Summary: The ongoing Russia-Ukraine War exemplifies this failure, as the U.S. ignored diplomatic opportunities to prevent conflict, leading to significant loss of life and strategic disadvantages.

-Current U.S. policies continue to support Ukraine militarily, despite the unlikelihood of a Ukrainian victory and the escalating risks, including potential nuclear confrontation.

-A return to diplomatic engagement is crucial for U.S. national security and global stability.

Ukraine War: The Cost of Ignoring Diplomatic Solutions

Diplomacy is all but dead in America today. In its place sits a mindless obsession with lethal military power. Supporters of this unhealthy preoccupation claim it is necessary to keep America safe. Solid and growing evidence reveals the truth to be very nearly the opposite. 

Since the abandonment of the diplomacy-first foreign policy that served our country well for the better part of two centuries, America is spending more on its military but getting less for it. (The U.S. Army is the smallest it has been since the 1930s.) It has less global influence than at any time in living memory and is in real danger of stumbling into a European war – one that could spiral out of control and into a nuclear exchange.

Prior to the 2020 presidential election, I published a book entitled “The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America: How America’s Foreign Policy got Jacked Up – and How the Next Administration Can Fix it.” In it, I argued that over the previous two decades, American foreign policy had become “an unqualified failure. If substantive changes are not made,” I warned, “we risk suffering catastrophic loss.” That warning is now getting uncomfortably close to being prescient.

After laying out in the book a number of pragmatic, positive steps to correct our missteps, I nevertheless predicted that regardless who won in November 2020, U.S. leadership would likely fail to take advantage of the opportunities to improve, eventually stumbling “into a real war that gashes our ability to defend the country and will undercut our ability to prosper.” 

Based on U.S. behavior in the four years since I wrote that – behavior accelerating in recent weeks – the Biden administration seems on track to prove me right, especially regarding U.S. actions related to the Russia-Ukraine War.

The United States should have leveraged diplomacy prior to the outbreak of war. A diplomat from a major U.S. ally told me in Washington last month that in June 2021, when Biden met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, the Russian leader openly told Biden that if the alliance continued with the process to bring Ukraine into NATO, it would mean war. Biden reportedly told Putin he could do whatever he wanted, but that the West would bring crushing pressure on Russia if Putin ordered an invasion.

In September 2023, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg openly admitted that Putin told him in the fall of 2021 that if NATO would withdraw its offer of membership to Ukraine, Russia would not invade. “Of course we didn’t sign that,” Stoltenberg declared. Thus, in two cases, a willingness to acknowledge ground-truth reality and lead with diplomacy could have both preserved Ukrainian sovereignty and prevented an unnecessary war. Instead, Washington relied on threats against Russia and took no action to prevent war.

One could argue that Putin might have invaded anyway. Evidence and 15 years of consistent statements from Putin prior to February 2022 indicate that if NATO membership for Ukraine had been taken off the table, Russia would not have invaded. In any case, Washington didn’t even make the diplomatic attempt. 

As a result of U.S. unwillingness to find a diplomatic off-ramp, millions of Ukrainians have been driven from their country, and many hundreds of thousands have paid with their lives and limbs since. There remains no valid path through which Ukraine will ever recover what has been lost. Yet American actions – and an obsessive insistence on leading with military power – continue to turn a bad situation worse.

There is no viable path to a military victory for Ukraine, no matter how much money Congress allocates to Kyiv or how many weapons the West provides. Russia possesses irreversible advantages in air power, air defense, armor, engineering assets, artillery ammunition, rockets, precision guided weapons, drones, and manpower. Ukraine can probably never overcome that mountain of deficiencies. Continuing to ignore this reality and press for a Ukrainian victory is both foolish and dangerous for the U.S.

By refusing to seek a negotiated settlement for Ukraine on the best terms possible for Kyiv, Washington risks Ukraine eventually suffering an outright military defeat. It is not known how long the Ukrainian army can continue to suffer the pummeling it has experienced for the past year and still maintain its viability. 

But the United States is also watching passively as its strategic position deteriorates.

In early 2022, China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran were only loosely aligned. Now they have formed into something of an informal alliance. Russia is getting significant and direct missile support from North Korea and thousands of drones from Iran, and it is reportedly getting technological support from China. 

Biden gave permission to Ukraine to use American weapons to attack Russia last month, and in response, Putin has now declared he will authorize Russian weapons to be used against Western interests elsewhere in the world. It remains to be seen whether he will make good on that claim, but the risk of American interests being attacked abroad is real. On June 6, Putin also emphatically said he would use tactical nuclear weapons if he concluded Russia’ integrity was under threat. 

There is no benefit for the United States to continue ignoring battlefield realities, which scream that Ukraine cannot militarily defeat Russia. By ignoring this reality, America does not help Ukraine, it does not help itself, and it continues to weaken its own national security. Instead of pivoting to a diplomatic lead and seeking to negotiate an end to this war as soon as possible, White House spokesman John Kirby told a Fox News reporter from Normandy on Thursday that the U.S. still supports Ukraine’s military attempt to reclaim its 1991 borders. 

That is unattainable as a military objective, absent the direct involvement of the U.S. military, which itself would almost certainly lead to a nuclear attack from Russia. It is foolish for America to continue leading with military power, encouraging Ukraine to keep fighting even when a sober analysis shows there is virtually no hope of a Ukrainian military victory. Continuing down this path will not change the outcome of the war. It will only add to the cost of a Ukrainian loss – and increase the risk that America will be sucked into the fight against Russia, and possibly suffer a nuclear strike.

It should be beyond obvious that it is in America’s vital national interest to end support of the Ukraine war as soon as possible, elevate diplomatic engagement immediately, and seek to end the conflict on the best terms possible for Kyiv. Continuing to rely exclusively on military power may lead to a far worse outcome than Washington imagines.

About the Author: Daniel L. Davis 

Daniel L. Davis is a retired Army Lt. Col, with four combat deployments, and is presently a Senior Fellow & Military Expert for Defense Priorities, and host of the Daniel Davis Deep Dive show on YouTube.