Lessons For Ukraine: How America Once Sought Peace
For those of us who are looking for an end to the conflict in Ukraine, our hopes were dashed recently by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. Speaking at the Helsinki Town Hall last week, on the occasion of Finland’s joining NATO, Blinken delivered one of the most provocative speeches ever by an American Diplomat. And it is his role as a diplomat that makes this speech a watershed moment in the Russo-Ukraine War.
Diplomats are, you see, supposed to be “diplomatic.” As Secretary of State, Blinken is supposed to be able to talk to other countries. His chief duty is to hold open communication channels between the United States and the rest of the world. Blinken is our official representative to the nearly 200 other nations that occupy this globe. As Secretary of State, he can sign agreements, negotiate treaties, and present our government’s policy positions to each nation-state.
It is all part of the intricate organization set up when our Constitution was ratified in 1789. The Secretary of State was to be our chief diplomat; other members of the Cabinet, Secretaries of Defense, for instance, had an entirely different role. The Secretary of Defense (or, as it was in World War II, the Secretary of War) is expected to take a hard line in conflicts. It would be appropriate if Lloyd Austin outlined the case for War. It’s the business of the Defense Department and our military.
But in the Helsinki speech, Blinken has reversed those roles. Blinken now assesses the state of the conflict, addressing the tactics and strategy of the opposition. He declares that Russia is losing the War, an interesting assertion given the recent battle in Bahkmut and the Russian annexation of other Ukraine territory.
At this point in his speech, he introduces what I’ve come to call “The Blinken Doctrine.” His answer to the forward course of the War. Pronounced first on January 18th of this year, it is succinctly put (Quote)
The “fastest way to bring this war to a just and durable end, to get to diplomacy, to get to a negotiation, is to give Ukraine a strong hand on the battlefield.”
In other words, the only path to diplomacy is through a Ukrainian victory. First described by Blinken, it has become the official position of this Administration that there can be no negotiations unless and until Ukraine’s position on the battlefield is greatly enhanced presumably, until Ukraine takes back, by force, the territory currently in Russian control.
That’s not diplomacy.
We saw this kind of Hawkishness once before, at the beginning of the War in Viet Nam. At the beginning of that conflict, there was an equally contentious Secretary of State, Dean Rusk. And although he was not nearly as vocal as Blinken, Rusk was very pro-war, promoting escalation of that War at every turn. It was only when Henry Kissinger, who was the first National Security Advisor, and later Secretary of State, that the US position started to turn toward negotiating an end to the Viet Nam War.
I know that Kissinger’s star has fallen today, but the fact remains that in the 1968–70 period, Kissinger had changed from Hawk to Dove. And he was principally responsible for convincing the President and all the other Cabinet members that it was in the best interest of the US to stop the bleeding and negotiate an end to the Viet Nam War. American soldiers were dying at an alarming rate, and our nation’s fortune was being spent on what was becoming an endless conflict.
If that sounds like Ukraine, you’re right. A conflict that both sides felt might end in a few months has dragged on for over a year with no end in sight. While it’s true that American Soldiers are not dying, the same cannot be said for the Ukrainians. In the latest estimate, as many as a quarter million Ukraine Soldiers may have perished in these battles. Although that estimate is not yet verified, we can be sure that the losses in men and equipment on both sides are horrific. Nearly a third of the Ukraine population has been killed or fled the country. It is creating a tremendous number of Ukrainian refugees for the rest of Europe to manage.
By any measure, this is the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st Century. And every day, the battles continue, more people die, and more Ukraine is destroyed.
Unfortunately, we seem caught in an endless escalation. The call for more and better weapons continues. It is the same fallacy that we faced over half a century before. The thinking was: send a few more soldiers and a better missile or fighter jet, and we’ll take out the enemy. It didn’t work in Viet Nam, and it’s not likely to work in Ukraine.
Back then, one man, Henry Kissinger, stood up and proposed the unthinkable. The US should negotiate with a country we did not recognize, North Viet Nam, at a time we did not choose. When a halt in fighting finally occurred on May 8, 1972, it was a cease-fire in place. The US had conceded that it would not seek more territory. And while some preconditions remained (the “shape of the table), America put aside its former military goals and objectives to seek peace, a peace which has endured until this day.
Perhaps today, we can remember: that peace begins not when men stand up to fight but when they sit down to talk.
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