America has just proven it is no longer defender of the free world

Having worked on high-level diplomatic meetings for the US government, I know how they’re supposed to go. They are carefully scripted and controlled, designed to reinforce alliances. What happened in the Oval Office between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington on Friday was something else entirely – a spectacle, a public gaslighting by a president who values TV ratings over democratic self-determination.

It is not an overstatement to say Zelensky was set up. There was no negotiation, no commitment to defend an ally – just the kind of subjugation autocrats demand. It was a moment that confirmed Trump’s view of alliances: that they are transactions, where power is used as leverage.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Initially, Trump said he had not discussed suspending military aid to Ukraine. But by Tuesday, the White House confirmed that secretary of defence Pete Hegseth had executed a suspension at Trump’s order. Believed to include ammunition, vehicles, other equipment and shipments already in transit, it is a move likely to halve the country’s defence capabilities against Russia.

I have seen the other side of this fight. In 2022, as Russian forces moved towards Kyiv, I was sent to Ukraine to document potential war crimes and help build humanitarian response systems.

Even in those earliest days, three months into the conflict, there was strong evidence of war crimes, and that the invasion was an attempt to erase Ukraine’s sovereignty through terror.

The Ukrainian people I met over those two weeks were not just fighting for survival; they were fighting for the right to govern themselves. Democracy is not an abstraction for them – it is the difference between citizenship and subjugation.

I returned to America with tens of thousands of photos, videos and audio recordings that documented the devastation of indiscriminate bombings and attacks on civilians, world heritage sites, hospitals and buildings protected by international law. One image that has stayed with me in the years since was a photo of a van in Bucha riddled with bullet holes, the word “children” written across the front.

We compiled reports and presented them to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We told US senators direct stories from the ground, of the horrors being carried out on Ukrainian people at the orders of Vladimir Putin.

At the time, the bipartisan group of lawmakers I met with understood what was at stake. There was a shared acknowledgment that democracies have to stand together – that Ukraine’s fight was not just its own, but part of a broader struggle against authoritarian aggression.

Last year, as an aid bill teetered on the brink of collapse, I received frantic calls from the same people in Ukraine who had shared their stories with us two years earlier – government officials, aid workers, civilians – desperate to understand what would happen if the funding stopped. They knew what was at stake: without US support, Ukraine’s defences could crumble. Their democracy could be extinguished overnight.

A van in Bucha, Ukraine in 2022. The word “children” has been written on the front of the vehicle.

When the funding did finally pass at the eleventh hour, their relief was palpable. There were celebrations in the streets – not for victory, but for survival. For another day of resistance. For the chance to keep fighting for their country. Zelensky has said that Ukraine cannot win the war without US support.

What makes this move even more unfathomable is the fact American support for Ukraine remains strong. A recent CBS/YouGov poll shows that 52 per cent of Americans support Ukraine, and only 4 per cent support Russia.

But it is institutions – not sentiment – that sustain democracy, and Trump has spent years hollowing out those structures, both at home and abroad.

His admiration for autocrats is not an accident; it is a blueprint. The authoritarian project does not require tanks. It thrives when systems are weakened from within, when alliances fracture, when democratic leaders are treated as disposable.

Trump is not just failing to protect democracy – he is reshaping it in the image of the autocrats he admires. For any dictator seeking to weaken the West, the ideal US president would be one who undermines elections, dismisses allies and weakens NATO – as Trump has.

That is why European leaders are openly questioning whether the US can still be trusted as a partner in defending democracy. They are reckoning with the reality that a US unmoored from its commitments leaves a dangerous vacuum. Europe is not just hedging its bets; its leaders are building contingency plans for a world where the US may no longer stand as the cornerstone of democratic security.

Even Ukrainians who oppose Zelensky domestically are proud of how he stood up for Ukraine last week. They see the war for what it is – an invasion – and they refuse to sell out their country for vague promises. Capitulation isn’t peace, and any deal without firm security guarantees will only invite another invasion.

If Ukraine falls, it will not be the last democracy to do so. If borders are meaningless, if sovereignty can be erased by force, strongmen will decide who rules. Trump’s project is about dismantling the alliances that uphold democracy.

The question for Americans, Australians and all of us who live in free societies is whether we will fight for it.

As news of the military pause makes its way through Ukraine, people are frantic. But they are also resolute. Ukrainians understand what they are fighting for. And we would do well to be reminded of that.

Cory Alpert is a PhD researcher at the University of Melbourne looking at the impact of AI on democracy. He previously served the Biden-Harris administration.

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