By Ted Snider, Responsible Statecraft, 10/8/24

It is said that Henry Kissinger asserted that little can be won at the negotiating table that isn’t earned on the battlefield.

In several wars in recent weeks, U.S. officials have echoed that approach. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller recently said that the U.S. “supports[s] a ceasefire” in Lebanon while simultaneously recognizing that “military pressure can at times enable diplomacy.” Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has expressed the doctrine as doing “all that we can to strengthen Ukraine’s position on the battlefield so it has the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.”

But during the Biden administration, the iteration of Kissinger’s doctrine has gone well beyond the generals supporting the diplomats. The diplomats are now outpacing and pushing the generals. In the Biden administration, despite the promise to open “a new era of relentless diplomacy,” the State Department has metamorphosized into the hawkish arm of the Pentagon.

In the debate within the Biden administration over whether permission should be granted for Ukraine to fire Western supplied long-range missiles deeper into Russian territory, it is the diplomats who have pushed for escalation, and the Pentagon and intelligence community who have argued for caution.

Blinken has promised that “from day one… as what Russia is doing has changed, as the battlefield has changed, we’ve adapted… And I can tell you that as we go forward, we will do exactly what we have already done, which is we will adjust, we’ll adapt as necessary, including with regard to the means that are at Ukraine’s disposal to effectively defend against the Russian aggression.”

It is the Pentagon that has counseled restraint. They have argued that the uncertain benefits of longer range strikes do not outweigh the risk of escalation. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has maintained that “long-range strikes into Russia would not turn the tide of the war in Ukraine’s favor,” and agrees with the intelligence community that Russia is capable of quickly moving most of its assets out of range.

This is not the first time the debate on escalation has featured unexpected sides. While, soon after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the State Department argued that “real diplomacy” does not take place at times of aggression, it was General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who advocated for diplomacy and said that the goal of a sovereign Ukraine with its territory intact would require “a long, very difficult, high casualty-producing war.”

Milley further argued that “You can achieve those objectives through military means…. but you can also achieve those objectives maybe possibly, through some sort of diplomatic means.” Once again, it was the top general who advocated for diplomacy while the top diplomat argued for more war.

It is also not the first debate on long-range missiles. On May 15, before the U.S. had approved even limited longer-range strikes into Russia, it was the State Department that first floated giving the green light. Asked about the U.S. ban on Ukraine’s use of American equipment to strike into Russian territory, Blinken replied that, “We have not encouraged or enabled strikes outside of Ukraine,” before adding, “but ultimately Ukraine has to make decisions for itself about how it’s going to conduct this war…. these are decisions that Ukraine has to make, Ukraine will make for itself.”

The State Department has from the start abdicated diplomacy. We know that on December 17, 2021, Putin proposed security guarantees to the United States with a key demand of no NATO expansion to Ukraine. But rather than negotiate, Derek Chollet, counselor to Secretary Blinken, later revealed that the U.S. at the time did not consider NATO expansion to be on the bargaining table.

At the end of a full term in office, the Blinken State Department does not have a single diplomatic victory to boast about. At the start of his term, Biden promised to “offer Tehran a credible path back to diplomacy.” He promised he would “promptly reverse the failed Trump policies that have inflicted harm on the Cuban people and done nothing to advance democracy and human rights.” He promised a different foreign policy than Trump’s “abject failure” in Venezuela. And he promised a new approach to North Korea that “is open to and will explore diplomacy.”

The Blinken State Department has delivered on none of these promises and has failed to attain a ceasefire in Gaza or in Ukraine. Instead, it has availed itself of a one tool tool box of coercion, be it sanctions or military force. It has fallen to the Pentagon to suggest diplomacy and to question unrestricted use of force.

Meanwhile, it was General Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other senior Pentagon officials who recently raised the question at the White House of whether over-reliance on military force has emboldened America’s partners to be increasingly aggressive and cross American red lines.

Diplomacy has often in the past partnered with military force. But in the Biden administration, the State Department has abdicated diplomacy and reduced itself to the hawkish arm of the Pentagon which has, paradoxically, been the louder voice for diplomacy.