Somewhere along the frozen trenches near Pokrovsk, an artillery crew waits for coordinates that mean the difference between seeing tomorrow’s sunrise and being buried beneath shattered concrete. They do not know the names of the diplomats meeting in carpeted conference rooms in Oslo, nor do they care much about the political sensibilities of an incoming presidential administration across an ocean. They know only that their radar screens flicker with life or go blind based on choices made thousands of miles away by people who will never hear the whistle of incoming ordnance. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced this week that American intelligence sharing "works now" following closed-door discussions with an envoy representing Donald Trump, he was offering relief to his soldiers. But he was also quietly acknowledging a devastating reality: survival, in the current world order, is a subscription service that the provider can throttle at will.
The public spat that preceded this diplomatic patch-up was brief, sharp, and illuminating. Kyiv had dared to suggest that Washington was holding back vital battlefield data, a charge American officials dismissed with performative outrage as scandalous. Yet the speed with which the flow was restored, immediately following a huddle with a representative of the incoming American president, told the true story. The tap had sputtered, whether through bureaucratic hesitation or calculated leverage, and the tap was reopened once the appropriate courtesies were exchanged. To listen to the commentators in Western capitals, this was a minor procedural hitch in an otherwise steadfast alliance. But for those of us watching from countries that have spent the last century living under the shadow of Northern hegemony, the scene was entirely, painfully recognizable.
There is an old, bitter proverb heard in various forms across Latin America, West Africa, and Southeast Asia: to be an enemy of the empire is dangerous, but to be its friend is fatal. For generations, nations across the Global South have been invited into bilateral security arrangements, told that their security was indivisible from that of Washington, London, or Paris. And for generations, those same nations have watched the flow of spare parts, economic credits, and security intelligence dry up the moment their domestic policies or political timing displeased their patrons. In 1970s South America, intelligence sharing was weaponized to enforce obedience through terror; across the African continent during the Cold War, entire governments were armed to the teeth on Tuesday and abandoned to civil collapse on Wednesday because the electoral winds shifted in a foreign capital.
What Ukraine is experiencing now is the tragic democratization of imperial conditionalism. For years, European capitals operated under the comfortable illusion that their shared whiteness, their geographic proximity, and their integration into the architecture of global capital exempted them from the cruder realities of empire. They believed that words like "rules-based international order" and "unwavering commitment" were binding contracts rather than rhetorical decor. But the mechanics of power do not fundamentally alter themselves for European skin. When imperial strategy pivots, or when an incoming administration decides to treat sovereign defense as a bargaining chip for a vanity peace deal, the spigot tightens just the same.
The cruelty of this arrangement lies in how it systematically strips a people of their agency while asking them to remain endlessly grateful. Ukrainians are fighting an unprovoked, brutal invasion by an autocratic neighbor, and their desire to defend their homes is genuine, brave, and deeply human. Yet by funneling their defense through the narrow, proprietary pipelines of Western defense contractors and Pentagon intelligence networks, their sacrifice has been hitched to the volatile whims of American domestic politics. When you do not own the satellites, when you do not control the software, and when your treasury has been hollowed out by debt, your sovereignty becomes a series of high-stakes negotiations with foreign envoys who measure your national existence against their own electoral cycles.
Meanwhile, the wider world watches this spectacle with a profound weariness. While billions of dollars in military hardware and advanced intelligence feeds are treated like toys in a partisan tug-of-war, the real fallout is felt by ordinary people who have no seat at the table. In the Global South, we watch food prices swing wildly based on whether Black Sea grain corridors are protected, even as our own sovereign debt payments are extracted with ruthless efficiency to pay the very financial institutions that underwrite this militarized system. We are constantly instructed on the sacred sanctity of international borders by the very powers that treat the intelligence needed to defend those borders as leverage in backroom negotiations.
President Zelensky’s relief in Oslo is entirely understandable; no leader can afford to let their people be slaughtered to prove a point about diplomatic etiquette. But no one should mistake this restored cooperation for a victory of principle. The communiqué from Oslo will speak smoothly of coordination, mutual trust, and restored channels. Beneath the polite language, however, the precedent has been stamped in lead. The spigot can be adjusted whenever the patron requires a concession, and those on the receiving end must simply smile, adjust their fire, and pray the next envoy remains equally persuaded.