seemingly united against the ICE raids currently taking place in their city, from Jacob Frey to Tim Walz and Ilhan Omar, the protests are widespread and the reaction from the Right is getting more forceful.[7] The Trump administration has been pushing back hard against the Minnesota protests specifically, ordering more ICE agents from the Department of Homeland Security into the city in order to extend the operational remit of Operation Metro Surge.[8] Donald Trump specifically has ordered investigations into the widow of Renee Good in order to smear her image in his effort to show Good as a violent protester/instigator. Because of this effort, and a decision by the FBI and DHS to not investigate the shooting, multiple government officials have tendered their resignations. Four leaders of the civil rights division of the DOJ quit on the morning of Monday the 12^th, and four federal prosecutors resigned over ICE’s widow investigation push. In the wake of the protests, which are still ongoing at the time of this article’s writing, dozens of protesters have been arrested, tense scenes of ICE agents with guns drawn at protestors have been showcased on social media, and tear gas has been used on crowds by ICE agents who have been attempting to continue the raids that began in December.[9] Finally most recently, state officials have begun official proceedings to sue the federal government on account of the violence currently taking place in their capitol.[10]

With all the escalation in Minneapolis, there does not seem to be a hint of restraint shown by federal forces. Despite Donald Trumps efforts to show the world that protests will not stop the raids in Minnesota, citing a biblical day of reckoning, ICE is also quietly issuing “refreshers” on the constitutional rights of citizens when the two confront each other.[11] As the federal agents and the citizens of the twin cities are at each other’s throats, this could indicate a cooling of tensions. On the other hand, as protests continue to erupt throughout the country, where injuries keep occurring when the two opposing sides clash, this seems unlikely.[12] Escalations have continued, as on January 13^th, thousands of ICE agent’s identities were leaked online, prompting many to fear that the shooting of Renee Good was a watershed moment in Donald Trump’s immigration crusade.[13]

So, as to the question of ‘why Minneapolis?’ is asked on morning television and national news networks, the answer is potentially shattering. The truth is Minneapolis is different. While anti-ICE protests in the past year have done little to stifle the apparent overreach of the DHS, Minneapolis seems different, because it is working. ICE raids are being thwarted, and the protests are forcing agents to resort to the type of violence that tarnishes its already murky image. This is not the non-violent protests the country has seen over the past year like the “no kings” protests. Instead, this is the sort of protest that unfolded under Donald Trumps first term as president, during the summer of 2020. Protests like the ones in Portland, Philadelphia, Kenosha, and indeed Minneapolis. It would be foolish to forget that this is not the first time Minneapolis has been at the epicenter of national movements. In May of 2020, the event that sparked the race protests that lasted for months was the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. While the answer to why Minneapolis is being targeted by the Trump administration is political speculation, the answer to why Minneapolis was primed to react in this way may lie in its recent history. It has seen the kind of community movement that is happening now, unfold before and, while less destructive, the kind of perceived threat to the city in the form of ICE was never going to be received well. Whether the Trump administration was ignorant to this fact is also always going to have a speculative answer, but if operation Metro Surge has done anything, it has been to unite the community of the twin cities against an already hostile federal government.

---

[1] Phil Helsel and Julia Ainsley, “Minnesota Department Finds Child Care Centers Targeted in Viral Video Operating Normally,” NBC News, January 2, 2026.

[2] Suzanne Gamboa, Julia Ainsley and Priscilla Thompson, “Federal Agents Begin Immigration Operations in New Orleans and Minneapolis,” NBC News, December 3, 2025.

[3] Gabe Gutierrez and Susan Kroll, “ICE Operation Shows the Difficulty of Immigration Arrests Amid Pushback in Frigid Minnesota,” NBC News, December 11, 2025.

[4] Ray Sanchez, “Whistles, then Gunfire: How the Deadly ICE Shooting Unfolded in Minneapolis,” CNN, January 10, 2026.

[5] Maria Sacchetti, “ICE Officer in Minneapolis Shooting Was Dragged by a Driver Months Earlier,” Washington Post, January 8, 2026.

[6] Trevor Mitchell, “Minneapolis Vigil draws Thousands as City Reels Following ICE Shooting,” Minn Post, January 7, 2026.

Rebecca Santana and Associated Press, “Protests Against ICE Spread Across U.S. After Shootings in Minneapolis and Portland,” PBS News, January 10, 2026.

[7] Mark Vancleave and Tim Sullivan, “Minnesota Protesters, Agents Repeatedly Square Off while Prosecutors Quit after Renee Good’s Death,” Associated Press, January 14, 2026.

[8] Maria Dunbar, “Noem Says Homeland Security is Sending ‘Hundreds More’ Agents to Minneapolis as Protests Erupt in US,” The Guardian, January 11, 2026.

[9] Ana Faguy, “Thousands March and Dozens Arrested in Minneapolis Protests against ICE,” BBC, January 11, 2026.

Michael Dorgan, “Fireworks-Wielding Agitators Clash with Federal Agents outside Minneapolis Federal Building,” FOX News, January 13, 2026.

[10] David Nakamura, Brianna Tucker, and Ben Brasch, “Minnesota Sues DHS, ICE over Immigration Enforcement,” Washington Post, January 12, 2026.

[11] Ken Klippenstein, “Immigration Agents Terrified of ICE Backlash After Shooting,” Ken Klippenstein, January 13, 2026.

[12] “Anti-ICE Protester Blinded by Federal Agent During Demonstration, Family Says,” Yahoo News, January 2026.

[13] Mike Bedigan, “Personal Information of 4,500 ICE and Border Patrol Agents Leaked Online,” The Independent, January 14, 2026.