We Are Not Negotiating A Ukrainian

It is ever so difficult to watch the US sit on its hands while the heavily burdened Ukrainian President Zelensky turns himself inside out in repetitive fits of coerced reimagination to reach an agreement acceptable to the US on how the two shall approach Putin. This interminable stretch of US-driven futility is particularly hard to swallow when Putin has made it so abundantly clear that he will accept nothing that doesn’t comport with his now long-standing demand – he wants it all.

We are treating these negotiations as if they were only about whether Washington and Kyiv can agree on the conditions for peace. One doesn’t have to be a foreign affairs expert to pierce the veil of fancy that our rookie envoys Kushner and Witkoff have spun. They have been anointed, and the administration has been selling the image in large measure to the American people as dedicated messengers working for peace. In reality, they take the unchanging structure of persistent Russian demands, massage and edit them, and, without altering their utterly unacceptable substance, make another run on poor Ukraine to accept them. It should be plain for most to see that this is a process intended by American diplomacy not to defeat a warmonger engaged in an unforgivable violation of state sovereignty and stop his advances if not run him back, but to wear down the resolve of a patriotic and courageous foreign leader.

It is wrong for the American people to countenance this policy as anything but appeasement. It is a good thing to stop wars of any kind, whether ‘forever’ or of a lesser duration, but not at the cost of tolerating an international bully who has gobbled up an awful lot of Ukraine. The process should be precisely the reverse. If President Trump were not so fixated on his “good relationship” with and curiously given to a pandering attitude toward Putin, we would be practicing the kind of experienced diplomacy we know best and which has succeeded in the past: a proud, confident policy, backed with a gloved fist, and with the goal of putting Russia in the position of responding to the demands of Ukraine and the United States through veritable negotiations that might result in some good.

The most troubling aspect of American maneuvering in trying to end this miserable war – one begun and sustained by implacable Russian irredentism – is the US’s failure to recognize that Putin will not bend. He will not bend until, through hardened determination and a resumption of key military assistance to Ukraine as part of a tight European consortium, Putin is bent by forces he cannot manipulate. Our approach is hallucinatory, an unconvincing design to talk around the hard part of how to stop Russia in its tracks, but rather keep lines of communication open at any expense. Putin, as would any perceptive statesman, understands what is happening and is playing those cards to his advantage. Now, while it is admittedly always desirable to keep lines of communication open, there does come a time when words fail. It appears that all Putin has to do to keep the administration teased and hooked while he pursues his marginal but incremental victories on the battlefield is to appear willing to meet and consider, smile while bearing gifts, always be available for more discussion, and in the process bear false witness. And as Putin temporizes, he is allotting himself more time to destroy Ukraine’s infrastructure and its people’s constancy of commitment.

The behavior by our American Government may, on the surface, seem well intentioned in the endless shuttling, but it is not serious policy based on the dignity of both Ukraine and especially that precious, intangible commodity the United States has earned over the centuries and at considerable cost. To pursue the current policy is an illusion that denies a fundamental truth of what motivates nations and their most basic interests. Most Americans would agree with that, or at least would have, before fallacious MAGA and ‘America First’ themes clouded a national vision.

Bill Piekney served 4 years in the US Navy, 30 years with the CIA retiring as a Senior Operations Executive, and 5 years as a Senior Consultant at ODNI, International Consultant in Intelligence and National Security. He is a member of The Steady State.

Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 360 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law and the preservation of America’s national security institutions.