As a foreign correspondent, I’ve been tear-gassed in South Korea, held in a Cameroonian police station by bribe-hungry cops and detained by drunken, topless Ivorian rebels sporting rippling muscles, reflector sunglasses and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. But I’ve never been subjected to ICE tactics. No one has thrown me to the ground, beaten me over the head with a blunt object or threatened to kill me if I didn’t put my phone away. So, as a veteran observer of countries where men with guns abuse their power—and a former migrant with an American son—I’m alarmed by what’s been happening in Minneapolis.

Our cover package in most of the world this week is about Donald Trump’s urban shock troops. It starts with on-the-ground reporting in Minneapolis, where our correspondent has been riding with protesters, shivering in the snow and attending a Republican Party event where a few people joked about killing more “rioters”. We then step back and ask: what does all this mean for American democracy? (This question is at the heart of today’s Insider episode, too.)

President Trump is creating what looks horribly like a paramilitary force. As our briefing notes, would-be strongmen in other countries often build forces that are lavishly funded, outside the normal police or military hierarchy, highly partisan and tacitly allowed to break the law. That seems to describe the new ICE. When they kill civilians, the administration’s first instinct is to accuse the victims of being terrorists. Our leader weighs the risks. Mr Trump may have beaten a tactical retreat this week, but he clearly likes the idea of deploying men with guns and attitude to punish cities that defy him. Unless Congress reins him in, he will keep pushing for more powers. Come November, will there be ICE agents outside polling stations to deter ethnic minorities from voting? That we even have to consider the question is shocking.   

In some ways, Americans are lucky. Their rights to free speech and assembly are a powerful safeguard against tyranny. If ICE agents were not constantly filmed, who knows how much more brutal they might be? Chinese people enjoy no such rights. Their government operates in secrecy, leaving everyone else to guess its true aims. Our cover story in Asia looks at the mystery surrounding Xi Jinping’s sudden, dramatic purge of the People’s Liberation Army. Five of the six uniformed officers in its high command have been ousted since 2022; two have been accused of wielding unspecified but “extremely vile” influence. Everyone is scrambling to understand what this means. Is China’s army weaker than it looks, thanks to corruption? Is Mr Xi about to surround himself with yes-men, who might fail to warn him frankly about the risks of invading Taiwan? Our correspondents do their best to cast light on China’s murky military politics.